NEW DRUG CRAZE HITS DISD

Tylenol PM-Heroin Combo May Have Caused Dallas Teen's
Death

Drug dealers are mixing small amounts of heroin with crushed Tylenol
PM tablets and selling it cheap at Dallas schools, the newest
low-cost high available to kids.

Police have found the mixture, dubbed "cheese," at 11 Dallas schools,
including several middle schools, this school year. Officials are
investigating whether the mixture played a role in the death of an
18-year-old Monday.

Dallas police narcotics Deputy Chief Julian Bernal said the drug is
not just a school district problem. He said police have met with
Dallas County prosecutors, as well as police in Plano and Richardson.

"We're seeing it in the general public," he said. "We're finding it
all over the city."

The Dallas Independent School District police have recorded 357
drug-related cases districtwide between Aug. 15 and March 1. Of
those, 78 involved cheese, district spokesman Donald Claxton said. He
said he did not know which drugs the other cases involved.

Most of the cheese cases have occurred at northern Dallas campuses.
The drug seems to be popular among Hispanic students, authorities
said. The youngest user identified by DISD police was 13. The most
potent form of the mixture found in Dallas contained 8 percent
heroin, according to a Dallas school police bulletin sent to area law
enforcement agencies.

Dallas police said they don't know the origin of the drug mixture,
which is usually snorted.

DISD police circulated a bulletin about the drug to other law
enforcement agencies last month but didn't send that information to
central office administrators, parents or schools.

"We don't regard it as the No. 1 drug issue in the district, but we
are obviously concerned about it," Mr. Claxton said. "We don't want
to create a crisis or an alarm, but we want to make other law
enforcement agencies aware of it, and alert kids who are
experimenting with it of the dangers."

Teen Found Dead

Authorities believe the new drug may have contributed to the death of
Karla Becerra, who was found dead Monday morning at her West Dallas
home in the 3700 block of Canada Drive.

About 7:30 a.m. her father tried to wake Karla for school, according
to a police report. When she didn't answer her locked bedroom door,
he climbed in through a window and found her dead on her bed.

Witnesses told police that Karla, who was to graduate from Pinkston
High School this year, had been doing cheese and drinking, according
to a police report.

It will be about a month before the medical examiner determines what
killed her.

"This is the first case we know of that this combination of drugs may
have been taken and resulted in death," said Jeffrey Barnard, Dallas
County's chief pathologist. "There was an indication that cheese is
suspected, but potential alcohol consumption is suspected, too."

Isolating a cause of death may be difficult, Dr. Barnard said. "If
you have both alcohol and heroin present, we might not be able to
separate the effects because they are both respiratory depressants.
We'll also have to look at the amounts."

Lois Jordan runs a drug counseling center in Dallas that offers
rehabilitation programs for teens, and she aided several families
that were caught up in the Plano heroin use in the late 1990s.

She said cheese sounds a lot like "a poor man's speedball," a mixture
of cocaine and heroin. The cheap, easily obtained Tylenol PM can
contain stimulants and could provide the "rush" associated with
cocaine in a speedball, she said.

"It's a unique combination that could give a rush of an amphetamine
combined with a floaty high of an opiate." She said the cheep cost of
cheese -- it's sold in small packages for between $2 and $10 -- could
entice young users.

"The marketing that these drug dealers put together is just
phenomenal," she said. "They really know how to tantalize kids and
[exploit] their risk factors."

Drugs that are cheap and accessible, she said, "will increase user
experimentation," adding that kids who start using drugs at a young
age are at greater risk of addiction.

While the mixture of heroin and Tylenol PM appears to be new, the
moniker "cheese" is not. Drug dealers and users have long used the
term for heroin and other drugs. For example, "macaroni and cheese"
is slang for a $10 bag of cocaine and a $5 bag of marijuana.

Threat Isn't Fading

Chief Bernal said the Dallas Police Department has known about the
new drug since around August.

"We didn't want to glamorize this," he said. "We initially wanted to
keep this quiet, thinking it would go away. That didn't happen."

Authorities haven't said how potent the heroin is in the cheese
they've found. The purity of different forms of heroin varies. Black
tar heroin is about 30 to 34 percent pure. A more pure form of heroin
that is commonly called "white China" is 80 percent pure or higher.

Police said cheese, even though it only has between 2 and 8 percent
heroin, is still highly dangerous.

"Heroin is dangerous in any form and in any amount," Chief Bernal
said. "Cheese has addictive properties just like regular heroin."

Staff writer Jennifer Emily contributed to this story.