CLUB DRUGS SIDETRACK YOUTH

Akron Officials Tackle Growing Trend Among Teens

Against a backdrop of increasing use of club drugs and heroin, Akron's
Community Drug Board is opening a new prevention and treatment center
for youth.

The Community Health Center, as it will be called, will provide
complete medical and social services for adolescents with
substance-abuse problems and their families in Summit and Portage counties.

Ted Ziegler, the board's chief executive, and Summit County Sheriff
Richard Warren were to announce plans for the center at a press
conference today. It is expected to open on July 1, in a building at
725 E. Market St., to be renovated by the drug board.

Cost of the center, which was not disclosed prior to the press
conference, will be paid by the drug board without the need for new
taxes, Ziegler said.

Warren specifically underscored the threat of "the increasing
attraction of what we call the club drugs." He said five illegal
drugs, including ecstasy, which are popular in adult dance clubs, are
now being used by teen-agers.

Warren cited the New Year's Day death of 18-year-old Heather Woodard
of Rootstown. Summit County Medical Examiner Marvin Platt ruled that
Woodward died of an accidental drug overdose after she took ecstasy
and became sick the night before at a party in Akron.

Her former boyfriend, Eric C. Eagle, 19, who was charged with
aggravated trafficking for allegedly giving her that drug, will go to
trial on May 2 in Summit Please see Drugs, B4 Drugs

Heroin-Induced Deaths Are Rising, Official Says

The National Institute on Drug Abuse recently reported to Congress on
the "alarming increases in the popularization of some very dangerous
substances known collectively as club drugs." In addition to ecstasy,
these drugs include LSD and methamphetamine, whose use federal drug
experts said has increased dramatically among adults in the greater
Akron area.

Addressing The Problem

Club drugs in company with the "continued use of marijuana, cocaine
and the increasing usage of heroin have placed our kids in danger as
never before," Warren said. "Yet with all that we know of this threat
to teen-agers, the treatment that we have been able to offer to date
has been limited."

Ziegler said that in terms of treatment in Ohio, "the emphasis has
been on the adult population." There are about 96,000 people in
treatment programs in the state, but fewer than 10 percent are 12 to
17 years old, he said.

"When one compares that statistic to the fact that adolescents use 35
percent of illicit drugs sold in this country," he said, "the
tremendous need for effective adolescent treatment is obvious."

Although statistics on the use of heroin by young people in the Akron
area are not readily available, the drug's use among adults has risen
steadily over the past five years, federal and local narcotics
investigators said.

"We're seeing an increase in heroin-induced deaths," said Capt. Craig
Gilbride, head of the Akron Police Department's narcotics unit.

Platt said locally heroin probably induced eight of nine deaths by
accidental overdose from opiates in the last quarter of 1999 -- a
sharp increase from the five recorded in the last three months of
1998. Heroin shows up in the body as morphine, of which it is a derivative.

"Most people who die with morphine in their system have probably used
heroin," Platt said. "You get too much (morphine) in your system in a
given time or moment . . . you stop breathing."

Potent, Dangerous Trend

Experts said it is likely that with an influx of heroin in the area, a
purer form is now available. That can make the drug much more potent
and dangerous to take, according to Gilbride and Jim Hummel, the agent
in charge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's Cleveland
office, which covers the Akron area.

Hummel said as the market for heroin increases, its price goes down
and the quality goes up -- its purity has increased from about 5
percent in the 1980s to about 40 percent today.

Its use also is becoming more socially acceptable.

"In the old days we thought just of some junkies using it," Hummel
said, "and now movie stars and other celebrities use it, so it
increases the problem."

Ed Carter, a spokesman for the Community Drug Board, said the use of
all drugs runs a broad spectrum of class and age.

He noted that the number of persons treated by the drug board for
heroin addiction has risen rapidly over the past four years -- from 45
clients in 1995 to 320 today.

"Statistics say your clinics will treat about 15 percent of the
population of users," Carter said, "and I've been saying for the past
year we have a silent heroin addiction in the county. It doesn't get a
lot of notice."

He cited national studies that found that "the majority of the people
who are taking on heroin as a drug of abuse today are in the ages of
14 to 17."

Spokesmen for Edwin Shaw Hospital and Oriana House, which operate
treatment centers for adolescent drug abusers, said they have not seen
young people with major heroin problems at their facilities.

"The main drugs of choice for kids (are) marijuana and alcohol," said
Carol Simpson, Edwin Shaw's director of chemical dependency.

But Edwin Shaw has seen an increase in adult heroin addicts being
admitted for detoxification.

These adult heroin users may be driven to treatment due to a breakdown
in their personal lives, such as loss of jobs or children due to
neglect, Simpson said, "or sometimes bad heroin gets into the area and
they aren't getting the same effect from the drug they used to get and
they come in to be detoxed."

This group of drug users normally doesn't want to be completely
rehabilitated, she said.

"They come in to be detoxed just to feel physically better -- then
they go back out after a number of days and weeks and start using
again," she said. "It's a powerful, powerful drug and addiction."