Why ‘Good Kids’ Are Getting Hooked on Heroin
We need to step back to the early ’90s, when today’s heroin addicts were starting off life, to try to figure out why these kids are dying for escape. It was at that point parenting became almost a competitive sport. Never before had a generation of children had so much of their days laid out for them. From infant swim classes to Gymboree, these kids hadn’t even yet learned to crawl and they were being enrolled in activities that could fill their mothers’ personal planners for months ahead of time.
Pre-school became a necessity, not a luxury. What used to be a fun, social experience for kids was now a “must” if you didn’t want your kid to fall behind the others. Preschool was the new kindergarten. By the time a kid finally started regular school, they needed to know far more than we ever knew at that age. We used to learn letters in kindergarten; all of a sudden they were labeling your kid as a slow learner if she was five years old and couldn’t write an essay on impressionist artists of the 18th century.
The pressure started early and built up, and at the same time these kids were being pushed and scheduled and overwhelmed with homework, the self-esteem movement was in full force. Every child is a precious snowflake. Every child is special and wonderful and everyone is student of the month! False, empty praise was encouraged, just to make your child feel like he was worth something. Every little thing a student did was awesome. Teachers stopped using red pens to mark papers for fear of making students feel sad about themselves. Everyone was praised. Everyone was perfect. And everything was arranged so these kids would never have to have a bad feeling. Competitive games were gone. Gone from gym class were tug of war and dodge ball. Instead, there were cooperative games where everyone was made to feel like a winner. Anything that could single one child out for positive attention was eliminated, as that only served to make the other kids feel bad. It was an era of overprotectiveness, as parents and teachers wrapped the kids in safe, warm cocoons, trying to protect them from both physical and mental harm. Playgrounds were renovated to provide the least likely scenario for a child getting even the slightest boo-boo. Some schools had a “no touching” policy for fear children who were brushed up against in the hallway by another child would feel harassed. Every small playground argument resulted in peaceful mediation by peers and administrators.
At the same time these kids were being coddled, cocooned, and raised on false pedestals, they were also being pressured into perfection. The overscheduling that started when they were infants continued into grade school, middle school, and high school. Kids who played sports played multiple sports. Being in the Honor Society or Key Club wasn’t enough. You had to be in several clubs. You had to do more than the neighbor’s kid. You had to do more than everyone. Colleges were becoming increasingly competitive, and kids were being forced to make career choices as early as 7th grade. One or two AP classes weren’t enough. Everything academic and extracurricular were focused on one thing: the college application. Parents hovered over their kids, making sure ever project was perfect, every essay was golden. The helicopter parent was born, and these parents had no idea what they were doing to their children.
So here was this generation of kids who were led to believe they were each the most special person on the planet. They were kept from harm, kept from failure, kept from any kind of mental anguish. When these kids hit 16 or 17 years old and life started taking on some emotional dramas, and maybe they started to realize they might not get into the college of their choice, an interesting result of how these kids were raised emerged: they have no coping skills. These kids were never taught how to handle duress. They were not taught what to do when things don’t go your way because things always were made to go their way. The pressure their parents put on them to succeed, the normal pressures of applying for college and facing life after high school, together with the realization that they are not special snowflakes and there are thousands of kids just like them out there, all vying for a place in that perfect school, caused a crash and burn for a lot of these kids.
Drugs and alcohol are readily available to teenagers. They know where to get them if they want them. There isn’t a school out there that doesn’t have that sector of kids that provide the action to the others. The statistics show that a good portion of high school seniors will drink and smoke pot. But there are some kids for whom recreational use of beer and pot isn’t enough. They don’t want to get drunk or high to party. They want something more. They want escape. They want to turn off the helicopter parent voices in their heads and not feel that pressure for a while. And maybe, just maybe, some of them choose heroin — the most stigmatized of all drugs — as a subconscious rebellion.
“No one starts off saying, I want to be a heroin addict,” says C.P., a former addict himself. “These kids might be at a party and someone convinces them to try it. They like how they feel. For the first time in a while, they feel relaxed. It’s not like doing coke or meth. For a teenager who has been under a lot of pressure and is maybe feel anxious about life, it is very much like escape. ” One of the reasons cited for the surge in heroin use is its relatively cheap cost. But the inexpensive high is, for the most part, a myth. Heroin is a very addictive drug. “It’s very easy for someone to go from a ten dollar chance at escape to a $400 a day habit,” says C.P.
Users agree that it does not cost much money at all to get into the game. A small bag could cost as little as $7. Once the heroin habit really begins, junkies may start to buy in “bundles,” which could be as many as 11 or 12 bags, but usually an even 10. That could cost about $200 or less. The typical user buying in that quantity would get about two bundles, or 20 bags. One local teenager I talked to said she knows of a girl in her school, a honor student, who works two jobs just to support her heroin habit. This girl hangs out with kids from nearby towns, kids just like her. Good kids. Good students. Athletes. Heroin abusers.
This is what happens when you raise a generation of kids who have no coping skills. They’ll quickly turn to something that will help them cope, even temporarily. Unfortunately, for a lot of first time heroin users that temporary fix turns into a habit. It’s the historic stigma of heroin that keeps any mother from believing her prom queen daughter could do such a thing. Alcohol? Marijuana? No parent would be happy about their child using those drugs, but they are almost accepted, in comparison to heroin use. No one wants to imagine their kid sticking a needle in their arm. But with today’s heroin, track marks may not even be the tell tale sign of abuse.
Many teens using heroin snort the drug rather than inject it. “Unfortunately, because it can be snorted, kids think the stigma of being a drug addict is removed,” said John Gilbride, the DEA’s special agent in charge of the New York office. “There’s not the same stigma as when a hard-core drug user injects it.”
I don’t know that I totally agree with that, as their will always be a certain stigma attached to heroin. Maybe not with the teenagers using it, but certainly with their parents and teachers, who still think of heroin as a last resort drug for people who have hit rock bottom. “That’s a dangerous way to look at it,” says C.P. “Most heroin users I knew didn’t hit rock bottom until after they started using.” Maybe parents, instead of looking for tell-tale signs of abuse, should focus more on looking for the tell-tale signs of a kid at his stress breaking point.
