HEROIN KILLS

A total of 16 young people and adults died from heroin overdoses in the
Dallas-Fort Worth area the first nine months of 1997. The youngest victim
was 13. Many of the victims from Plano, a prosperous suburb north of
Dallas, were under age 20.

While many parents feel like, "it can't happen in my community," we fear
this trend is going to spread to other areas of Texas. We have two
enemies: the international drug market and public ignorance.

These are the facts. The quantity of heroin being shipped to the United
States is increasing. The purity of the drug is up and the price is being
dropped as a strategy to win new customers. And that means overdoses and
fatalities among misinformed young
users are going up as well.

Federal and state law enforcement agencies tell us drug dealers are
targeting teens and young adults from the suburbs, telling them heroin is
not addictive when it is snorted or smoked.

We need to get this message out to young people and their families: Heroin
is back. Heroin is addictive. Heroin kills.

Terry Blier
Texas Commission on Alcohol-Drug Abuse
Waco