Dallas Morning News Reports on Escalation of "Cheese" Plague as More Kids Seek Help for Addiction to Heroin Mixture
Today's Dallas Morning News has an article on the skyrocketing use of "Cheese" in Dallas. The Dallas Morning news article provides the following useful information.
Cheese, which sells for as little as $2 a hit, is a highly addictive blend of black tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM, or any similar cold medicine containing a sleep aid. It has spread fastest in a cluster of middle and high schools in northwest Dallas.
Students are vulnerable to the heroin mix because it's so addictive and they can't tolerate the physical symptoms of withdrawal. The average user is 14, male and Hispanic, according to DISD. Kids typically snort the drug and hits generally are 2 percent to 7 percent heroin, the district says.
Officials blame cheese for the deaths of at least four teens in Dallas County since spring 2006. Officials are awaiting toxicology reports to determine whether it also killed a 15-year-old Molina High School student in late March.
Students have come up with creative ways to sneak the drugs into schools. They carry it inside pens, waistbands, pockets, belt buckles, cellphone battery compartments and notebooks, DISD officials say.
In a recent attempt to foil investigators, dealers dyed their product green for St. Patrick's Day, Chief Bernal said. There also are reports of the drug being loaded into Pixy Stix, a powdered candy sold in straws, he said.
Symptoms of addiction
Sleepiness, difficulty waking up
Disorientation
Personality shifts, possible aggressive behavior or dropping grades
Flu-like symptoms, nausea, vomiting and anxiety from withdrawal
The attractions of cheese:
It's inexpensive. Each hit, about a 10th of a gram, costs about $2.
It's addictive. Withdrawal symptoms are so severe, even after the first or second use, that users seek another hit to escape the pain.
It's easy to make. Reports show that teens are the mixers and users of the drug and sell to their peers to support their own habits. Generally, the mixture is 2 percent to 7 percent heroin, with Tylenol PM or a similar over-the-counter drug making up the remainder.
It's easy to package, transport and hide. Students bring it to school inside pens, belt buckles and the battery compartments of cellphones.
All students are vulnerable to its addiction. The average user is 14 years old; 80 percent are male, and 98 percent are Hispanic.
The dangers of cheese:
Life-threatening consequences include liver failure and respiratory failure. Five teens are believed to have died from overdoses of the drug.
Withdrawal symptoms, which often mimic flu symptoms, include drowsiness, headaches, mood swings, abdominal pain and nausea
The Dallas Morning News has also posted an online parent's guide that has much more information and links to articles on the subject.
The number of Dallas
students getting hooked on a new drug called "cheese" is skyrocketing,
with arrests for the heroin mix up 82 percent so far this school year.
Dallas Independent School District police made 122 arrests through
February for students either possessing or dealing the drug. At that
time last school year, 67 cheese-related arrests had been made. The
total had reached 90 by summer. DISD officials have said
they were slow to see cheese as a threat when it was first detected in
the fall of 2005 because they didn't know what it was. They say the
number of arrests has picked up because now they know what they're
looking for. Cheese, which sells for as little as $2 a
hit, is a highly addictive blend of black tar heroin and crushed
Tylenol PM, or any similar cold medicine containing a sleep aid. It has
spread fastest in a cluster of middle and high schools in northwest
Dallas. Rehab centers also are reporting a surge in
requests for treatment from students, some as young as 9, who are
hooked on the drug. Don Smith, a research manager in the
Dallas County Juvenile Department, has noticed the increase in felony
drug cases turned in by DISD police.
"We still do get the cocaine cases and the methamphetamines, but what's
fueled this increase has been the 'cheese' epidemic," Dr. Smith said.
"This one is very disconcerting because they're targeting such a young
population." DISD fears the drug's popularity will expand.
"While arrests for possession at this time have been concentrated in
the northwest Dallas corridor ... it is perceived that its usage will
spread rapidly across the district and surrounding districts," the
district's chief administrative officer wrote to Superintendent Michael
Hinojosa in a Feb. 22 memo that was forwarded to the school board.
