By Sujata Dand, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-631978.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Sujata Dand, Reporter: Dressed in tucked white shirts and khaki or navy pants - 6th, 7th, and 8th graders line up to pass through the metal detectors at Edward H. Cary middle school in northwest Dallas. More than 90% of the students here are Latino. Investigators believe the school - sandwiched between wealthy Preston Hollow and a working class Hispanic neighborhood - may have been one of the first targets for drug dealers selling cheese. That's the street name for black tar heroin cut with cold medication. So, far almost 40 students have been arrested at Cary for having the drug.
Angela: Well one of my homeboys was using it one day and he offered me some so I asked him what it was and he was like its cheese. And, I was like well, what's that. And he's all like well, you want to try it? I was curious, and I wanted to try it, and I did.
Dand: Angela is 14 years old. She was 13 when she first snorted cheese. She picks the thick black mascara off of her eyelashes as she describes how the drug made her feel.
Angela: It made me feel different. It didn't make me feel like a different person. It just made me feel like not plain. If I wasn't doing it like before I just felt normal, ya know. But, I wanted more, something different in me
Dand: The drugs made her feel special. Angela says she could buy cheese-heroin for as little as 2 dollars a hit at school or from dealers just a few blocks away on the streets of her neighborhood.
Angela: During class I would fall asleep on the desk because I was so cheesed out. That's how we call it when we're high and intoxicated, and um, I would just like pass out and then they would have to wake me up because I would be like be asleep on the desk and it would be time for me to go.
Dand: Since 2005, more than 2 dozen teenage deaths in Dallas County have been linked to cheese-heroin. More recently the drug has invaded surrounding suburbs.
Hemm: Cheese has been what heroin has been called for a long time.
Dand: Michelle Hemm is the director of the Phoenix House in Dallas, a residential drug treatment facility for adolescents.
Hemm: I think the thinking is that cheese is this new invention and it wasn't mixed with Tylenol, it wasn't mixed with anything .I think what brought attention to this is how massively it hit the school system.
Dand: Hemm says drug dealers may have initially focused on middle school students, but found an untapped market among elementary school children. She's seen addicts as young as 8 years old.
Hemm: These kids should be playing with Legos and they're using heroin. And, a lot of them the scary thing about this drug is that many of the kids we've seen have never even smoked pot. They're going straight to using this drug.
Dand: Doctors say the powdery substance is highly addictive and kids build up a dependence needing more and more just to get that same euphoric high.
Dr. Collin Goto, Children's Medical Hospital: We've seen kids who have stopped breathing, we've seen kids who have had seizures, who've had brain damage from lack of oxygen.
Dand: Dr. Collin Goto is a toxicologist at Children's Hospital in Dallas. He's used to seeing a couple of drug cases a week in the ER now that school is back in full swing - he expects those numbers to rise.
Dr.Goto: The drug is mainly distributed in the schools, and I thing there's probably a higher incidence during the school year when kids are congregating at schools, there's more peer pressure, the drug is more available.
Dand: Dallas school officials are worried too that the drug's popularity will continue to increase. They've already seen it spread to more than a dozen campuses.
Paige Marsh, Dir. Of Safe and Drug Free Schools, Dallas ISD: When there's anything going on in the community, the school serves as the face of the community because that's where the community is meeting
Dand: Paige Marsh is the director of safe and drug free schools for the Dallas independent school district. She says the district has re-directed funds to focus on additional counseling for kids and preventive drug programs.
Marsh: No matter where you live, small town, big town, you're going to have environmental factors and pressures So you have ups and downs, and a lot of emotional issues. But, I think what we really need to look at is in some cases there are some unhealthy children and behaviors in kids that are seeking out some of these drugs in order to feel better.
Daisy: I was real little when I first started using drugs. I was like 13.
Dand: Now, Daisy is 17 years old. She nervously plays with her gold cross necklace as she describes how her drug use escalated.
Daisy: I started with marijuana, and then I went to promethazine, and then I went to xanax and then cocaine and then cheese. It wasn't like you have to do it. I just kind of chose to do it. At first, I was just doing it to do it. But there were like problems in my house, and I don't even want to be around it. I don't want to be remembering all of that.
Dand: Daisy's father is addicted to cocaine. A Dallas school counselor helped her to seek treatment. Daisy says she did it for her mom.
Daisy: I didn't like it. She already had a husband that was an addict, and she told me herself oh, that's just great, I have a husband that's an addict, now I've got a daughter that's an addict. Isn't that just great. Isn't that a wonderful family. And, that got to me.
Dand: Three months after our interview, Daisy is clean and sober taking classes at a community college. Angela continues outpatient counseling and says she stays away from her friends who use drugs. For KERA News, I'm Sujata Dand.