HEROIN USER'S AGE SHAKES UP NARCOTICS DETECTIVES

PITTSBURGH -- Even jaded narcotics detectives were shaken when they raided
a home in a middle-class neighborhood and found a 13-year-old heroin addict
with needle marks in his arm.

The boy broke down and sobbed when Pittsburgh police Sgt. Leo O'Neill
refused to believe his story that the marks were caused by scratches. He
told O'Neill he had injected the drug seven times in a few weeks. Worse,
the child had already completed a rehabilitation program to kick the habit.

"I was sick about it," O'Neill said. "Some of the detectives who were with
me have 30 years in narcotics, and no one has ever come across a
13-year-old shooting drugs, especially one as fragile as this one. He
didn't impress me at all as a hard-core, street-smart kid."

The news is unusual in Pittsburgh, a city that prides itself on its
relatively low crime rate.

But some drug treatment experts were not surprised. Heroin's appeal is
growing for youths because it's cheaper and purer than ever, they said.

"These kids get into it earlier because they can snort it," said Dr. Scott
Golden, medical director for rehabilitation services at St. Francis
Hospital in Pittsburgh. "They rationalized that they'll never shoot heroin,
but six months down the road, snorting it isn't enough. They're hooked, and
they'll do anything. ... Their friend will die from a heroin overdose, and
they'll go through their pockets to see if there is any left."

And no communities are immune, said Ernest Batista, an agent with the U.S.
Drug Enforce-ment Administration.

"This child is an indicator of how heroin use and trafficking is continuing
to increase in the area," Batista said. "We're finding that small groups of
people are traveling to New York to score the heroin. They bring it back,
and kids get their hands on it."

Police raided the home in the Highland Park neighborhood be-cause a
neighborhood block watch group reported suspicious ex-changes that they
believed were drug sales on the street outside.

Inside, police said they found 265 stamp bags of heroin, hundreds of
tablets of prescription drugs and drug-packaging material. The boy's aunt,
Barbara Papa, 46, was arrested. Police estimated she sold $3,500 worth of
heroin each week.

The boy told police that he became addicted to snorting heroin previously,
then successfully completed a rehabilitation program. But he said he
couldn't resist the drug in the home where it was frequently used and sold.

"When you're 13, you don't really have much of a history," police Lt.
Michael Sippey said. "But this kid already has a history of heroin abuse. I
don't think we've ever seen anything like this with someone so young
becoming an IV drug user."

1998 Centre Daily Times

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski