PARENTS CONFRONT DEADLY HEROIN MIX

'We're Declaring War On A Drug That Is Killing Our Children'

Parents and community leaders, concerned about a cheap and deadly
drug that has invaded a cluster of northwest Dallas schools, demanded
Wednesday that school and police officials take the problem more
seriously. Their meeting was prompted by the death of 15-year-old
Oscar Gutierrez, a Marsh Middle School student who was found dead in
bed Sunday morning at his apartment on Harvest Hill Road after a
night of partying. While toxicology tests won't be finished for
weeks, his family told police he frequently used cheese - a mixture
of black tar heroin and Tylenol PM - and overdosed on it a year ago.

Oscar's funeral was Wednesday. He is thought to be the fourth youth
to die from the drug since spring of 2006.

"We're declaring war on a drug that is killing our children,"
community activist Carlos Quintanilla said in opening Wednesday's
meeting, which he organized. "We need parents to identify those who
are selling this to our children. We have a responsibility to protect
our kids' futures."

Nora Tello, 18, who said she heard about Wednesday's meeting on the
radio, said her brother, a student at Thomas Jefferson High, recently
overdosed on the drug. "He's got three months in detox," she said.
"The schools don't do enough about it."

Officials at the meeting warned that cheese may soon eclipse
marijuana as the drug kids are most often arrested for possessing on campus.

113 Cheese Arrests

So far this school year, 113 students have been arrested for
possessing cheese, compared with about 130 arrested for marijuana,
said DISD police Officer Jeremy Liebbe, who has been tracking cheese
use since the drug first showed up in schools locally about two years
ago. Last school year, 90 students were arrested with cheese, he said.

Since September 2005, about 200 criminal cases involving students
caught with cheese have been filed, according to a district
spokeswoman. The youngest student caught with the drug was an
11-year-old in elementary school. "This is a really dangerous and
highly addictive substance," said Rosemarie Allen, DISD's associate
superintendent for student support and special services. Nearly all
the students caught with the drug have been at Marsh and Cary middle
schools and W.T. White, North Dallas and Thomas Jefferson high
schools, said Officer Liebbe.

"It's a huge problem," he said after attending a spirited meeting of
mostly Hispanic community leaders and parents at a northwest Dallas
Golden Corral on Wednesday afternoon to discuss strategies to combat
cheese. In response to the cheese crisis, DISD police plan to have a
hotline set up early next week. Callers can provide anonymous tips
that will be recorded and investigated by detectives with DISD police
and the Dallas Police Department.

At $2, cheap, deadly About 50 parents, students and community leaders
attended Wednesday's meeting. Some expressed frustration that the
district was acting too late, but all who spoke demanded action.

"Why did it take six months for a hotline to get set up when The
Dallas Morning News had stories about this?" said an irate Synbad
Ontiveros, a local radio DJ who also runs a Web site on Latino
culture. "DISD is trying to keep this hush-hush."

Deputy Chief Gary Hodges acknowledged that the district only recently
has come to see cheese as a serious threat.

"All of us wish that we could have done more," he said. "We didn't
know what it was" when it was first detected in the fall of 2005.
Chief Hodges said that last school year arrest numbers were not
alarming at first. But as arrests began piling up this school year,
the scope of the problem became obvious.

"We've been working long hours to catch up," he said. At the rate
officers are catching kids with the drug, which sells for about $2
per hit, the problem could get much worse, Officer Liebbe said. "This
form of heroin is much cheaper, so it's almost as easy to get as
marijuana," he said. "If you smoke too much marijuana, you'll pass
out. If you smoke too much heroin, you will die."

Identifying drug Possession of less than a gram of the drug is a
third-degree felony that can result in up to two years in prison,
DISD police officials said. Up to 4 grams can add five years to that,
and anyone caught with 4 or more grams can be prosecuted as a dealer
and charged with a first-degree felony, punishable by at least five
years in prison, and up to life.

However, any student who asks for help combating an addiction to the
drug will not be prosecuted, DISD police said.

DISD police say they don't have the equipment that can quickly
identify a suspicious substance as cheese, and that has hampered
their efforts to combat its spread. Processing a sample through the
Drug Enforcement Administration's lab in Dallas takes weeks, Chief
Hodges said, and tests have to be completed before charges are filed.

Chief Hodges announced at the meeting that the testing equipment
costs $50,000, prompting an impromptu fundraising drive, with people
excitedly pledging to help.

Vicky Mancillas has an 8-year-old son at Cabell Elementary who will
attend Marsh Middle School. And she wants something done.

"I'm worried that my son falls prey to drugs," Ms. Mancillas said.

Staff writer Tawnell D. Hobbs and Vanesa D. Salinas of Al Dia
contributed to this report.