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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.

Cyberbullies Scare Schoolgirls into Stripping Online

That eye-catching headline appears today on ZDnet's technology website.  The entire article appears after the jump below, but here are some of the lowlights

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Cyberbullies are even forcing their girlfriends to undress in front of Webcams and then sharing the images with others online. 

"They're pressuring each other. This (pressure) is particularly for girls to send pictures of themselves with their tops off," said Faye Mishna, a professor at the University of Toronto who has been researching the cyberabuse of children.

"Girls might send (a photograph) to their boyfriend," Mishna said, after being convinced that only he will see it. "So she gives in, and the next thing you know, it's all over (the place)."

. . . . . . .

The focus groups also revealed that victims refuse to tell an adult about the abuse because they fear they will be punished in order to be protected.

"They're scared that their parents will take away their computer privileges," Mishna said.

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For more information, you can go to www.stopcyberbullying.org.

Website Provides Comprehensive Guide to Illegal Substances and Symptoms of Each

This website provides a comprehensive guide to illegal substances and the symptoms they cause.

From the website:

If you’re a parent, or if you’re concerned that someone you love may be taking an illegal substance, it is vital to understand what the many different types of drugs look like and the kinds of symptoms they can cause. This knowledge will give you the ammunition you need to make informed decisions and it may even save someone’s life. While there are a myriad of illegal substances, each one has a unique signature that can help you determine exactly what is going on. Here’s a guide that will make it easier to understand what you’re dealing with and what to look for.

Table of Contents

• Ecstasy
• Narcotics and Painkillers
• Morphine and Opium
• Amphetamines
• Methamphetamines
• Stimulants
• Barbiturates and Methaqualone
• Tranquilizers
• Phencyclidine (PCP)
• Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)
• Mescaline and Peyote
• Psilocybin
• Heroin, Opium and Fentanyl
• Cocaine and Crack Cocaine
• Amyl Nitrite
• Butyl Nitrite
• Chlorohydrocarbons and Hydrocarbons
• Nitrous Oxide
• Marijuana
• Hashish and Hashish Oil

 

The Faces of Addicts of Crystal Meth: This Should be Mandatory Viewing

I have previously posted on the dangers of crystal meth (here and here), both to the users/addicts and the children of users/addicts.  Now the Partnership for a Drug Free America website has posted pictures that prove that a picture really is worth a thousand words.  The pictures show before and after affects of addiction to this drug -- and the pictures are harrowing. 

Family Watchdog Provides Easy Access to National Sex Offender Database

I recently came across the Family Watchdog website.  By putting in your address or zip code, this website will identify all of the registered sex offenders in your area.  Each red square on the map to the left represents a registered sex offender.

Texas law requires all convicted sex offenders to register.

The website reports that Texas has the fourth highest per capita number of sex offenders (Arkansas, South Dakota, and Utah rank ahead of us).

Some additional sobering facts from the Family Watchdog website:

• 1 of 6 boys will be sexually molested before his 18th birthday.
• 1 of 5 children has been propositioned for sex over the Internet.
• 2 of 3 sexual abuses are perpetrated against teenagers or younger children.
• 90% of sexual assaults are committed against someone the perpetrator knows.
• The median age for male molestation victims under 18 is 9.8 years old.
• The median age for female molestation victims under 18 is 9.6 years old.
• There are new 400,000 victims of sexual assault every year.
• There are over 550,000 registered sex offenders in the US.
• There are over 100,000 sex offenders that fail to register in the US.
• 76% of serial rapists claim they were molested as children.
• Over 40% of male juvenile delinquents were molested as children.
• 1 of 5 girls will be sexually molested before her 18th birthday.

Doctors Warn Against "Cocaine" Energy Drink: Way too Much Caffeine (3 1/2 Times the Caffeine in a Red Bull)

Billing itself as "the legal alternative" comes Cocaine energy drink.  Other than the obvious negative of glamorizing an illegal drug and marketing the drink to children, Cocaine energy drink has now raised serious warnings from doctors who say that the drink's energy boost  comes from its 280 milligrams of caffeine in each  8.4 oz. can. 