There has been an increase in new, young users across the country who are being lured by inexpensive, high-purity heroin that can be sniffed or smoked instead of injected. Today, the average addict is a white, middle-class teenager.
Whatever the reason for that, whether it is my theory or perhaps something as simple as availability, price, and a complete naivety on the part of the teenagers, there is a problem. It’s not an epidemic, it’s not a widespread phenomenon, but it is enough of a problem that parents should stop thinking “not my kid.”
“I sat at her wake and what broke my heart was that so many confident parents walked up to me…And I’ve seen their kids with my daughter and if they were with my daughter, they shouldn’t be so confident.” — Natalie Ciappa’s mother.
Drugs are for the weak.
Let them remove themselves from this reality when they can’t handle it.
Oh, and parents: Swell parenting job you did there. Outstanding.
When I read about the frightening increase in illegal drug abuse, I am forced to think about the frightening increase in legal drug use in the form of anti depressants, sleeping pills, pain killers, or just the staggering amounts of Prozac that both adults and children are using, not to mention that sure fire destroyer of families and individuals, alcohol. Sure, heroin is a dangerous and addictive drug, and kids and adults use it as a form of escape from reality, but so is Prozac or many other anti depressants, or even pain relievers and legal alcohol. You believe that we have pampered and overprotected our young too much and thus their encounter with reality is so overwhelmingly harsh that they must perforce drug themselves up to handle it. Let us be honest and ask ourselves if maybe we have become too competitive and too materialistic as a society and culture where anyone who fails to achieve super rich success is considered a total failure. A society where the values of charity, volunteering, of raising decent and moral children are considered worthless and for idiots. All this while at the same time we all know that less than 10% of the population will ever achieve super success or super star status, and of those who do make it to the top, it will have more to do with them being in the right place at the right time, with the right friends, rather than hard work, discipline, and human decency. We have lost our faith, we have lost our religion, we have lost our decency, we ridicule morality, and most tragically of all we believe that value only refers to the price of something. Over a hundred years ago Oscar Wilde pointed out our societies failure so pithily and pungently when he said, “we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
While it is easy to blame parents for kids actions-these kids surely have been educated as to the downsides of using drugs.
One thing the author forgot to say is that heroin is edgy. It is rebellious. And as they did note, it’s cheap…for awhile.
I agree that it is incorrect to raise our kids in a culture of cooperative games where everyone is special, and competitiveness is essential to learn and understand. However, back in the dark days, we probably took that value too far.
We should encourage a society that values charity etc, but it may be that we need to teach kids to be entrepreneurs. We need to teach them to think for themselves, to run away from the herd.
I think kids have been educated about drugs to the point of absurdity, where they no longer pay attention to the DARE programs or whatever schools have these days.
When my daughter was in second grade, she came home from school crying that I was a drug addict? Why? Because the DARE booklet they handed out in school informed them that caffeine is a drug. In fact, we had to dismiss half of what was in that booklet (no, honey, having a glass of wine with dinner is not like being an alcoholic)…something that probably went on in a lot of households that evening, causing a lot of kids to think of DARE’s anti drug message as nonsense.
What’s the role of public schools in this? Michele touches on it, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The “indoctrination” of our kids into the values of our secular society, without morality, without God, without right and wrong, is herding our children into the hands of evil, like sheep to slaughter.
Put three generations under one roof and people will learn about coping. Otherwise, put one in Dance class, one in a BMW, and one in an old age home and there you go.
Bill, I am in no way blaming public schools or a secular society for this.
My parents took my out of public school at the end of 8th grade because of the “bad influence” I was getting there. They enrolled me in a Catholic high school, where I saw more drugs and immorality than I had ever seen in public school. So let’s not be so quick to bring religion into this.
Obviously, this is an overmedicated society, but i take exception to saying that a person should NEVER us an antidepressant.
I lost a whole business right after 9/11 as well as people I knew. Several other things out of our control happened shortly after that. I tried coping and coping and coping as best I could, but found my mind spiraling downward and became unable to function for the simplest things in life even though I forced myself to do certain things just to care for my family.
I went to my doctor and gave me paxil and xanax. Out of the 30 xanax pills, I only took two. I was on the paxil for about three months and she weaned me off it. She explained that my brain chemicals were out of whack and not right, and the paxil would help restore that function.
It did. After that, even though things were horrible and still tough and we had many problems to deal with (most notably not being able to pay bills because I couldn’t collect from the businesses that were destroyed), I was able to cope because the paxil RESTORED my ability to cope. There was not place to go, nowhere I could rest – I still had to do and function and be.
So let’s not throw everyone into that category. Used correctly, antidepressants are a great tool. My doctor was smart enough to give me the help and then help me get off.
And we do have three generations under our roof. Except that the oldest generation in our house is a bitter, self centered person. And what are our children supposed to learn from that?
Very dishonest reporting – you mention a “heroin overdose,” but fail to mention that overdoses on pure heroin are a virtual medical impossibility. Studies have repeatedly shown that what the media commonly term “heroin overdoses” are almost exclusively reactions to drugs other than heroin (such as adultered product), or reactions to heroin in combination with other drugs (almost always legal ones such as alcohol or prescription benzodiazepines). While this might seem to be a nit-picky point, it has very real policy implications: the war on drugs causes impurity in drugs (when’s the last time you saw a pharmacy selling impure morphine or oxycodone/hydrocodone – both essentially heroin in different forms?). And if impure heroin is the only kind of heroin that can actually kill, then that means that the war on heroin is what kills, not heroin itself.
Here’s a peer-reviewed article published over a decade ago in the peer-reviewed medical journal Addiction attesting to this fact:
http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/darke2.cfm
And lest you believe that this is something that’s been recently discovered, here’s an article from Consumer Reports published over three decades ago claiming the same thing:
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cu12.htm
It’s a shame that you’re repeating these tired heroin myths, and it’s an even bigger shame that future generations will continue to buy into this myth, perpetuating the tremendous harm caused by heroin prohibition. Something sobering to keep in mind: every single death by “heroin overdose” is a direct result of the war on drugs. Drug prohibitionists are morally responsible for every single one of these deaths.
