HEROIN'S NEW GENERATION: YOUNG, WHITE AND MIDDLE CLASS

During what seemed like an epidemic of urban heroin use in the 1970's, the
images of the typical addict -- strung out, nodding off on street corners,
track marks along every vein -- were so strong that they turned off an
entire generation of potential users.

Those images did not resonate so strongly in places where addicts were seen
only on television.

So when heroin became purer and cheaper in the 1990's, it took root in
predominantly white, working- and middle-class communities. That shift was
apparent last month in Brooklyn, where, the police say, John V. Zappulla, a
25-year-old from Wantagh, N.Y., struck and killed two young mothers and a
child as he sped through the streets high on heroin and cocaine.

But what is perhaps more telling evidence of heroin's growing popularity
among teenagers and young adults can be found in drug treatment centers.

At New York's state-licensed centers, the rate of admission for heroin
addiction has caught up with that of cocaine and crack in the last five
years, according to a report released in November by the National Drug
Intelligence Center. Over all, 32,000 people of all ages were admitted to
state treatment centers last year for heroin addiction, up from 29,000 in 1997.

People 25 and younger account for a larger share of these growing numbers;
they were 12 percent of admissions, or 3,840 people, last year, up from 10
percent of admissions in 1997. Several state-licensed treatment centers are
grappling with how to respond to the increased demand.

Costs are an issue. Adolescents in New York City used to qualify for public
assistance that covered room and board during treatment. But last
September, the city began enforcing a state statute that requires a minor's
family to qualify for public assistance for those costs to be covered. In
many cases, families earn too much to qualify for aid, but cannot afford
treatment.

The treatment programs themselves have had to be tailored to the special
needs of the young. It is harder, counselors say, to make young people see
the consequences of heroin use when they have not seen others suffer from
it, the way older users often have.

"The message has been lost," said the president of the American Association
for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, Mark W. Parrino. "Kids think it's O.K."

Unlike the heroin of years ago, the drug today is a cheap high. A two-gram
bag sells for as little as $10 on the street. The special narcotics
prosecutor for New York City, Bridget G. Brennan, said prices began to drop
in the early 1990's when South American drug traffickers began smuggling in
large quantities of heroin to take business from their South Asian
counterparts.

Last year, 116 pounds of heroin was seized by Ms. Brennan's special
investigations bureau, compared with 50 pounds in 2000.

The heroin that now comes into the country can be as much as 60 percent
pure, compared with less than 10 percent in the 1970's, so the high from
snorting it is longer than it used to be.

The low price and easy accessibility of heroin drew in a Brooklyn girl
named Olga, who first tried the drug when she was 16, and within months was
stealing $20 bills from her mother's wallet for a snort.

Olga, who insisted that her last name not be used, described how she woke
up "dope sick" when she could not get heroin. Although she was 5 feet 6
inches tall, her weight dropped to 80 pounds.

"I fell in love with it," Olga said. "I found something that -- it was like
me. It was weird."

Olga moved to Brooklyn from Russia when she was 13. She said that she
learned English and got good grades in school. But by her own account, she
was very shy and wanted to be more outgoing.

Drug treatment experts say that heroin, an opiate, relaxes its users while
cocaine stimulates them. Some people, especially the young, who are prone
to mixing drugs, take heroin to bring them down from cocaine highs.

Olga said heroin relaxed her and made her feel that she could fit in at
high school. She said she did not think about needles when she first
snorted heroin, but she started using them so she could save money;
injecting resulted in a longer high and meant using fewer bags. But that
did not last long. Soon she was injecting as much heroin as she had snorted.

Olga, now 20, is recovering at Dynamic Youth Community, a treatment center
in Coney Island, Brooklyn.

Also recovering there is Frank, 22, who said he accepted a friend's offer
to try heroin when he was 16 and despondent over a fight with his
girlfriend. His mother worked as a waitress and sent him to a Catholic
school. "My mom was big on no drugs," said Frank, who lives in Coney Island
and insisted that his last name not be used. "I was hiding it from her.'

Like Olga and Frank, who is Puerto Rican, many of the young people in
treatment today are white or Hispanic, treatment counselors said. In
general, young blacks seem to be resisting heroin's lure.

"One of the loudest messages to avoid heroin and crack weren't the ads, but
kids growing up seeing their moms or dads, close relatives, getting strung
out on these drug," said Bruce Johnson, who works with the National
Development and Research Institutes, monitoring drug use among arrested
suspects. "The aversion to needles is especially strong among young
minority men."

Younger heroin users have their own special treatment needs. Many still
live with their parents. Some need a high school equivalency diploma or a
college degree.

And they are often impatient, said Kenneth Bossert, director of the Drug
Abuse Research Program, a methadone clinic in Buffalo. Last year, when his
staff realized that young people were leaving the clinic after just six
months of treatment, it began weekly group therapy for young users with an
emphasis on guided peer counseling.

Two years ago, a program for 18-to-23-year-olds was started at a methadone
clinic in Hauppauge on Long Island. The program, which began with 26 young
people, now treats 80, said Willard Campbell, the clinic administrator of
Suffolk County's Department of Health Services.

Weekly therapy is offered to parents, who are often struggling with their
own feelings of guilt and denial, Mr. Campbell said, and outdoor events and
arts projects are provided for young people.

Since addiction ate up part of their childhoods, Mr. Campbell said, "many
kids were deprived of these normal joys of life."