There is something killing young people in the Tri-State and parents may not know it until it's too late. It's easy for young people to get prescription drugs, but it's even easier to get heroin. Local 12's Deborah Dixon tells us how one community is facing the problem head-on and the effort is saving lives.
Bright, polite, ambitious young men with big dreams have fallen victim to the heroin addition.
Adam Lelli is studying sign language, Joel Lindner is studying social work, and Alex Zugelter plans to join the Navy. "I had a 3.9. Was in the honors program at U.C."
And then he blew it by getting hooked on heroin. All three young men are recovering junkies who started out using prescription drugs.
JOEL: "I started using pain killers, woke up, needed painkillers just to get through the day."
ADAM: "Once you're an addict, that's your goal, you don't look past it."
Adam needed a fix so bad he tried to rob a pharmacy. "Really out of my mind not something normally do never broke the law before."
"Nobody knew until I got caught on painkillers no one knew I switched to heroin."
The switch for addicts is about economics. $70 will pay for one 80 milligram pill of the powerful painkiller Oxycontin, but $70 will pay for two or three hits of heroin. "When you tell people Dearborn County has a heroin problem they think not my kid."
This year in Dearborn County there have been thirty overdose deaths; mostly heroin and prescription drugs. Last year there were 13. With it comes a spike in crime. "A lot of drug addicts wake up and figure who am I going to burglarize, who am I going to steal from, who am I going to con to get money to fund habit."
These young men are also graduates of the Dearborn County Jail Chemical Addiction Program. A pod with 16 beds is set aside for addicts who want to change. No cards allowed because gambling can be addictive. But the game of chess forces deliberate thinking.
The captive audience takes part narcotics and Alcoholic Anonymous programs, job readiness programs and homework. "Twenty years, two thousand on alcohol alone."
Homework includes calculating financial loss to addiction. Robert Lee is a college educated alcohol cocaine and prescription drug addict. Financial loss? Conservatively $114,000.
In this program addicts get something they didn't get from all the other treatment programs they've been in. "We offer each other a lot of hope here."
Ron Michaelson is the program director-"If they join the program, they are placed in an environment with people with like problems able to connect in a way they haven't before."
Probation fees pay for the jailhouse program that's not in any other Tri-State jail. A few prisons in the country have it. Sally Blankenship started the jail program: "Get nothing in return, it requires personal responsibility, accountability, and change of thinking."
Change of thinking about what they've lost and gained. "I hurt people I love just to get drugs."
"I have my life-the most previous thing I could have."
Because the heroin high doesn't last long, it's hard for parents to notice signs of heroin use, such as nodding out, running nose and pulling back from friends and activities. Withdrawal is more obvious. Addicts are fine one day and the next they're easily agitated and suffering from sweats, diarrhea and vomiting.
If you have questions, you can find answers at Drug and Poison Control. Call 1-800-222-1222.