You need to look further, into what has brought an inner-city problem out into the suburbs. It is the movement of the inner city to the suburbs, thanks to Section 8 federal rent subsidies, and subprime loans that allowed people previously unqualified for housing loans to get them at discount rates. Plus you have an increasing number of illegal aliens and associated gangs, with connections back to Mexico’s black tar heroin. Next story, don’t just concentrate on the users, but also think where the pushers are coming from, and why.
every single death by “heroin overdose” is a direct result of the war on drugs
I agree that the “war on drugs” has been failing policy (the raid on the mayor in Maryland being the latest example). However this argument I find specious. As you state heroin overdoses are result of a reaction to a combination of heroin and other drugs (you point out alcohol, a legal drug, as an example). Making heroin legal wouldn’t necessarily stop junkies from combining it with other drugs. In fact John Belushi willfully mixed heroin with cocaine and look what happened to him.
I am sorry, but good kids do not get addicted to and overdose on Heroin. Only bad kids do that.
Interesting theory. However, what about the factor of just good old availability. I went to high school in the bad old days when we did have dodge ball, and if you got picked last you were a loser, and no one was offering self-affirmation programs. But I went to high school in Frankfurt Germany, which at the time, along with Hamburg and Amsterdam, was the drug conduit for most of the Western world. Everything was everywhere. More drugs and drugs of kinds you would never, at that time, find in school in America. Kids have a penchant for experimentation and many kids, even good kids, tried stuff out.
I guess I’m saying, I’m not sure if there are any answers. Certainly bring your child up right. Try to teach them to make good choices. Then, with some luck, your kid will stay straight. But I have seen kids whose parents did everything right who still turned to drugs.
While making heroin legal wouldn’t necessarily stop people from mixing it with more dangerous drugs such as alcohol (a far more inherently dangerous drug than heroin), ending the propaganda war against drugs would go a long way to educate people to the real risks of drug use (such as mixing certain drugs and using dirty needles) as opposed to demonizing them all to the point where people no longer listen to the legitimate advice.
Plus, a lot of mixing it’s willful on the part of users – it’s the dealers who cut their drugs, and this only happens because the drugs are illegal and so markets are not able to do their job and give consumers the products that they desire.
And, you have to wonder if heroin addicts drink because they like it, or drink because it’s a cheaper/easier way to become intoxicated when heroin isn’t available. Like the teenager who drinks but would do some other safer drug if it were available (MDMA, LSD, etc.), it’s possible that alcohol/benzodiazepine use is exacerbated by the fact that what would otherwise be someone’s drug of choice isn’t available.
I’m not a big fan of the war on drugs. Yet, I’d rather not see heroin legalized, thank you.
As for the overdoses – you make a point, but my article is not really about how many kids are overdosing on heroin, as to why so many middle class suburban kids are suddenly enamored with it.
I am sorry, but good kids do not get addicted to and overdose on Heroin. Only bad kids do that.
Not necessarily. Most kids who are labeled as “bad” kids were good, once. If we try to figure out what turns them instead of dismissing them (as per the first comment here) maybe we can help them.
ending the propaganda war against drugs would go a long way to educate people to the real risks of drug use (such as mixing certain drugs and using dirty needles) as opposed to demonizing them all to the point where people no longer listen to the legitimate advice
That is a very excellent point and touches on something I’m currently writing about. It also goes hand in hand with my comment about the DARE program – a lot of kids tuned it out because the extreme way it was presented made it almost absurd.
A sad indictment on our, narcissist, materialist society, where children are valued for making their parents proud. Struggle is a part of life, as are earned praise, failure, resolve and perhaps a few fist-fights. To shield children from any these is wrong. Who among us has not had to pick oneself from the dirt and set forth again. Our nanny-state, feminist-dominated society and educational system have coddled our children into believing they cannot fail. Ultimately, they will be unprepared when the real world reveals otherwise.
What’s missing here is any sort of frame of reference. Are drug OD’s worse now than say, 10 years ago? Twenty years. I really don’t see that.
Also the idea that it’s not longer in the inner city, but the good kids in the suburb isn’t new. That type of scare line has been promoted by puritans for generations. I’m guessing that providing actual statistics would have undercut the thesis.
Anecdotes to push the world to action is an age old debate technique. But the question is — Is the problem getting better or worse. Without that as a frame of reference then pieces like this are just modern equivalents of “Reefer Fever” — scare pieces written by somebody too lazy to research the issue. After all, how we do we know that treating every child like a “precious snowflake” hasn’t dramatically reduced drug overdoses?
I lost two family members to heroin in the sixties and seventies. So I am aware of the dangers and I pay attention to drug issues. We were white middle-class too.
However, this article does not make its point that the young’s interest in heroin is due to helicopter parenting styles–as satisfying as that thought may be to those of us on the right. I followed the links and I can’t even pin down whether “Today, the average addict is a white, middle-class teenager.” It may be true, but I’d like to see the numbers.
I suspect it’s a combination of the usual teenage risk-taking, the pleasure of escape, the availability of cheaper, purer heroin that can be snorted, and the innocence of not having seen the dangers with sufficient vividness first-hand.
I’m not a big fan of the war on drugs. Yet, I’d rather not see heroin legalized, thank you.
A standard liberal refrain. More accurately, you’re not a big fan of the war on soft drugs – the part of the war on drugs that inconveniences many, but kills no one. But if you still support the war on hard drugs, you’re leaving the users of hard drugs (namely heroin) at risk of adultered products, despite the fact that the non-adultered heroin is incredibly safe compared to many other drugs. Definitely safer than alcohol and nicotine. (Nicotine doesn’t post any acute risk, though unadultered heroin doesn’t pose any long-term risk.) Though it might be unpalatable to consider legalizing heroin, it’s really the only humane thing to do. Whether or not you like the idea of people being addicted to heroin, the simple fact is that a heroin addiction’s biggest long-term risk (assuming it’s legal and can be purchased at a far market price so that you don’t have to turn to theft to afford it) is chronic constipation. And I’ll take ten constipated addicts who will live normal-sized lives to one strung-out addict committing crimes to fuel a $200-a-day habit (for something that would cost perhaps a few dollars on the free market) who will die at the age of 35 thanks to some unscrupulous dealer who put benzos in his product, thank you very much.
