Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2006
Source: Jackson Citizen Patriot (MI)
Copyright: 2006 Jackson Citizen Patriot
Contact: http://www.mlive.com/mailforms/jacitpat/letters/index.ssf
Website: http://www.citpat.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1190
Author: Elmon Prier
Note: Elmon W. Prier is a veteran educator and minister.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

NEW HEROIN-FENTANYL COMBINATION IS A KILLER 'BOMB'

Drug use and abuse continue to be a scourge and a plague on our 
American society. Ask a classroom full of students if they know 
someone who uses drugs and almost all of the hands are raised in the air.

Many people prefer to label themselves as recreational drug users, 
while others have crossed that imaginary line from recreation into 
full-blown addicts or alcoholics. There is an insanity about drug use 
because of the compulsion to use and the inability to stop on your own.

Underneath the radar screen -- with the news being dominated by the 
Iraq and Afghanistan war, immigration reform and alien captives, the 
Korean missile scare, bird flu, and Barry Bonds' bloated homeruns -- 
drug addicts are dying in clusters from a strange mixture of heroin 
and the powerful painkiller fentanyl. The problem is the deceased 
addicts thought they were taking heroin alone. They can die just by 
the heroin alone, but add the fentanyl and it's like death to the second power.

When addicts begin to die in this fashion -- Wayne County, Mich. 
(70); Philadelphia (20); Chicago (30); New Jersey (20); and Delaware 
(5) -- a feeling of dread and euphoria breaks out in the addiction 
community. According to a report by Sarah Karush of the Associated 
Press, one addict named Larry has a cardinal rule of getting high: 
"Never shoot up alone, and shoot up only one person at a time." In 
Larry's world, he reasons, "You need someone to bring you back." 
That's the insanity part of addiction I'm talking about.

And if that's not enough about the cunning, baffling, powerful nature 
of drugs on a drug user, then read this. When "(the) bomb" -- 
extremely high quality heroin -- begins to kill fellow addicts, they 
still search for it. Even as they sometimes file past a deceased 
friend who died from a heroin or a heroin-plus-fentanyl mixture in a 
funeral home, their minds are filled with genuine remorse and sorrow 
- -- but these addicts also long to know where can they get some of 
"the bomb" which killed their friend. Is that insanity or what?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention considers fentanyl to 
be 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Fentanyl kills by 
inhibiting respiration, according to Detroit medical examiner Carl J. 
Schmidt. "It literally suppresses your natural impulse to breathe."

No one seems to know why illegal heroin as a drug is diluted or 
"stepped down" with a powerful drug such as fentanyl. Normally heroin 
is cut or diluted with household substances such as starch, quinine 
or flour. But we cannot afford to exhibit the "Jaws Syndrome." You 
remember how in the motion picture that the great white shark was 
really killing people but business persons wanted to be quiet about 
it. The heroin/fentanyl shark has killed 100 people thus far. At 
least one person died from a mixture of fentanyl and cocaine.

So far organizations are running needle exchanges and health programs 
for drug users to spread the word about "the bomb." But that's not 
enough. We must make a greater effort to deter our children from the 
throes of alcoholism and addiction. We must convince our youth that 
they cannot become addicts or alcoholics if they never smoke that 
joint of marijuana the first time never smoke that crack-cocaine pipe 
the first time never snort that line of cocaine the first time never 
use that methamphetamine the first time or never take that drink of 
alcohol the first time.

We may not be able to keep "the bomb" out of our community but we can 
keep it from exploding -- through abstinence, education and spirituality.

Elmon W. Prier is a veteran educator and minister.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman