JAIL MAY BE BEST FOR TEENS ON HEROIN

Many Say Arresting Young Drug Users Is Often the Best Treatment

STOUGHTON - Heroin's grip on adolescent addicts is so strong - and
treatment is so scarce - that families are being forced to have young users
arrested just to get them help, South Shore law-enforcement officials say.
Cheap, potent, and sometimes easier to get than a six-pack of beer, heroin
is hooking South Shore teens as young as 12 or 13. A dramatic drop in state
funding for teenage rehab centers has compounded the problem. Turning in
young drug users, especially those young enough to go to juvenile court, is
among the best treatment available, according to prosecutors, police and
the mother of a heroin addict who spoke at Stoughton High School last night.

"I arrest early, and I arrest often," said Stoughton police juvenile
officer Robert Devine, who patrols the town's O'Donnell Middle School.
"Once your kids hit 17, they're adults. They're going to adult court.
They're going to be treated like adults."

While adult court often brings mandatory prison sentences for heroin
offenders, juvenile court "is all about helping them," Devine said. Several
parents and officials in attendance cited a story in yesterday's Ledger
that documented the struggle parents of addicted teens face in finding
in-patient help.

Legislators have cut the state's spending on treatment centers by one-third
since fiscal 2002, despite warnings of an epidemic.

Massachusetts spent $33.8 million on substance abuse treatment in fiscal
2003, down from $48 million in fiscal 2002.

Inpatient treatment clinics have been rendered "woefully inadequate,"
Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said. "There are hardly enough."
The Ledger story showed only 10 long-term beds are available for teens on
the South Shore and none for girls. Statewide, there are less than 50 beds
in three facilities for adolescent females, creating months-long waiting
lists for desperate parents.

Youngsters start smoking marijuana around age 11 and try heroin soon after.
The heroin being smuggled into New England is potent enough to snort rather
than inject, freeing the drug of its back-alley stigma and masking its
danger, Devine said.

"When it's snortable, they think it's harmless," he said. And while not
every teen who tries marijuana ends up using heroin, "every heroin user was
a marijuana user," he said.

At $4 a dose, they get hooked and often turn to stealing from their homes
and committing other crimes to finance their addictions, he said. The ones
who are arrested have a chance to recover, he said, but that chance
dwindles when parents hire defense attorneys to have the charges dismissed,
he said. "It sounds awful, (but) the worst thing a parent can do if a kid
gets locked up is to get them off," Devine said.

Getting caught and incarcerated basically saved Joanne Peterson's son, who
became addicted at 19 after snorting heroin with a friend's father.
Peterson, of Raynham, said she could barely stand to see him in jail, but
she said the penal system was the only thing that helped him kick the
habit. He's been clean for a year, she said, but she still fears that he'll
relapse. "I wake up every morning scared to death that we're going back
there," said Peterson, who asked Keating if she could speak during the
forum. "We're not prepared for this," she said. "The numbers are
staggering." The forum gave a bleak but important glimpse of the problem,
parents said. "The message was, you have to let go and let them hit
bottom," said Jeannine Wilson, of Middleboro.

She attended the forum with a friend, Barbara Buckley, who has a
14-year-old son much like Peterson's - a well-behaved, athletic boy.
Buckley said she doesn't suspect that he's using heroin, but she said
she'll follow the subtle warning signs, such as doodling in his school
notebooks. "Everybody always says, not my kid, not my son," she said. The
forum was the latest in a series Keating's office has scheduled to address
the crisis.

Stoughton police have arrested 12 youths on heroin charges in the past 10
months, Police Chief Manuel Cachopa said, but that doesn't mean the town's
heroin problem is any worse than other communities.

The mere fact that Stoughton's police and schools scheduled the discussion
shows that they're trying to confront the problem, Keating said. "I'm proud
that Stoughton has enough courage to hold this forum on a problem many
communities want to shy away from," he said, drawing applause from the
audience of about 100. "We're not going to bury our heads in the sand."
Audience members asked questions and raised issues. They did not identify
themselves.

Last night's lessons were alarming for a Canton woman who came to find help
for her goddaughter, who is 19 and hooked on heroin. "I felt that (they
said) the only alternative is the court system, and that's what we're
trying to avoid," she said.

Her goddaughter, who lives in Boston, hasn't been arrested, but that may
not be a good thing, the woman said.

"It's like a catch-22. You want to keep them out of the court system," she
said. "She's real young. And her life is falling apart."