On the next Judge Hatchett, 14 year old girls who tried crystal meth once and were instantly addicted. And maybe in tomorrow’s Ann Landers column similar topics will be discussed, with scary facts on the subject and hotlines to call for help. Indeed, this is the start of a hot new trend…drug use among pre-teens. And what’s the most common drug for kids to abuse? Heroin. While it is true that many of these addicted adolescents can be seen on television or read about in the paper, chances are it’s also going on in your own neighborhood, and you may not even know about it. High school students are the perfect target. They are just starting to struggle with homework, relationships, and peer pressure. This is the time when they are most vulnerable.

Where are the parents? Do they know what goes on at school? Do they even care? To answer these and other important questions, I interviewed Dr. Neil Capretto, Medical Director at Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Aliquippa, PA. Dr. Capretto has a long background in mental health and was quite eager to speak with me.

One of the first things Dr. Capretto was quick to point out was that there has been a dramatic increase in the use of heroin for many different reasons. Before, the potency of Heroin was 10%, which meant people had to inject to get high. Now heroine is so strong, mostly 50% or more, that people can use it by snorting it. In the late 90’s it became 70-90% pure, both as a reaction to the HIV scares and as an increase in the desire for South America to flood the market with something other than just cocaine.

Still, the question remains…where are the parents? Dr. Capretto said that it’s not that parents don’t care; rather, they are simply in such denial that they do not even know what to look for. Kids who are addicted to heroin are not just juvenile delinquents. They are also smart kids with great potential for the future. They are honor roll students and sports stars. Incedentally, heroin is just as common in the suburbs as in the inner city. And again, where is one of the most common places to see drug use? Teenagers at Gateway report it is easier to get heroin than beer in most high schools. Also, pain medication treatment with opiates has been on the rise lately. Oxycodone, a popular pain medication, is often abused by many teenagers. What’s more, it also helps lead to heroin use. Once people get addicted to Oxy they switch to heroin because it is only ¼ the price. Teenagers start using prescription drugs and then move onto heroin once they are addicted.

To give you the inside scoop, I had a last minute interview with a former heroin addict, who shall not be named. While she does not attend PTI, she does live near the city…and she started using heroin at a shockingly young age. “I've always regretted doing heroin, that's the one thing I would change in my life,” she told me. She went on to say that the scars are still visible, and that once people see them, they automatically start judging her. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made. I did it, like, once or twice a month when I first started, then it became this, like, panic that if I didn't have it I would, like cave in. I needed it, and that's when I started doing it everyday, two or three times a day.”

You may be asking yourself…Why start in the first place, knowing how unhealthy it is? I asked her this question personally. “Good question. I guess it was a belonging thing,” she replied. “I was having a lot of trouble with my family at the time, and I wasn't staying at home anymore, and I was with all these kids in this abandoned house and they were like the most awesome people I was ever with. They seemed to, like, love me instantly.....I guess I thought that if it would hurt me, they wouldn't ask me to do it, so I did. I was thirteen. I had just started Jr. High.”

As the girl, now twenty and four years clean, continued her story, it went from sad, to shocking, to positively frightening. “When I took it, I felt absolutely infinite at first. It was like this unbelievable feeling of being completely and totally happy, like nothing could go wrong, and nothing could hurt me and you just get really warm, like someone wrapped you in a blanket that just came out of the dryer. You get heavy and sleepy, but all that isn't worth it… the withdrawal pains were unbelievable.”

She told me that even though she was in rehabilitation for six months, she still gets cravings and, though rarely, still smokes weed. According to her, when she has a craving for heroin, she locks herself in a room with a friend until it subsides. She can’t even trust herself to do the right thing anymore; that’s how strong the addiction is.

I asked if she knew where it was coming from in the first place, and she openly discussed it. She said that there were mainly two guys who hung around the school, one was twenty-three years old and one was fifteen. “They were out of school. I know one of them was one of the girls’ brothers that I hung out with. I actually at one point during this whole thing ended up having sex with the twenty-three year old for an ounce of heroin.” But who supplied the heroin to the boys? The investigation continued and the interview went on. “I know the lady who supplied it, she was forty-five, and she lived in Butler. I went to her house once to try to get some and she left her pit bull out on me. I barely got away. I had to jump the fence. You'd be surprised what you can do when you’re being chased by a 100 lb. pit bull.”

As you can see, heroin is dangerous in more than one way, and it can ruin yours or your friend’s life. So how can you help someone who is involved with drug abuse? Dr. Capretto really put things into perspective for me. He said that if you saw a friend driving down the road and knew that their tire was falling off and they were going to get into a serious accident, what would you do? The answer is, everything you could to stop them. It is the same with a drug problem. The only other options are jails, institutions, and deaths or a safe recovery through rehabilitation. The best outcome is drug free. The worst outcome is death. So what advice does my source have to offer? “Run the **** away. Honestly, it will ruin your life. I'm lucky, I got out. I was able to quit, but most people aren’t that lucky. Heroin grabs onto you and won't let go. I know a boy, a very, very good friend of mine who froze to death in front of a New York City strip club because he was on horse (heroin). How pathetic it's amazing what you become when you're on heroin…and it's amazing what you become after you’re off of it. I'm still not the same person I was before I did it. It's so hard to help somebody on heroin. I was only able to get help because I was underage and my parents forced me to do it and at that point, I would've killed to get that drug when the withdrawal was full force.”

She told me that if someone you know is abusing the drug, all you can really do is be there for them. Tell them you love them and don’t want to see them get hurt, and get an intervention together. Give them a deadline to get help, and if they don’t do it on their own, do it for them.

The Pittsburgh area high schools are becoming flooded with heroin and other illegal substances. One local area is referred to by many as “Heroin High”. Dr. Capretto himself acknowledges that he is aware of the term. Some other names heroin goes by are horse, skag, and big h. If you or someone you know is or may be abusing heroin, do whatever you can to help them. Trust is important among friends, but safety always comes first. You should note that the reason my source was so open about the subject was because she wants to prevent others from making the same mistakes she has. The regrets will last forever. How do I know this? She told me.