Posted on 09/26/2009 10:38:13 PM PDT by Saije
THE kids weren’t all right. They lived in the same comfortable Long Island town and were barely in their teens when they took their first hit of marijuana or sip of alcohol, propelling them on dark journeys they couldn’t seem to escape. Within a couple of years, they were in heroin’s grip.
“My parents had no idea,” said one of them, a 17-year-old girl who, like other formerly addicted youths interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of her past drug use. “My mom thought I was smoking a lot of weed and taking diet pills, because who would’ve thought that such a bad drug could be so easily accessible to me?”
The girl grew up in western Suffolk County, in a town where, she said, “everything is perfect,” with white picket fences and two cars in each driveway; for her birthday last October, she received a black Jeep, and she went to a wealthy, high-performing public school. “Growing up, everything is pushed on you,” she said. “You’re trying to be the smartest, trying to compete with everyone.”
Heroin, she said, was an escape. The girl said that she had not used drugs since entering rehabilitation in January...
The 17-year-old girl from western Suffolk said she moved to heroin after she could no longer support her two-pill-a-day OxyContin habit, which she had financed by stealing from her parents. Her first drive in her new black Jeep was to a heroin dealer. She grew thin and listless, stopped showering and began sleeping at all hours, but said that her parents did not suspect the worst.
“Parents are working hard out here and giving their kids all this stuff, and still kids are getting hooked,” she said. “I think parents put a blinder over their faces.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Very sad. Heroin addiction is much tougher to kick than alcohol.
“...Experts trace the spike in heroin use to its widespread availability and low cost. A bag of heroin can sell for $5 to $25 and induce a six- to eight-hour high, according to officials and former users. Cocaine, by comparison, can cost $40 to $60 for a 30-minute high, while prescription painkillers like Vicodin or OxyContin sell for upward of $40 a pill on the street...”
“..One of Jonathan’s friends, a 21-year-old former addict from Long Island named Brian, said heroin was cheaper, and often more available, than marijuana or ecstasy.”
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That’s quite a statement. If heroin is that cheap and available, we’re in big trouble. We need to win in Afghanistan for more compelling reasons than just fighting islamofascism.
Requiem For a Dream. Excellent movie about serious addiction. Not for kids.
The parents all drink alcohol. Has pretty much the same effect as heroin, making the user feel like everything’s fine, when everything is NOT fine. One drink after a long day at the office, and it seems just fine that your skinny adolescent is getting skinnier and always seems to be either out “with friends” or behind a closed bedroom door. Hey, kids are just like that. What could be wrong? He’s getting nearly all As in school. He’s fine.
The kids learned this approach to life from their parents, and just figured they’d improve on it by using something a little stronger.
I guess her 'mom' thought that was okay? No wonder she moved on to something stronger. Hello, 'mom' pay attention to your daughter!
Easier than cigarettes though.
I don' get it. My first beer was at 15, tried to smoke a J at 18. Never did again and never touched another drug other than beer, never wanted to.
What makes these kids different?... maybe money? I was broke until I was 25 and more worried about gas money, keeping my junk car running and a better job than drugs. Drugs were expensive, did they get cheap?
I got ripped off by two little heroin addicts living with me. I’m pretty wise about drugs, but had no idea they were junkies.
Very incorrect. Cold turkey from alcohol addiction is life threatening. Cold turkey from junk addiction is a case of the flu (not swine).
Theodore Dalrymple's Romancing Opiates describes the media's excellent myth-making of the dangers of opiate withdrawal.
I heard that for a while heroin was cheaper than beer.
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