Supporting the end of the war on marijuana and perhaps advocating for needle-exchange programs is pretty mainstream these days among educated Americans (even if it’s politically unpalatable to the general voting population). This is a moderate position, one that won’t raise any eyebrows. But it also won’t help the people who are really suffering from the war on drugs. It takes real courage, though, to see through your prejudices against hard drug users and actually advocate something that will make the difference between life and death for an addict.
And I’ll take ten constipated addicts who will live normal-sized lives to one strung-out addict committing crimes to fuel a $200-a-day habit (for something that would cost perhaps a few dollars on the free market) who will die at the age of 35
Have you ever lived with a heroin addict? They do not live normal lives. Anyone who thinks that a heroin addict can – over a prolonged basis – lead a normal life is the same kind of person who believes there’s such a thing as a functional alcoholic. The only people who think an addict’s life is normal is the addict. What’s wrong with the idea of getting people off drugs instead of making it easier and cheaper for them?
I am not ignoring your point about illegality of heroin causing it to become impure – but I just can’t see how saving existing addicts from that is worth the price of creating new, legal addicts.
That type of scare line has been promoted by puritans for generations. I’m guessing that providing actual statistics would have undercut the thesis.
My intent here wasn’t to play the scared straight game. I am not an expert on the subject; I only know what I have read and researched after being alarmed by the number of stories I was reading about teenage heroin users. This is my own theory; I do not want hold it up as the only theory, or even the correct one. It’s just my own idea on the reasons for the sudden interest in heroin.
michele — I suggest more research before next venturing another opinion piece like this. Drug use, abuse, and legalization are big complex subjects.
Read both sides. Be sure to use numbers, not just soft links.
burroughs: it’s an opinion piece, not a research paper. But, thanks for the advice.
Drug addiction has been a problem for quite some time. I have one question, is the “alarm” due to the number of addicts heroine has now caused in the predominantly white middle class suburbs? What was the cause of addiction for the poorer neighborhoods? Do the addict teenagers in the poorer neighborhoods warrant less “alarm”?
They have a choice to do heroin. They didn’t have to buy it. No one put a gun to their head. Every teenager, in this day and age, knows full well the dangers of heroin and drug use. If they still use, tough beans. Their problem. I don’t have an ounce of sympathy. Unless they were kidnapped from a third world country, forcibly shot up with heroin, and forced to prostitute themselves, I just can’t bring myself to care. It’s a bunch of spoiled rich kids spending mommy and daddy’s money on hard drugs. Let them drop dead, and free the gene pool of their stupid seed. It’s called natural selection, folks.
Do the addict teenagers in the poorer neighborhoods warrant less “alarm”?
When it’s something new in your neighborhood, it’s alarming. Don’t read more into my alarm than there is.
After three years of military service overseas, I returned home in 1965 to face New York’s “Summer of Love” in Washington Square next year. Holy cow! Overwhelming impression was, This will not end well. Nor has it.
Drug-use may be socio-cultural with political/economic implications, but individuals always have a choice. Absent valid medical reasons these substances fracture lives, careers, advance a ruinous dependency. “Just say no” is asinine– intellectual and moral context in perspective, a decent self-respect is key. Are those so difficult?
Friends of that era laughed, accusing me of being not just square but cubical. How true. But I’ve stayed married to a first-and-only over 27 years, we have two Eagle Scouts and a beloved daughter with her BS in Biochemistry. Could any drug-of-choice do better?
Now in my twilight, still hopelessly illusioned, we sense a reality so far beyond contemporary pop-cult that one has to laugh. Is that not the best medicine? God bless us, every one.
We need more ruthlessness in the War on Drugs. We have too much mercy on druggies. Make them fear getting caught.
“Heroin is for junkies. Heroin is for losers.”
Ummm, yes in fact it is. That some members of the ‘non-losing’ classes voluntarily choose to partake of a seriously problematic drug in no way negates that one astute observation.
I have never understood heroin’s appeal and probably never will. If you take it by choice, you are simply IMO, none too bright. But it’s your choice. Free will and all that.
And I do understand that ‘reality’ might be such that fleeing it appears to be a viable option. But the reality of the types described in this article does not to me rise to the level of ‘fleeable’. Boredom and low self-esteem are not reasons for shooting up. Excuses maybe; reasons — not so much.
I have a lot more empathy and sympathy for the heroin users so capably portrayed in ‘The Wire’. Them I could at least understand. Their ‘betters’ —,ummm. afraid not. They just appear self-indulgent ‘losers’ to me. If not heroin then probably something else to engage in slow motion self-destruction. If we are instructed to not cry for Argentina, I see no reason to shed tears over them. Or to fret about their plight.
From the chron article:
Doreen Ciappa says she tried everything imaginable to get Natalie to stop using heroin.
For more than a year, there were battles at their suburban Long Island home: arguments over rehab, fights when she quit counseling, groundings after car accidents, threats about not going away to college.
In the beginning, Natalie admitted to smoking marijuana, but her parents were sure she was using something worse. She started losing weight and getting sick.
Doreen Ciappa started policing her MySpace page and searching her room for signs of drugs, finding the painkiller OxyContin among her belongings.
“I approached her and she told me she got it in school that day. I said, ‘In school?’ And she said, ‘Don’t you get it? At any time of the day in any hallway, if I want something all I have to do is look up and I will see somebody who can give it to me.’”
Then came the first overdose. The family was actually grateful because this was supposed to be their wakeup call. But three weeks later, Doreen and her husband Victor woke up on a Saturday morning and found no sign of Natalie.
“When your daughter has had one overdose and they don’t come home, we both immediately started crying,” Doreen said.
Doreen said she became frustrated with federal privacy laws that restrict the amount of health information she was able to get about Natalie after she turned 18 in March. Natalie was entitled to make her own decisions about rehab after turning 18.
“That’s what I don’t get,” she said, vowing to become an activist in changing privacy laws. “How can we be responsible for someone and not have any authority?”
For more than a year?
And Plano, TX had a big heroin problem at least a decade ago. This isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. I had a friend around the same time in suburban New Jersey whose son got into heroin and chose to leave home at 16 when his parents tried to force rehab on him. He went to a highly ranked public school in a good neighborhood too.
I don’t have any answers, but blaming the heroin problem on the war on drugs is silly.
Powerpoint by Plano PD:
http://www.popcenter.org/conference/conferencepapers/2007/youth_heroin.pdf
21 Plano youths died of heroin OD between 1995 and 1999.
And where do the kiddies get their smack? Unless they’re secretly growing poppies in the root cellar, most likely they can trace their fixes to none other than Afghanistan. Where it just so happens that we are at war.
it’s an opinion piece, not a research paper.
michele – I realize that. Nonetheless there are informed opinions and uninformed opinions. The price of having an informed opinion is informing oneself. You do not seem to be informed in this area.
Your article is basically a polemic against recent childrearing practices which leverages off current teen heroin casualties. Whether more than an anecdotal few suffered from helicopter parenting is entirely unproven. My bet, also undemonstrated, is that these kids more than likely fit the usual profile: neglected or abused — not coddled.
Michelle wants to turn this problem into a weapon in her own culture war. It won’t work. Drug addiction cuts across “parenting styles” and generations. Opium addiction has been around for hundreds of years. Michelle will never understand anything if she’s constantly on the lookout to defeat some straw man in some bogus culture war. Try to be a little analytical and live up to your billing here at PM. Her second theory, even if it sounds too simple for her, is the way to think about this thing. Availability and price determine the use of just about everything else in the market place so why shouldn’t this determine heroin use as well? Parenting styles have very little to do with it, unfortunately. If she thought about it that way, maybe she’d see some way of attacking the problem, rather than blaming parents. That’s what analysts are supposed to do, anyway.
I can reveal that a long time ago I tried the drug and I didn’t see what was supposed to be the big deal about it. It surely wasn’t as pure and potent as today’s, but still, it just wasn’t for me. On the other hand, I’ve known and read about people who from the first time they’ve tried it, know that that’s just where they want to be. Heroin isn’t for everybody, which is why they make so many different types of drugs. But for those who it is right for, it’s almost immediately addictive. People like this will always be around and there will be drug dealers to cater to them That’s what you get for being human and living in a democratic capitalist system.
Have you ever lived with a heroin addict? They do not live normal lives. Anyone who thinks that a heroin addict can – over a prolonged basis – lead a normal life is the same kind of person who believes there’s such a thing as a functional alcoholic. The only people who think an addict’s life is normal is the addict.
I have never lived with a heroin addict, I admit, but I have read a lot about addicts – not quantitative things (due to ethical concerns and the drug’s illegality, you won’t find much comprehensive literature on how functional heroin addicts are [and stereotypes don't count – you're never going to see the functional heroin addicts, because the point is that they're too functional for you to realize they're addicts]), but first- and second-hand accounts. Maybe you have, in which case you may know more, but from what I’ve read, a heroin addict is surprisingly functional if given a pure, standardized dose of heroin. The dangers of heroin use come in the high cost of maintaining the habit, which leads one to live a very poor-quality life in order to afford the drug. This combined with the difficulty in obtaining and using the drug due to drug laws force users into bad places. However, it’s important to differentiate between the physical effects of the drug and the socio-political effects that happen because it’s illegal, not because of any inherent characteristic of the drug. As long as a user is able to get a low-paying job to afford rent, pay the bills, and eat food, the money spent on heroin in a free market would be rather minimal (it’s a very easy to produce drug and would go for not more than a few dollars per bag on the free market). They may be stupefied all their life (although even that is debatable – once a user develops a tolerance, it’s possible for them to look remarkably like any other non-addicted person for the majority of the day), but it’s a far cry between being stupefied in your own home and being dead on the street because your dealer cut the product with someone bad, or you died of HIV because you couldn’t get clean needles, etc.
What’s wrong with the idea of getting people off drugs instead of making it easier and cheaper for them?
Let’s be very explicit about the policy options: under prohibition, we have a smaller amount of users (maybe – I’m not even entirely sure of that, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt), but we have greater harm to those users. Under liberalization, we have a larger pool of users but a lower rate of mortality among those users. You’re sacrificing a small group in a pretty gruesome way in order to save the larger group. You’re killing some to keep others off of something that wouldn’t kill them. Looking at it any other way is obscuring the issue. At this point, you might still think that it’s worth it, but let’s not beat around the bush – you ought to acknowledge that you’re making this trade-off, and that someone’s going to die because of it for something that they, if they were given their way, they wouldn’t die from.
I am not ignoring your point about illegality of heroin causing it to become impure – but I just can’t see how saving existing addicts from that is worth the price of creating new, legal addicts.
Do you value someone’s life less because they made a decision you don’t agree with? Addicts are dying, and they wouldn’t otherwise. Someone’s life versus what you think is a bad place for someone to be (a heroin addiction). But nevertheless, a heroin addict living in a society that doesn’t persecute drug users and buyers will live. One in a society that does prohibit drugs, will die. How sure are you that it’s worth it to kill that junkie to save someone who is not currently a junkie, and who you’re not entirely sure will become a junkie if heroin is legal and readily available?
See when you only refer to the whites as “the good kids” even when they are addicts it portrays conservatives as only caring about their own when it comes to societal problems. When AP classes and extracurricular events are the stressors that drive kids to do drugs its a tragedy, when the mean streets and broken houses do its a non-story and a problem to be fixed only by law enforcement. I am not saying that this author is racist, I doubt very highly that they are but this just demonstrates the preference to solve societal problems only once whites become the victims and in the process try to mask the stigmatism that the word “addict” has over “good, white” kids.
