Pubdate: Thu, 27 Apr 2006
Source: Springfield News-Leader (MO)
Copyright: 2006 The Springfield News-Leader
Contact:  http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1129
Author: Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

'STARTER HEROIN' HITS TEXAS SCHOOLS

DEA official calls "cheese," a blend of heroin and cold medicine, "an 
emerging problem."

A new heroin-laced powder known as "cheese" is popping up in middle 
and high schools in Texas, where dozens of youths have been caught 
with the drug, federal and local officials say.

So far the problem has been focused on schools in Dallas, where 
police first reported kids snorting the mixture of ground-up cold 
medicines and heroin at the start of this school year. However, the 
Drug Enforcement Administration, which calls the addictive concoction 
"starter heroin," is concerned enough about the drug's appearance in 
Dallas that it has alerted agents nationwide to watch for it.

"It's an emerging problem," DEA spokesman Steve Robertson says. "It's 
something we're tracking to see if we can spread the word before it 
becomes a huge problem."

Police in Dallas have logged 78 incidents involving cheese in 11 
middle and high schools, says Jeremy Liebbe, an investigator with the 
Dallas Independent School District Police Department.

As is the case on campuses across the nation, marijuana remains the 
most popular drug in Dallas schools, Liebbe says. Monitoring the 
Future, a national survey of drug use, said last year that about 12 
percent of eighth-graders had used marijuana during the previous 
year; the rate for heroin use among such students was less than 1 percent.

Liebbe says samples confiscated in Dallas have been up to 8 percent 
heroin. The drugs are crushed together and typically folded into 
notebook paper. A quarter-gram sells for $5, Liebbe says, and a 
single hit usually sells for $2.

Users feel euphoric and then sleepy, lethargic and hungry, he says. 
Cheese has been a nickname for heroin, Liebbe says.

The powder has been sold by 18- and 19-year-olds near school campuses 
and by older students in those schools, Liebbe says. The heroin has 
been brought from Mexico and then has been mixed with other drugs in 
the United States, he says.

Six teens in drug treatment at the Phoenix Academy in Dallas used 
cheese, director Michelle Hemm says. One boy was 12 when he started 
using it, she says.

Hemm expects to see more youths hooked on cheese, which is so 
affordable "little kids can purchase it. Kids in here, they all know 
lots of other kids using cheese. This is the tip of the iceberg."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman