STUDENTS DOWN EAST GET SERIOUS DRUG MESSAGE BAILEYVILLE - At first, the high school students whispered and giggled nervously. Then Tuesday's message turned deadly serious: Drugs kill. And the students at Woodland High School listened. They heard from the top federal prosecutor in Maine - U.S. Attorney Jay McCloskey - as well as Lt. Peter Arno of the Bangor Police Department and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency. The officials arrived with a clear message: "We are simply here to provide some education about what will happen if you go down this road," McCloskey said. Although Maine is small in population, it is the nation's second-largest consumer of the synthetic narcotic OxyContin. In Washington County alone, there are 100 suspected opiate and heroin traffickers. McCloskey is concerned enough about the problem to take his message on the road, talking with professionals and students as he crisscrosses Maine. After he spoke to students at Woodland High School, McCloskey met with law enforcement personnel and professionals in Calais, and with parents in Baileyville. For the past year, the illegal sale of prescription narcotics has increased Down East. MDEA agents, along with other law enforcement officers, recently charged eight people with drug trafficking during a sweep that netted police several hundred dollars' worth of synthetic narcotics. During the searches, police seized a quantity of Dilaudid tablets. That synthetic narcotic is frequently smuggled into Calais from St. Stephen, New Brunswick, just across the St. Croix River, or it is diverted from legitimate prescription use. A bottle of 100 Dilaudid that costs several hundred dollars in St. Stephen has a street value in Calais of several thousand dollars. Last February, the MDEA orchestrated a similar drug sweep in eastern Washington County that resulted in the arrests of 17 people on various counts of drug possession and trafficking. Arno said the problem is statewide. "Heroin and drugs like it [and] prescription drugs, OxyContin and Dilaudid, have a devastating effect," he said. Unlike other addictive substances such as alcohol, Arno said, heroin and synthetic opiates overtake the user quickly. "The progression toward addiction is so incredibly fast that before you realize you have a problem ... you will be so far down in this funnel, it will be difficult to crawl your way out," Arno said. It can easily become a lifetime battle. Arno said children as young as 14 are addicted in Maine. Between 1995 and 1997, there were three opiate overdose deaths in Bangor, and the average age was 41. During 1998-99, there were four opiate deaths, and the average age was 27. During the past year, there were 10 overdose cases and most of them were in there 20s, Arno said. "The majority of these individuals are themselves addicts who adopted a steal and-or deal philosophy. People who use opiates develop such an expensive addiction that they need to either steal to support their habit ... or they need to deal. When they deal, they get other people addicted," Arno said. The street value of a tenth of a gram of heroin is $35 to $65. Diverted pharmaceutical drugs have created another serious problem: "Prescription narcotics are being sold and abused by the same people involved with the heroin trade," Arno said. To battle the problem, Arno said, the state needs a four-pronged attack: education, demand reduction, prevention through law enforcement, and treatment. "What can you do to help spread the message?" Arno asked the students. "Spread the message that heroin and opiate prescriptions ... kill." Arno showed a tape made by police in New Castle, Del., which presented images of people's arms dotted with needle marks. A woman named Marie Allen talked about her daughter, Erin, who died as a result of an overdose. A montage of pictures of a smiling and happy child played on the screen. The daughter's addiction began when she was 15 and progressed from alcohol to marijuana to heroin. During her quest for drugs, the young woman was beaten and raped, according to the tape. After years of battling her addiction, Erin died. The last picture her mother saw of her daughter was the picture of the girl in the morgue. Tearfully, Erin's mother read from a letter her daughter had written. "Before I knew what was happening, I sold my soul to the devil," her daughter wrote of her addiction. "It's pretty scary," Woodland senior Chris White said after the presentation. "You don't think that [drugs] are around here. You think it's big city and stuff. But I think the scariest thing is it's right around here too."
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