WAR AGAINST KILLER DRUG

It's a kid killer -- a destroyer of grade schoolers and high
schoolers foolish enough to toy with the ancient opiate known as heroin.

But area police say that, despite the risks, kids convinced of their
own immortality continue to be captured by the "creature" some call
Skag; Smack; White Boy; Junk or Dead on Arrival.

That's why Wilmington police -- alarmed by the surreptitious spread
of heroin into the community's youth culture -- are hosting a public
meeting 6 p.m. Monday at the Mar Theater to boost awareness and forge
a homegrown defense.

Among the speakers slated to share the stories of heroin horror that
has shattered their lives will be two Kankakee area moms.

Kim Kleinert of rural Chebanse is the mother of a 17-year-old son
whose life has become a seemingly endless string of treatment center stays.

And a Kankakee mom, who wishes not to be unidentified, says a heroin
overdose killed her 19-year-old son who, while dying, was dropped off
on her stoop by one of his drug acquaintances.

"I wanted to learn everything I could about heroin addiction,
thinking I could fix him," Kleinert told The Daily Journal during an
earlier interview.

"Then I moved to the realization that I can't fix him. He's got to
fix himself."

Her son began, as many of its newest users do, ingesting junk by snorting it.

Fastest Growing Abuse

Remarkably, he and others who inhale the drug imagine they're somehow
immune from addiction.

The opposite is true.

According to Drug Abuse Recognition Training, "the fastest growing
drug of abuse in American high schools is heroin."

The drug training regime adds that "many wealthy communities across
the country are reporting high school overdose deaths from heroin, a
shocking trend in teenage drug use."

Now, the threat of drug overdose deaths has escalated as dealers are
boosting the "horsepower" of smack with the powerful drug Fentanyl, a
synthetic painkiller 80 times more potent than morphine. Two recent
Grundy County drug deaths have been attributed to overdoses of
Fentanyl-laced heroin. Half of urban heroin deaths are attributed to
it; and it caused 34 in Cook County in a year.

Scope Of Problem

Kleinert, whose son has suffered two overdoses this year and has
recently entered yet another treatment program, warns that "the area
has a bigger problem than anyone believes."

That's why she's made herself available to warn parents of the
telltale warning signs of teen heroin addiction.

She, and the anonymous mom who will speak Monday, are determined to
make their pain count for something. To fight back against the
creature that captured the lives of their sons.