ESSEX DA'S RESOLVE - DRUGS NOT AN OPTION

Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett knows all too sadly the
tragic fallout from an epidemic of OxyContin and heroin use by young
adults.

Attending a wake last year for a 20-year-old overdose victim who
played football with his son, Blodgett was shaken by the ease in which
young people are becoming hooked on the powerfully addictive drugs -
often with fatal results. In the district attorney's hometown of
Peabody alone, four people died from overdoses during 2004.

"These were kids that came from good families who had no prior law
enforcement involvement," he said. "One young man I knew fairly well
because he played football with my son. I saw all these kids who had
grown up with my son crying near the casket and I thought, 'How can
this be?' "

Blodgett and Essex Sheriff Frank Cousins, along with the newly formed
Essex Anti-Crime Council, will sponsor a daylong summit this month at
Merrimack College to combat what they are calling the "Heroin/Opiate
Epidemic."

Blodgett and Cousins have stressed the problem goes far beyond
anything law enforcement can correct itself and it will take
representatives from all walks of society to get the message out to
young people that experimenting with OxyContin and heroin will leave
them addicted, at best, and dead, at worst.

The most disturbing part of the drug epidemic is the involvement of
addicts from demographics not generally associated with drug use.
Blodgett said in most instances, users are naive to how addicting
opiates are, believing they can stave off addiction by snorting heroin
or taking pills.

"We've got athletes doing it now," he said. "In past generations,
athletes would not think about doing this. There was a culture that as
an athlete you didn't take drugs or use drugs. It's a little
befuddling for people in law enforcement. You say, 'Wow, what's the
matter here? What's the disconnect?' "

The cheap price of high-potency Columbian heroin is also fueling the
epidemic. The district attorney notes a packet of heroin is cheaper -
and sometimes easier to get - than a six-pack of beer. Authorities
fear it's only a matter of time before dealers up the price for
heroin, which will undoubtedly result in a wave of property and
robbery-related crimes by junkies desperate to get money for drugs.

"It's a community problem that screams out for a response from the
medical community, educators, parents (and) kids talking to other
kids," Blodgett said. "The only way to choke the supply off is to
educate more people, especially young kids, that it's not an option.
You just can't do it, period."