“The heart of man is desperately wicked”. They do heroin because they are not good kids because they have turned their backs on God and adopted humanism. Once that happens bad consequences are just around the corner.
Michele is more right than anyone suspects about the things that have been done to the current crop of kids.
Take something as seemingly simple as the ‘self-esteem’ movement she mentioned. Far from promoting actual ‘self’ esteem, it instead put the source of esteem outside the children–putting it instead into the brainless mantra of ‘you’re special, you’re precious, you’re the most wonderful blah blah blah’ that eminated from authority figures rather than from any actual accomplishment by the children themselves.
And then look at all the addictions the state demands of children today–rowdy? addict them to ritalin. Moody? Addict them to anti-depressives. “Addiction is fine. The people who praise me say so. Even my parents.”
There are societal forces that exacerbate the standard addticion paradigms.
And Michele is right to highlight them.
For an instance of a functional “addict” to heroin you might want to check Antonio Escohotado, the author of, say, this book and this lecture. I understand he is a long-term (decades) consumer of quite a number of drugs, including heroin. As I once heard him saying, he deems himself addicted just to the only one that, when first offered to him, he had not been said was addictive: tobacco.
I’d like to see a nationwide survey of drug users among teens. In particular, I would love to know the breakdown of teen addicts in public schools, private schools and home-schools.
The results might surprise all of us.
Sadly this post modern Socialist movement has become about not Fixes of the Conscious Soul and done Externally and not Internally .
A bad word in the media today called “Faith ” !
Socialism/ Marxism is founded on Atheism and we are Animal like creatures who seek pleasures in life .Per Marx . Lenin . Engles , Machiavelli, Descartes, Freud , Hobbes, Darwin were coming from; and equally as important in understanding how provided a faulty foundation
The “FIX ” that is “”IN ” Vogue is with One no longer requiring reaching into self for our own Medicines of life its self called Healing from within .
My first Cousin is a Nationally recognized Sociologist .
Get Larry in a corner and he will tell you that no Pills ,$$$ , Books or Words makes anyone heal from within .
Eventually we look into our own Life’s mirror and Say enough is enough or we continue to be less of the better self .
The new Religion of Hummanties that is taught in all our Schools and Colleges is about blaming others for our own continued terrible behavior .
Tis’ deadly sugar to a Diebetic or a Knife to a Cold blooded Killer’s hands .
I’m a simple answer person. I think the keywords are “Cheap at first.”
I’d also pay more attention to a Mom who’s raised a couple of great kids than to some yahoo with an “informed opinion.”
I’m weird that way.
Re: Leaving Las Vegas/Rationalitate, “N” silly posts/displays of enlightenment.
Rationalitate, your elightenment is towering, indeed, and the irrational mortals around should be grateful for your showering upon humanity so much superior rationality (although your type of liberal ratiocinating has been better described by Patrick Moynahan as “dumbing down deviancy”).
You and all those who think that dope, particular heroin, is cool & controllable should take a walk or live a few days on Skid Row, LA – that’s invariably the end of heroin users, and it’s quite a spectacle.
There is no exit from this trajectory, Rationalitate baby, and stop quoting all those fuzzy studies – ask the cops, the jailers, and the morgue workers and they’ll give you a sobering answer about this.
Be cool Rationalitate, bon voyage, only destruction and death lies on this direction – then a few days in the morgue drawer with a numbered ticket on your big toe ’till your turn for the burner comes.
my goodness people! I applaud Michelle’s efforts for writing an informative eye opening piece. I live in a Mayberry type town in Northern Ky and know 2 young adults (20yrsold) who have recently ODd on Heroin. They were good kids. I found myself nervous by the story and asked myself questions on how we will talk to our kids about the issue. I think the important point to take away from this story is, Do what you can to not let this happen to your child. I dont think it was written to be picked apart by people on the “purity” of the heroin and some of these ridiculous tangent arguments that people are coming up with. Obviously they wnt to argue and dont really care about the issue. If so, move on.
I for one, was moved by the story and will think about how to raise my 2 young children to know this is not acceptable and is dangerous.
Thanks Michelle.
Excellent article and on target with the parenting of todays teenagers.
I am 52, however our three children are 25 and older. It is still my generation of parents that have paved the way with moral relativism and it is destroying us from within. There are absolutes, you play with fire you will get burnt. It really does matter what you choose to do.
Huh? Heroin isn’t a high? It’s the most intense drug experience on the planet. Only crack cocaine can compete. And competition is what this is really all about. As the narco-terror gangs, diverted now through Venezuela, flood the US and southern Europe with cocaine, blowback from Afghanistan (literally) has hit both markets at the same time the form of cheap, relatively pure heroin. So yeah, of course kids are buying it. The only surprise is that they’re not buying more of it. And that, believe it or not, is only because the dollar is so weak.
You and all those who think that dope, particular heroin, is cool & controllable should take a walk or live a few days on Skid Row, LA – that’s invariably the end of heroin users, and it’s quite a spectacle.
If you had been alive during Prohibition, I suppose you would have been one of those blathering idiots who claimed that contaminated liquor, shootouts between bootleggers, and the alcohol-funded mafia were the inevitable end to anyone who ever dabbled in alcohol. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and people realized that prohibiting alcohol does more harm than the substance itself. It’s just a shame that people haven’t figured that out for heroin, too (which is even safer than alcohol in that there is very little risk of acute overdose, and virtually no long term health consequences – and before you even dare to refute that, please cite a single article in a recognized medical journal that backs you up).
stop quoting all those fuzzy studies – ask the cops, the jailers, and the morgue workers
Your ignorance astounds me. Addiction and New England Journal of Medicine are incredibly highly respected medical journals. They are, for sure, the highest authorities on the matter. Police officers are not medical officials, and they cannot determine whether someone died of a heroin overdose or of a contaminated dose of heroin. And I don’t know why the hell you’d think that jailers would know a damn thing about the true causes of overdoses – last I checked, jailers’ job was to lock and unlock doors. Though, it’s funny that you mention morgue workers, because I believe they are precisely the people who do the autopsies that determine that nearly 100% of supposed heroin overdoses are actually due to either contaminated product or the addict using drugs (mainly alcohol – one of the deadliest drugs out there) other than heroin.
