MILTON EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS LEARN HEROIN DOESN'T CARE HOW OLD YOU ARE

Eighth grade.

That's what took me to Milton in Rock County the other
day.

Three kids overdosed on heroin in a park in the middle of the
picturesque little town of about 5,000 people. One almost died. He
probably would have if a local heroin addict hadn't been nearby with
a drug called Narcan. Narcan is an "opioid antagonist" that police
say he used to revive the boy -- who, like his friends, was in eighth
grade.

The addict "did save this kid's life, more than likely," said Lt.
John Conger.

Thank God, I guess, for the heroin addict.

And for another kid in the park who knew enough to run and find the
heroin addict. And, while we're at it, for the well-intended folks
from Madison who now bring clean needles to this little town and hand
them out to the addicts so that, at least, they don't give one
another AIDS and die that way.

Things are upside-down in Milton, badly so.

Yes. There's irony here. This is a little town with eight churches.
There's a sign at the city limits that instructs "peddlers" to check
in with police. A flag flies in the park known as South Goodrich.
Colorful impatiens hang in nearby planters. The scoreboard near the
ball field is dedicated to a resident they called "The Popcorn Lady."

But this is more than just another unlikely place for tragedy and
stunningly poor judgment. You maybe expect people to overdose in a
remote area where nobody really keeps watch. Here, it was right out
in the open. You can see this park from the window of the police
chief's office. And parents watch, too, because part of South
Goodrich also is a playground for Milton East Elementary School.

Conger's children happen to go there.

"That is the same playground that my kids play in," he said. "I've
had to tell them, 'If you find needles or syringes on the playground,
do not touch them.'"

The principal at the school has been asking her custodian to walk
around the park in the morning before the kids arrive to make sure
none are sitting around.

Maybe, I've thought, I'm overdramatizing things because I happen to
have an eighth-grader. I thank God that my eighth-grader still likes
to go to the creek and catch frogs. I was relieved that she wanted
in-line skates for graduation. You worry about what an eighth-grader
will want next.

It's true, Conger told me, that the eighth-graders in Milton -- who
took the drugs from one of their parents -- didn't know it was heroin.

They thought it was cocaine.

No, Conger suggested, it's hard to overdramatize this. There's been a
90 percent increase in property crimes in the past year in Milton,
and a 400 percent increase in juvenile drug arrests. There have been
11 heroin deaths in the past 13 months in Rock County, and Rock is
just one of 72. A lot of users are adults, but not all. I live in a
small town in Ozaukee County. I know parents of kids who are heroin
addicts, too. Or were. One of the kids is dead.

I admire the way police are handling things in Milton. They want to
get the message out that heroin will hook you immediately. And once
it does, it will never let you go. Heroin doesn't care how old you
are, or how much longer you are supposed to live, that you are only
14. Heroin doesn't care that summer is just beginning in small towns
and big cities all over Wisconsin.

Once you take it, you are very close to the end of more than your
summer.

Even if you are only in eighth grade.