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."