Please, elevate yourself to the level of intellectual discussion that we’re having here and at least back up your statements. You might not believe the highly respected journals that I’ve cited, but if you want to convince anyone of anything, you really ought to at least give us a link or citation. Surely, if what you say is so blindly obvious, it shouldn’t be hard to procure one medical journal article that proves your point.
Oops – I forgot to close my italics tag. Sorry about that.
Heroine is popular because it gets you high and is cheap. Nothing more complicated than that. If it wasn’t Heroine, it would be something else. In fact, change Heroine to just about anything else and this could have been an article written in the 1970s. Or 1960s or 1930s or….
Every generation are a bunch of heartless, selfish bastards who kill themselves for no damn reason. Except they aren’t. Generalizing the actions of a few screw ups to everyone is as much bullshit now as it was when i was in High School in the 70s and we were all going to hell in a hand basket.
What’s he problem? Listen to Rationalitate, he knows, he read a “study” from some other liberal who wants his drugs. He has never met any herion addicts, of course, but he has all the answers.
Now that the liberal promise that drugs aren’t bad has completely failed, they have moved on to its the bad mix of drugs caused by all you uptight conservatives not letting him buy the drugs from the local government office. Later after the addicts get the pure herion and become even more addicted, it will again be the mean conservatives making them pay for the drugs which they can’t afford any longer because they can’t keep a job and if we would only supply the drug for free, all would be solved.
So to a liberal such as Rationalitate, the answer to deaths caused by drugs isn’t to convince young people to avoid them at all cost, it is to double down on an already disaster and provide easier access to said drugs. Rationalitate, in all your informed “study”, did you ever come across the part where it tells you that no matter how great the high from heroin, you WILL become immune to the hit and require a greater and greater impact. So your prescription of a purer heroin simply means that the addicts will progress quicker and quicker into addiction. Great idea.
Asterdam tried this approach and it has been a complete disaster for the city unless you are like, I suspect Rationalitate, a vistor who goes once a year to get your groove on and stick it to those uptight adults.
@LogicalSC:
If you must know, I’m a libertarian, not a liberal. And a very staunch libertarian at that.
And, by the way, not only have I known heroin addicts, but I know dead heroin addicts. I know people who I once loved and cared about who DIED from their addiction, which is why I care so deeply about this issue. I’ve done enough research to know that they didn’t die from heroin, but rather they died from heroin prohibition and the things that it engenders. I resent your implication that I’m somehow removed from the issue – you don’t know a damn thing about me, and that makes your hubris absolutely mind-blowing.
And again I repeat my challenge: find me a medical journal article that proves your point. Any one will do – I won’t even hold you the same standards that I hold myself to (i.e., only taking articles from journals that I know to be extremely reputable). If you can find me a single one that claims that anything more than a very small minority of heroin-related deaths are due to the heroin compound itself, I will shit up. But to call something published in an incredibly prestigious and rigorous journal like the New England Journal of Medicine “liberal” is absolutely laughable – these are not political journals, and they do not deal with political issues. They deal with science, and the doctors who publish articles in them and review articles for them would be deeply amused by how you think these sorts of publications are run.
Funny that you’re so quick to pooh-pooh these journals, but I’ll bet when your doctor tells you that you need such-and-such surgery, you don’t second-guess him.
Now, I think I’m done debating with you unless you can pony up some evidence. I don’t know how you determine what’s true or not, but I personally ask the experts, not some random person on a blog who is stupid enough to denigrate an article published in – quite literally – the most prestigious medical journal on the planet, and yet who is so self-confident that he feels absolutely no compulsion to give one shred of evidence surrounding his absolutely fantastical claim.
I think one of the best ways to keep your kids from doing drugs is to show them the people who have survived long-term drug use. NOBODY wants to end up like that.
Take them to Venice Beach, CA at sundown when they all come out. Talk about being scared straight.
Somehow death seems obscure. The reality of a half-existence on the fringes with no options is very sobering (in all forms of the word).
IMO, letting your kids watch American Movie when they’re old enough (mature content) would make them see some truth. There’s a musician who is best friends with the primary focus of the movie and he’s basically a shell. He plays guitar at one point and he’s got skills. Useless now that he’s toasted himself. A young teen could take a real lesson from that. And it’s better because it’s really not the focus of the movie but it’s evident and powerful in its tragic reality.
Michelle, my daughter also accused me of ‘doing drugs’ because of caffeine. Nonsense. Drug education is really absurd, I’m in complete agreement.
“Good Kids” have been getting hooked on horse for decades. Leave it to Miss Catalano to expertly tie it to everything about modern parenting and self esteem movement (which has been the butt of everyone’s jokes for years) which upright cons must despise. Is there any links or hard evidence she offers, or solutions? Or is this just another cheap commentary which PJ foists on us as if it was serious journalism?
F*ck you Edward;
Suburban kids have always done heroin. They usually have the resources to get better treatment. The people in the inner cites don’t bring heroin in this country. When I was a kid The number of Suburban people that came to my urban area completely supported the drug market in the area. The way they stopped the problem is when they realized to start stopping people who were in high drug areas who did not not belong there. Thats when the dealers went away or stopped. Supply and Demand. If the drug market were based on the population in the inner cites, there wouldn’t be a market. The real drug market is Suburban America. In addition I rent a two family home to two section 8 families. And they are great people who work hard and plan to buy there own home in the area. I am happy to provide housing to a couple of families who otherwise could not afford the area. And guess what one of the kids is a honor roll student the other is good athlete and more than capable student. If it were up to you these kids would not have a chance to break the perpetual cycle of ignorance and poverty.
