HEROIN HITS UTAH'S YOUNG

Teens Die As Use Spreads Among The Middle Class

A drug with a long, ugly history in the United States seems to be making a
comeback in Utah.

But this time, heroin isn't just affecting the stereotypical junkie -- a
homeless person with no teeth and needle marks all over his arms. Instead,
it's becoming a drug of choice for the teenage boy or girl next door who
excels in school and appears to come from a stable home.

"It's an epidemic with what we've seen -- young, middle-to upper-class
kids," said Taylorsville Police Sgt. Keith Stephens. "Salt Lake has turned
into a mecca of cheap, low-grade heroin."

Arrest statistics wouldn't support the notion of an increasing drug problem
among teens, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Shane Hudson, the
supervisor of the department's school programs.

Instead, the most public indicator may be the young faces found in the
pages of the newspaper, either in the police news or the obituaries.

Since March 11, the Deseret Morning News has counted at least five cases of
teenagers or young adults dying from suspected drug overdoses. Four of
those incidents happened during a three-week period beginning in mid-June:

Zachary Tyler Martinez, 18, died of a drug overdose March 11.

A 19-year-old Cottonwood Heights resident was found dead June 15. Deputies
found the man on his bed. On his night stand they found "a small wad of
paper with a black gooey-looking substance in it" and "a syringe with blood
on the needle" in the night stand drawer, according to a Salt Lake County
Sheriff's Office report.

A 17-year-old South Salt Lake girl was found dead of an apparent drug
overdose June 26 while working at a veterinary clinic. An autopsy report
was still pending.

Amelia Anne Sorich, 18, died June 27 after allegedly taking a fatal dose of
cocaine and heroin, also known as a speedball.

A 17-year-old Salt Lake City boy died in early July. Police could not
comment on the case because it involved a juvenile. The boy's obituary,
however, requested donations be made to www.theantidrug.com, a Web site
designed to help parents talk to their children about drug use.

"We're starting to see a younger crowd starting to experiment with
hard-core drugs than what we're used to," Salt Lake City police Sgt. Ryan
Atack said. "It's disturbing. People would be surprised how bad of a drug
problem we have."

Utah County Clientele

Investigators say drug dealers and runners from Mexico are transporting
heroin to Utah and specifically targeting juveniles.

Once in Salt Lake County, detectives said, the dealers typically set up
shop in the parking lots of local stores in broad daylight. Because
Taylorsville is in the middle of Salt Lake County and has major roads
leading in and out from every direction, Stephens said many dealers stop in
his area to do business.

As Taylorsville detectives became aware of the parking lot drug deals and
began investigating them more, they discovered a lot of the cars they were
monitoring had license plates registered to Utah County residents.

"We started investigating a couple of months ago. We really had no idea how
big it was. We started finding these kids waiting in parking lots in the
middle of the day, meet someone who would then take them into neighborhoods
and sell to them," he said.

"We are seeing an unbelievable amount of Utah County kids."

Police were eventually tipped off to what was happening by alert residents
who were getting tired of seeing drug deals going down on their street.

Utah County has had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction among
teens. In 2003, the Deseret News ran a special report of how heroin was
affecting the quiet town of Springville.

Heroin has surfaced as a drug of choice among teens partly because of
economics, authorities said.

The two main drugs of concern for law enforcement among juveniles today are
OxyContin, a potent painkiller, and heroin. Narcotics officers across Salt
Lake County agree young people are getting hooked on the powerful
painkillers and then progressing to other drugs such as heroin.

"Once they get done taking the pills then they have to find a way getting
the high again," Hudson said.

And heroin is a cheaper alternative.

While OxyContin may be sold for an average of $40 per pill on the street,
Stephens said, a balloon of cocaine or heroin, the typical package used for
distribution, only costs about $10.

Teen Snitches

Utah State Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey said he hadn't crunched the
numbers, but anecdotally heroin overdoses have not risen to the level of
concern as fatal OxyContin overdoses.

"The big problem is prescription narcotics. . . . Those drugs are outpacing
illicit drug overdoses two to three to one," he said.

Atack, head of Salt Lake City's narcotics unit, said his office responded
to more Oxycontin related deaths in 2004 than fatal heroin overdoses.

Police say one possible reason for the recent spike in fatal overdoses is
that there is no content quality control with heroin, compared to
prescription drugs.

"You can't tell its purity by looking at it," said Salt Lake County
sheriff's Lt. Robbie Russo.

Young teens who haven't built up a tolerance for heroin and may be using it
for the first time can't tell the potency of a batch.

And for those teens who survive, the cost of their addiction can add up.

"It's an expensive hobby," Atack said. "They usually have to come up with
the money some way."

In an attempt to combat the apparent growing problem of teenage heroin use,
Hudson said the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office is considering a tactic
being used by some police departments in the eastern United States. Those
departments have been using grant and forfeiture money to pay off
informants in the schools.

Essentially police are paying students to snitch on their friends, he said.

Tell Someone

Some parents say a tip from a friend could have saved their children.

News coverage of the recent deaths of Amelia Sorich and Zachary Martinez
has highlighted the growing heroin problem. Their cases became known not
because they died of overdoses, but because of what happened to them after
their deaths.

Both of their bodies were dumped in remote areas by their panicked friends.

Sorich's body was dumped in the foothills of Bountiful after she died from
an apparent drug overdose June 27 while partying with friends in Draper. A
19-year-old male and an 18-year-old female were arrested for investigation
of desecration of a dead body and evidence tampering.

Martinez died of a suspected drug overdose March 11 while partying with
friends. His body was dumped at the Salt Lake County Hang-Gliding Park at
the Point of the Mountain.

The two fit today's profile of a young heroin user.

Sorich was an honors student who graduated early from Bingham High School.
She was working two jobs at the time of her death to raise money for college.

Martinez was also a straight-A student who graduated early, held a job and
passed a routine drug test for his job just before his death, according to
his mother, Georgia Martinez.

Kathy Sorich, Amelia's mother, said her daughter had never used heroin
before and she wasn't ready to say for sure that that was the cause of
death. She said she would wait until toxicology tests are completed.

A week before Martinez died, he was taken to the hospital for stomach
problems. His mother said he also seemed to be acting "confused" much of
the time. But drug tests at the hospital came back negative, she said.

"We had no signs," she said. "Nobody picked up on anything going on."

Both mothers say what bothers them most is that none of their children's
friends called them.

"You need to call an adult who can step in and do something," Sorich said.
"You're not doing your friends any favors by being quiet."

Atack added that overdose patients have a much greater chance of surviving
if someone would simply call 911 or an adult.

"(Kids) don't understand heroin overdose victims, if caught in time, can be
revived fairly easily," Atack said.

Georgia Martinez said when her son overdosed, there were adults upstairs in
the same house who could have been alerted.

"Parents have to be aware when kids have friends come over. Be aware of
what's happening," Martinez cautioned other adults.

She said her reason for speaking out now is to prevent another Zachary or
Amelia incident from happening.

"If Zack's life can even save one person," she said, "he would have been
proud of us for doing this interview."