KEEP DRUG DISCUSSION GOING

THANK YOU, Central Florida. Now, please, keep talking.
Last week was Heroin Awareness Week, and the events and
activities helped raise awareness about this lethal drug.
But this is a small beginning.

Statistics show that drug use among eighthgraders has
tripled during the past five years. The war against
drugs is a war we must not lose. Education and awareness
are critical. If everyone who reads this would commit to
talk to five children, it would be an important effort.
Consider: Heroin used to be 3 percent pure. Now it is 45
percent pure, and it is lethal.

Heroin can now be smoked, snorted or squirted. Addicts
graduate to injecting.

Heroin "junkies" are gone. Users look just like you or
the kid next door. Heroin costs as little as $10, is
highly addictive and readily available.

The 15,000 T-shirts, 6,000 posters, 4,000 bumper
stickers and other collateral materials distributed for
Heroin Awareness Week were designed to draw attention to
the problem. Middle and highschool students in Orange,
Seminole and Osceola counties saw a video and heard
curriculum designed to show the evils of heroin. But it
must not stop here, and it is your job to be certain that
it does not. Heroin is an equalopportunity killer, showing
no respect for age, race, sex, economic status, education
or religious beliefs.

The 50 Central Floridians whose deaths have been
heroinrelated represented a crosssection of our
community. Don't try to guess who is next. Tell your
children, nieces and nephews, friends, neighbors,
coworkers and anyone who will listen about this dangerous
"new" drug that has come back upon us with a vengeance.

Becky J. Cherney, Co-chairman of Heroin Awareness Week,
ORLANDO