Students are vulnerable to the heroin mix because it's so addictive and
they can't tolerate the physical symptoms of withdrawal. The average
user is 14, male and Hispanic, according to DISD. Kids typically snort
the drug and hits generally are 2 percent to 7 percent heroin, the
district says. This school year, DISD police found 15
hits of cheese on a Marsh Middle School girl. Last school year's
biggest bust involving one person was about eight hits, said Deputy
Chief Gary Hodges of the DISD police. The youngest dealer was 11, he
said. Officials blame cheese for the deaths of at least
four teens in Dallas County since spring 2006. Officials are awaiting
toxicology reports to determine whether it also killed a 15-year-old
Molina High School student in late March. Dallas seems
hardest hit by the drug among Texas cities, local law enforcement
officials said. Administrators in other large Texas school districts,
including Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, said the drug
has not surfaced there. James Capra, special agent in
charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas office, said
agencies around the world have been asked whether they're seeing the
drug. "This is the only place this is occurring," Mr. Capra said.
Cheese has been identified in more than a dozen DISD schools and some
in surrounding suburbs. DISD police say cheese has turned up in Irving,
Farmers Branch, Mesquite and Garland, although no definitive number of
arrests or seizures were available. What's specific to
this area is the mixing of black tar heroin – imported almost
exclusively from Mexico with some coming from Colombia – with Tylenol
PM or some other similar cold medicine, such as Advil PM or any pill
with diphenhydramine, sold under the trade name Benadryl.
"You don't cut heroin typically with Tylenol PM," Mr. Capra said. The
drug mix got its name because it looks like powdered Parmesan cheese. The amount of heroin used in the mix varies by dealer, making it even more dangerous.
"If you're used to taking it cut with 3 percent heroin, and you get 8
percent, you're in the morgue," Mr. Capra said. Police
have not identified the origin of cheese but suspect it was a marketing
ploy concocted by a street-level dealer who was trying to broaden his
customer base. They believe there are up to 20 "mixers," or students
who buy heroin from adult dealers and mix it with crushed
over-the-counter pills that merchants tell police are being stolen from
stores. "Dope dealers understand that once they get their
hooks into a kid, they've got a customer for life," Mr. Capra said.
"And they don't care how short that life is."
In Dallas, the school district may have inadvertently exacerbated the
problem when it first began seeing cheese cases. "They
sent the kids to alternative school, which tended to spread the problem
through kids sharing information," said Dallas police Deputy Chief
Julian Bernal, commander of the narcotics division. Chief
Hodges said it's possible that alternative school placements factored
into the drug's spread. But he said if that were the case, the drug
probably would be showing up in more schools because alternative
schools draw students from across the district. The
district's Village Fair alternative school has had an increase in
arrests for the drug, 13 so far this school year, up from one the
previous year. Arrests at Rusk Middle School also increased to 13 from
one last school year. Children addicted to the drug have
a range of dependency, said Collin Goto, a toxicology expert and
associate professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "Some are using once or twice a day, and some up to 10 to 15 times a day," Dr. Goto said.
Students have come up with creative ways to sneak the drugs into
schools. They carry it inside pens, waistbands, pockets, belt buckles,
cellphone battery compartments and notebooks, DISD officials say.
In a recent attempt to foil investigators, dealers dyed their product
green for St. Patrick's Day, Chief Bernal said. There also are reports
of the drug being loaded into Pixy Stix, a powdered candy sold in
straws, he said. The popularity of cheese has some Dallas rehabilitation centers scrambling for funding to house students.
Phoenix Academy of Dallas, a 32-bed private, residential treatment
center, is seeing a big increase in kids dependent on heroin, director
Michelle Hemm said. In the last six months, she received 104 phone
calls from people seeking treatment for heroin – more than she received
in the last two years. Ms. Hemm said some kids who have never smoked a cigarette are trying cheese and becoming addicted. "This has hit Dallas really hard," she said. "It's crazy."