“The Sixties”
I don’t know why I wasted my time responding to you honestly. Because when you make a statement like yours. Your ideals become very clear.
Check this video
http://nameworldonline.com/videos/id_72/
Anyone interested in a functional heroin, should websearch Dr William Stewart Halstead.He’s known as the father of modern surgery, and was one of the founding members of Johns Hopkins hospital. He lived to the age of 70 and was married for 32 years. Oh yeah he was also a heroin addict til the end of his life
Nothing new here. The “Greatest Generation” raised the biggest generation of druggies in American history, tut-tutting about marijuana over three-martini lunches. Earlier we had the craze for patent medicines, most of which contained alcohol and/or opiates — no wonder everyone thought they were so effective!
This too shall pass. Already the meth epidemic is waning in major cities; only poor rural areas are still significantly afflicted. And somehow I don’t think this problem is due to a touchy-feely New Agey “parenting” culture among impoverished low-income rural people.
ReCon USMC
that is the most brain-dead,, cliche and name dropping ridden post in this thread. You are a reactionary mental midget, a perfect example of a brainless and soulless killing machine. You make no sense. What would you have as a curriculum, Marine training manuals and the Bible. What a total jerk!
Have your kids watch “Through a Blue Lens”
http://www.oddsquad.com/EN/through_a_blue_lens/
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=though+a+blue+lens&search_type=&aq=f
If that doesn’t keep them off H, nothing will. The film was made by members of the Vancouver Police Department – basically a reality show for junkies (disclosure – I went to law school with one of the members of the Odd Squad). This isn’t about persecuting junkies, it’s about not making more.
I have had the “opportunity” to be around users of all kinds of drugs – pot, coke, E, acid, etc – and Heroin is the most hopeless of all. While I’m sure there are a few outlier functional junkies, most people go right down hill and a lot don’t come out. It’s not even a lack of money or poor quality product, they simply quit living, and go from casual to junie in a hurry.
As to the self-esteem movement, I don’t know about the correlation with drugs, but I do know that we’ve had business psychologists come in and explain to us why our newest employees tend to be emotional pygmies who will wilt without extensive praise – and in all too many cases, it is absolutely true.
Michele,
Having a personal relationship with God is not the same as “bringing religion into this.” There are a lot of people going to those schools and sitting in the pews of the church, claiming to have “religion,” while not looking to God at all. If somebody truly seeks God, through studying his word, prayer, fellowship, and charity — it makes a difference, a big difference. I’ve seen it many times.
I can tell by your lumping together of attending a religious school and equating it with a true spiritual relationship with the almighty that you don’t understand the difference. Parents, pastors, and church youth directors can help facilitate this journey for a child.
Yes we do need to bring “religion into this.” In fact, I feel that removing it has been a big part of the problem — for both the parents (parenting guidance) and the children (coping skills).
Hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but this was happening in Plano, Tx back around 94-95. Odds are it never stopped, just quit making the news after the 6th or 7th idiot died from heroin use. In fact MTV even aired a special about the whole incident. This is a problem that will not go away as long as we remain a self-centered society bent on “freeing” everyone from the burden of having to make moral and ethical decisions by teaching that all decisions are neither right nor wrong for any individual.
Its called bad parenting creates morons. I am 24 years old and in high school if someone had ever offered me heroin I would have turned away in complete disgust. Most kids of my generation were turned into spoiled brats by the spoiled brats of the baby boomer generation that raised them. Thank God my parents somehow managed to escape that mindset. While these “honor” students may know how to read and remember facts they have no common sense and have almost no understanding of the subjects they are getting A’s in. Believe me I went to an affluent mostly white high school on Long Island full of these people. I have absolutely no sympathy for them. Simply put they know better and they know exactly what will happen if they become addicted to heroin yet they do it anyway.
let me just say that i am a 17 year old heroin addict and my parents had NOTHING to do with my choices. i grew up with the perfect family in a beautiful house with absolutly no problems. i made my own choices and my parents are not to blame for that.
and another thing, i ALWAYS said i would never do heroin if someone offered it to me, in the beginning. it never starts off that way, you probably would of taken a percocet tho, and thats were it all goes downhill, from percs to oxys then dope. i wish you would all walk in a heroin addicts shoes for one day and see how hard it is to stop.
I’d be willing to bet many of these kids were born on drugs…mom on Demerol, or with an epidural…there is undeniable evidence that the birth experience is imprinted in the body, not to mention the fact that there isn’t much to look forward to when life ahead looks a lot like your parents, go to school, get a job, have kids…there’s no magic, no imagination, just the merry-go-round of consumerism. With nothing to hope for and nothing to dream of that’s very meaningful, of course kids want to escape.
BTW, labor and birth really aren’t supposed to be painful. Birth can be blissful, ecstatic, and orgasmic, when approached consciously.
to those of you who say its the parents fault, clearly youre in denial or dont have a teenage kid. living in an upper middle class neighborhood on long island where the average home runs from 700,000k and up, has a stay at home mom and has an excellent school district it hard to place blame on parents. Most of us ARE ignorant to the problem because it was a drug that was for the dregs of society, thankfully with the media coverage we are becoming more aware. Being the parent of an addicted child is frustrating as there are no GOOD resources out there. Insurance companies have too many requirements or there are no beds available and then there is the issue of being 18 is considered and adult, they can refuse treatment. we have lost our rights as parents. Please dont pass judgement on us as parents, most of us are struggling with this heartbreaking and TERRIFYING addiction. And please dont think your children are immune, all of my kids friends are doing this as well… I have actually visited some of these parents to let them know what is happening… unfortunately there is little they can do either. We have no RELIABLE resources. See the article in this weeks long island press. Pray for us.
If one doesn’t want to trust personal experience and common sense, and a scholarly citation is needed, then here are a bunch of doctors who rate heroin as the worst of the worst:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607604644/abstract
Let’s not be in denial about this — heroin is bad news whether or not it has impurities.
In addition to medical side effects, it’s bad for society. Addicts needs large amounts of money to support their addiction. Most of this comes from crime, scamming public assistance, and mooching off of friends and family.