HEROIN HORRORS

Lynn firefighter Timothy Lawrence lost his daughter, Kathleen, to a heroin
overdose in 2003.

Jeff Allison, a Peabody High School graduate, was a first-round draft pick
of Major League Baseball's Florida Marlins and bound for stardom as a
top-notch pitcher. But Allison showed up late for spring training last
year, and later that summer was rushed to a Lynn hospital after a heroin
overdose.

Their stories attracted attention, especially Allison's, and before long
other prominent and otherwise typical North Shore youngsters, including the
son of a school superintendent and a football coach's kid, were revealed as
addicts. It wasn't just a back-alley drug anymore.

"For every Jeff Allison, there are a thousand kids like him," says Lynn
Police Officer Larry Wentzell, who works in the schools. "It isn't just
about criminals and homeless people."

A packed gymnasium of educators, police officers, clergy, parents and
others took a significant step together last week in battling the
escalating toll of heroin, Oxycontin and other opiates in Essex County.

The gathering, arranged by District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett and Essex
County Sheriff Frank Cousins, was the first of many public dialogues
expected about dangerously addictive drugs that have killed dozens and
hospitalized many more across the region in recent years ("Smackdown!,"
Sunday, Nov. 23, '03).

Five years ago, Essex County became one of 13 New England counties
designated as High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas by the Office of
National Drug Control Policy.

But why here? Why now?

Heroin has rattled the region for several reasons, says George Festa,
director of the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area - high purity, low
prices and effective marketing techniques.

"It truly is a horrific epidemic and a community problem," says Blodgett.

And when users graduate from snorting the drug to injecting it, says Rev.
Rodney Hart, a recovered addict himself, the risk of getting HIV from the
needle is no deterrent.

"The power of that drug is something that captures you," he says.