Before checking into a rehab center, kids with severe drug addiction
often go through detox. Timberlawn Mental Health System in Dallas is a
major provider of the service. Craig Nuckles, CEO of
Timberlawn, said his substance abuse admissions for youths held steady
at about 500 from 2005 to 2006. But he said 2007 already looks much
busier. "We are certainly very actively involved in treating kids who have been found to be using cheese," he said.
Mr. Nuckles said detox takes an average of five to seven days for
children. After that, they typically move on to a rehab center. The
youngest child treated for cheese was 9 or 10, he said, an age he calls
"dreadfully young to be treating a drug addict."
Children often can't stop at one or two hits. Withdrawal symptoms are
severe after just a couple of hits, according to DISD, and the
discomfort causes the user to seek more. The symptoms include abdominal
pain, nausea, mood swings and headaches. "You're not
using many times just to get high, but you're using to keep from
hurting, physically hurting," said Phillip Dillard, program director of
Holmes Street, a Dallas rehab center. "This drug is nothing to play
with." The Dallas school district says it's trying to
combat the fast spread of the drug. But some in the community have
criticized the district for not acting before the drug caused a crisis.
DISD has been getting the word out to parents and students
through a series of community meetings. School employees are receiving
training on detection and prevention, and dogs are being used to search
for the drug. Campuses identified as having the biggest
problem with the drug – Cary and Marsh middle schools and North Dallas,
Thomas Jefferson and W.T. White high schools – were assigned licensed
chemical-dependency counselors. And the district has ordered a $50,000
drug-testing machine so it won't have to wait for results from a
regional lab. A DISD police hotline gets about 20 to 30
calls a week but has yet to directly result in any arrests, Chief
Hodges said. "Some are reporting sellers or buyers, but most are asking
for help," he said. The hotline number is 214-932-5695.
At North Dallas High, the school's marquee last week reminded
passers-by of a parent academy to discuss cheese. Cheese arrests at the
school have increased dramatically to 26 this school year, up from
three last school year. Denise Rodriguez, a 15-year-old
student at North Dallas, said the school constantly reminds kids of the
dangers of cheese. She said she's been asked to try the drug but has
refused because of what it's doing to her friends. "I see my friends, they depend on it," she said. "I think it's a problem." The attractions of cheese: • It's inexpensive. Each hit, about a 10th of a gram, costs about $2.
• It's addictive. Withdrawal symptoms are so severe, even after the
first or second use, that users seek another hit to escape the pain.
• It's easy to make. Reports show that teens are the mixers and users
of the drug and sell to their peers to support their own habits.
Generally, the mixture is 2 percent to 7 percent heroin, with Tylenol
PM or a similar over-the-counter drug making up the remainder.
• It's easy to package, transport and hide. Students bring it to school
inside pens, belt buckles and the battery compartments of cellphones.
• All students are vulnerable to its addiction. The average user is 14
years old; 80 percent are male, and 98 percent are Hispanic. The dangers of cheese:
• Life-threatening consequences include liver failure and respiratory
failure. Five teens are believed to have died from overdoses of the
drug. • Withdrawal symptoms, which often mimic flu
symptoms, include drowsiness, headaches, mood swings, abdominal pain
and nausea. SOURCE: Dallas Independent School District 'Cheese' plague escalates in DISD
Arrests in district spike; more kids seek help for addiction to heroin mix
02:10 PM CDT on Sunday, April 8, 2007
'CHEESE' ARRESTS BY DISD POLICE High schools 2005-06 2006-07* Total Thomas Jefferson 43 27 70 North Dallas 3 26 29 W.T. White 6 9 15 Woodrow Wilson 1 2 3 Molina 2 0 2 Skyline 1 0 1 Sunset 1 0 1 Pinkston 0 1 1 Seagoville 1 0 1 Middle schools Cary 19 19 38 Marsh 9 10 19 Rusk 1 13 14 Walker 0 1 1 Spence 1 0 1 Elementary schools Preston Hollow 1 0 1 Alternative schools Village Fair 1 13 14 Off campus 0 1 1 Total 90 122 212 *Statistics through February
SOURCES: Dallas and DISD police departments
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