TEENS BATTLE ADDICTION

Bay State Doubles Treatment Centers

Two years ago, Annmarie was a happy, North Shore 16-year-old, with
good grades and plans for college.

Today she is a high school dropout and a recovering heroin addict. And
all it took to get her hooked was one snort of a single,
half-inch-long line of beige powder - heroin her 18-year-old boyfriend
offered one night when they were hanging out.

"It didn't look like it could do any harm," said Annmarie, who asked
that her last name not be printed. "I just wanted to try it to see
what the big deal was."

For experts battling a burgeoning heroin problem in Massachusetts, the
"big deal" is a new report that suggests there are many more teenagers
out there like Annmarie. The study, from the state's Department of
Public Health, said that heroin has now surpassed cocaine as the top
drug on the streets, and that "anecdotal reports from police and
treatment contacts suggest that heroin snorting has increased among
high school youth."

Hoping to head off a flood of new drug addicts, the state is doubling
- - from three to six - its number of residential teen treatment
centers, with the last one scheduled to open in Western Massachusetts
this fall.

Annmarie is in the newest center, called the Rebound Adolescent and
Family Treatment Center, which sits in Boston Harbor, on Long Island.

Designed for intensive treatment of 22 teenagers, the center, which
opened in May, is already half full. And nearly half of those
teenagers are in treatment for heroin addictions, according to the
center's director.

"The kids' average drug usage before here was two years, on and off,
and they might have been using heavy for about the past two to six
months," said Earl Dandy.

The faces at Project Rebound are as fresh as the new cornflower blue
paint on the walls. Here, recovering teen addicts attend school
classes part of the day and go to one-one-one or group counseling the
rest.

The three-month program, Dandy said, is designed to add discipline and
stability to young lives that have been upended by drugs.

For Annmarie, the road to Rebound was preceeded by a dizzying six
months that included a stint at an adult halfway house - because
Massachusetts has lacked facilities for teens - and two trips through
detox.

More stable now than she has been since getting hooked on heroin,
Annmarie is finally able to dream, again, about the future.

She wants to get her high school diploma, go to college and one day
counsel others.

"I never thought I'd be sitting in a treatment program," she said. "I
always thought I'd get to graduate with my class. That was last
weekend. And I didn't get to go to my senior prom."