FREE SMACK LURING OUR KIDS: TRAIL STARTS WITH DEALERS IN COLOMBIA

Cops and prosecutors trace the spreading smack scourge here back to a
calculated decision by South American drug cartels to push heroin over cocaine.

The upshot has been a flood of lethally pure smack that just about any
Massachusetts eighth-grader can buy with his lunch money.

``The old school rule where you don't sell to kids, those days are long
gone,'' lamented New Bedford Juvenile Drug Court case manager Robert McPherson.

Authorities say some local drug rings appear to be specifically targeting kids.

``The bags have symbols and colors. They are designed without question to
attract young people,'' Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett
said. ``It's frightening.''

Then there's the free samples.

``They'll give it to you free the first couple of times,'' said Earl Dandy,
director of the Boston teen rehab program Project Rebound. ``A $5 bag of
heroin? If I'm willing to sacrifice $10, I'm subject to make in the course
of your using $10,000. So what's $10?''

George Festa, director of the federal New England High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area program, or HIDTA, which coordinates law enforcement
efforts, can hardly believe how cheap and pure heroin has gotten here.

He was a DEA agent in 1994 when super-pure heroin started showing up.
Chemical testing revealed it was coming from Colombia, not the traditional
sources in South East Asia.

In the years that followed, it became clear Colombian drug cartels were
executing a disturbing new business plan to take over and expand the heroin
market here by slashing prices and hiking purity.

``It's worked,'' said Lowell Police Sgt. James Trudel, a narcotics officer
who says heroin use among young people, especially suburban kids, has grown
drastically over the last few years.

A recovering teen addict from Lynn, who agreed to share his story on the
condition his name not be used, said his years of doing and selling drugs
like OxyContin and heroin brought him in contact with peers from all over
the North Shore.

``I've met kids that come from some of the wealthiest families in
Marblehead, Hamilton, Wenham all the way down to the slums,'' he said.
``It's everywhere.''

Heroin taken off Bay State streets is consistently more than 50 percent
pure and often tops 90 percent purity, Festa said. In the rest of the
country, average purity is less than 40 percent. Years ago, heroin barely
20 percent pure sold for $30 or $40 a hit.

At today's prices, though, just about any kid can afford to tangle with
``Big Harry.''

``You pick up some money from mommy's change or go in daddy's ash tray and
pull the change out of there. Then it graduates to going into
pocketbooks,'' Dandy said.

Blodgett figures it's easier and cheaper for most teens to score smack then
to get hold of a six pack of beer.

``It's very unsettling,'' he said. ``We're seeing more and more of it in
the schools.''

The Essex County Drug Task Force made 300 heroin-related busts last year
and seized more than 21,000 single-dose bags of heroin and 2,172 grams of
pure heroin, enough for more than 65,000 additional single-dose bags.

HIDTA task forces in the greater Boston and Worcester areas scooped up
about 4.5 kilograms of heroin last year, the equivalent of roughly 135,000
doses.