By comparison, a cup of coffee has between 135 and 179 mg, regular cola between 36 mg and 46 mg, and Red Bull has 80 mg of caffeine.  In other words, a can of the Cocaine energy drink is the equivalent of 3 1/2 Red Bulls.

Doctors recommend that an average adult limit caffeine intake to 400-450 mg per day.  However, the limit is far lower for children:

4-6 years: 45 mg

7-9 years: 62.5 mg

10-12 years: 300 mg

NY Times Editorializes on "Middle School Girls Gone Wild" : Your Comments are Invited Here

Today's New York Times contains an editorial entitled Middle School Girls Gone Wild.  Please feel free to comment by clicking the comment link below.

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December 29, 2006

Editorial Observer

Middle School Girls Gone Wild

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

It’s hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it’s just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes. The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but doing elaborately choreographed re-creations of music videos, in tiny skirts or tight shorts, with bare bellies, rouged cheeks and glittery eyes.

They writhe and strut, shake their bottoms, splay their legs, thrust their chests out and in and out again. Some straddle empty chairs, like lap dancers without laps. They don’t smile much. Their faces are locked from grim exertion, from all that leaping up and lying down without poles to hold onto. “Don’t stop don’t stop,” sings Janet Jackson, all whispery. “Jerk it like you’re making it choke. ...Ohh. I’m so stimulated. Feel so X-rated.” The girls spend a lot of time lying on the floor. They are in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.

As each routine ends, parents and siblings cheer, whistle and applaud. I just sit there, not fully comprehending. It’s my first suburban Long Island middle school talent show. I’m with my daughter, who is 10 and hadn’t warned me. I’m not sure what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. It was something different. Something younger. Something that didn’t make the girls look so ... one-dimensional.

It would be easy to chalk it up to adolescent rebellion, an ancient and necessary phenomenon, except these girls were barely adolescents and they had nothing to rebel against. This was an official function at a public school, a milieu that in another time or universe might have seen children singing folk ballads, say, or reciting the Gettysburg Address.

It is news to no one, not even me, that eroticism in popular culture is a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet, and that many children in their early teens are filling up. The latest debate centers on whether simulated intercourse is an appropriate dance style for the high school gym.

What surprised me, though, was how completely parents of even younger girls seem to have gotten in step with society’s march toward eroticized adolescence — either willingly or through abject surrender. And if parents give up, what can a school do? A teacher at the middle school later told me she had stopped chaperoning dances because she was put off by the boy-girl pelvic thrusting and had no way to stop it — the children wouldn’t listen to her and she had no authority to send anyone home. She guessed that if the school had tried to ban the sexy talent-show routines, parents would have been the first to complain, having shelled out for costumes and private dance lessons for their Little Miss Sunshines.

I’m sure that many parents see these routines as healthy fun, an exercise in self-esteem harmlessly heightened by glitter makeup and teeny skirts. Our girls are bratz, not slutz, they would argue, comfortable in the existence of a distinction.

But my parental brain rebels. Suburban parents dote on and hover over their children, micromanaging their appointments and shielding them in helmets, kneepads and thick layers of S.U.V. steel. But they allow the culture of boy-toy sexuality to bore unchecked into their little ones’ ears and eyeballs, displacing their nimble and growing brains and impoverishing the sense of wider possibilities in life.

There is no reason adulthood should be a low plateau we all clamber onto around age 10. And it’s a cramped vision of girlhood that enshrines sexual allure as the best or only form of power and esteem. It’s as if there were now Three Ages of Woman: first Mary-Kate, then Britney, then Courtney. Boys don’t seem to have such constricted horizons. They wouldn’t stand for it — much less waggle their butts and roll around for applause on the floor of a school auditorium.

healthday.com Website Contains Good Information on Drug Abuse Slang

The healthday.com website has a new parent quiz of current drug slang.  From healthday.com:
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If you're a parent, you might want to brush up on your drug slang to stay alert to possible drug use by your children, suggest addiction experts at the Menninger Clinic in Houston.

