WOMAN WON'T SURRENDER IN WAR ON DRUGS

As long as they are considerate enough to die in small numbers, we don't
seem to care too much.

And young people have been very thoughtful lately. We can carry on with the
illusion that the heroin scare of a while back is a thing of the past.

Belita Nelson only wishes it were true. "I know of three overdose deaths in
the last 10 days," she said over lunch Monday. "One in Allen. One in Plano.
One in Richardson." And the deaths represent only the visible tip of the
problem - the massive cancer that is drug and alcohol addiction in our
communities. Belita sees what the rest of us don't. Or won't. As founder of
the Starfish Foundation, she has become sort of a free-lance fighter in the
war on drugs. When a strung-out kid or a frantic parent doesn't know where
to turn, they often find their way to Belita. When a bureaucratic tangle or
insurance snag stands in the way, Belita goes into battle.

"I feel like I have earned a Ph.D. in the last two years. I have learned so
much," the former Plano teacher said.

Learning The Hard Way

And along the way, her heart has been broken many times. Just last week, one
of her success stories - a young woman who had appeared on TV talk shows
with her - suddenly disappeared and returned to heroin use. "Last Friday she
would have been clean for 15 months," Belita said. "That one really hurt. I
cried."

You might know Belita's story. She has been featured on several local and
national programs as the mom who sent her son to prison rather than lose him
to drugs.

The story line turned out to be not quite so simple. Her 21-year-old son,
Jason, is in drug treatment in California. He spent a year in Texas prison
drug rehab, then relapsed after three months at home. Belita refuses to be
discouraged - for her son or anyone else's. "I've had to toughen up a whole
bunch," she said. "If you want to do this work, you have to get really tough
or it will kill you." She has been learning as she goes and believes that a
Starfish chapter belongs in every city - trying to help one person at a
time, trying to unite the community against drugs.

"I want to be the next MADD," she said. "I want to pull all the pieces
together, not reinvent the wheel."

One of her latest victories is getting Jason Bland admitted, for free, into
a nine-week treatment program at the University of Texas Medical Center in
Galveston. Jason is the young man from Plano I have written about who was
severely brain damaged by a drug overdose.

It's hoped that the hyperbaric oxygen treatments will restore some of his
abilities, particularly his speech.

'A Brain Disease'

One of Belita's big goals is to banish the stigma attached to addiction.
"It's a brain disease," she said. "It's not a moral failing." Once the
stigma is gone, she believes, there will be more money for research and
treatment. And less room for denial. ("This doesn't happen to nice families
like ours." ) But she is also a hard-liner against drugs. She doesn't
believe in legalization.

"What is that going to fix?" she said. "We've got two legal drugs that cause
half a million deaths a year now. We don't need any more legal drugs." She
means alcohol and tobacco, of course.

In fact, Belita blames much of the current drug problem on the nonchalance
of baby boomer parents such as herself.

"We say we sowed our wild oats and turned out OK. So we think our kids will,
too," she said. "But the cost of bad choices has changed dramatically. "I
made bad choices, and it cost me a hangover. These kids make bad choices
today, and they wake up addicted," she said.

"Or they don't wake up."