Slang terms for drugs constantly change and evolve, the researchers said. For example, while marijuana is still called weed or pot by some, it's also referred to by newer terms such as chronic or schwagg. Heroin is still be called smack but, depending on the type of heroin, it may also be called black tar or brown sugar.

Then there are terms such as Special K and biscuits. Special K refers to ketamine, a powerful hallucinogenic drug similar to LSD and PCP. A biscuit (or tab) is a hit of the "club drug" Ecstasy.

In order to test your knowledge of drug slang, here's a quiz created by the Menninger Clinic experts:

1. K-Hole is slang for: a) a type of ketamine; b) periods of ketamine-induced confusion.

2. The painkiller Oxycontin is also called: a) oxies; b) cotton.

3. Rophies is the nickname for: a) Rohypnol, the date rape drug; b) the rush you feel after using cocaine.

4. Fry sticks are: a) the act of injecting yourself with speed; b) marijuana cigarettes dipped in formaldehyde and sometimes laced with PCP.

5. Inhaling a small amount of cocaine is called a: a) bump; b) blip.

6. Combining the prescription drug Viagra with Ecstasy is called: a) 24-7 heaven; b) sextasy.

7. "Amped out" is: a) fatigue after using amphetamine; b)using the maximum amount of steroids your body can take.

8. Working Man's Cocaine is: a) crack cocaine; b) methamphetamine.

9. A marijuana cigarette rolled with cocaine is called a: a) primo; b) speedy.

10. "Juice" is the slang term for: a) steroids; b) PCP.

Here are the answers: 1 (b), 2 (b), 3 (a), 4 (b), 5 (a), 6 (b), 7 (a), 8 (b), 9 (a), 10 (both a or b).

More information

If you want to learn more about drug slang, you can go to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

                                                                         

Choking Game Tragedies Continue: A 15 Year Old Military School Cadet is the Latest Victim

The San Antonio Express News reported yesterday on yet another senseless choking game injury.  In this most recent case,  a 15 year old military school cadet was found in his room by his roommate.  As of the date of the report, the student was in intensive care.

The incidences of "choking game" injuries and deaths continue to increase.  For more information, please see my prior posts here. 

The map to the left, from The Dylan Blake Foundation, shows the number of choking game deaths in 2005.

To see just how widespread this problem is, click here for the latest news stories containing the works "choking game" -- it's truly frightening.

Lt. Gov. Dewhurst Takes a Stand Against High School Steroid Abuse: Calls for Mandatory Random Testing of Athletes

Regular readers of this blog are familiar with my prior posts on steroid abuse in high schools (here and here).  That is why I am pleased to see Lt. Governor Dewhurst's recent statement that he will seek legislation to require random testing of all Texas high school athletes with the cost being paid by the State. 

(The website for the National Institute on Drug Abuse has a tremendous amount of information on anabolic steroid abuse).

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Dewhurst: Schools need steroid testing

He'll ask lawmakers to OK random screenings for all Texas athletes

By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst called Thursday for mandatory, random testing of all Texas high school athletes for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, a move that if approved by lawmakers would create the nation's largest steroid testing program for high-schoolers.

Mr. Dewhurst, the leader of the Senate, promised that the state would pay for the tests, which he said are needed to curb a dangerous habit that can cause depression, violent behavior and other health problems. In some surveys, up to 2 percent of Texas students in middle schools and high schools report having used the drugs.

"I want to protect the children of Texas from the dangers of anabolic steroids," said Mr. Dewhurst, a Republican who has sought to round out his pro-kids political credentials during his re-election campaign.