LOCAL OFFICIALS PREPARE FOR "CHEESE" ARRIVAL

Local school and police officials say it is only a matter of time
before an inexpensive and highly addictive mixture of black tar heroin
and cold medicine - linked to at least 19 Dallas-area teen deaths
since 2005 - will rear its ugly head in East Texas.

Known as "cheese" because of its resemblance to Parmesan,
investigators believe it is primarily used by Hispanic males and
females between 15 and 18 years old. Children as young as 11 have also
been caught with it.

Longview police, school officials and drug prevention experts said
they are aware of the Dallas cheese problem and are trying to prepare
for its arrival.

"To date, we aren't really seeing any evidence of cheese, however,
historically what happens in the urban areas migrates to other areas,
and we need to be aware of it migrating to East Texas," said Susan
Erwin, executive director of the East Texas Council on Alcoholism and
Drug Abuse.

Police Chief J.B. McCaleb said his officers have been alerted about
cheese heroin, including its characteristics and symptoms of use,
adding that school resource police officers share information about
this and other problems with the districts they serve.

Bought for as little as $2 per dosage or "bump," the concoction
contains about 2 percent to 8 percent heroin with Tylenol PM or
similar over-the-counter medicines that contain acetaminophen and
diphenhydramine, ingredients also commonly found in crystal
methamphetamine, according to Terri Wyatt, a Dallas-based Drug
Enforcement Administration special agent.

"They call it 'cheese' so that kids won't think of it as a dangerous
drug," Wyatt said. "Drug dealers are marketing this to the younger
crowd and most kids - I don't know if they even realize it has heroin
in it."

Usually snorted through a straw or ballpoint pen, the powder causes
users to feel euphoria, lethargy, sleepiness and hunger, according to
the Dallas Independent School District Police Department.

The department said withdrawal includes everything from mood swings to
muscle spasms and can begin within a few hours of use. An overdose of
cheese can cause respiratory arrest.

Officials from the DEA and Dallas schools are puzzled as to why they
have logged 78 cheese incidents in 11 local middle and high schools,
primarily involving Hispanic teens, yet the drug has not surfaced
elsewhere in Texas or the U.S.

"We don't know if it's the black tar heroin organizations in the area
serving as a source of supply - which we are certainly working on - or
the Hispanic market that they are catering to," Wyatt said. "It's
really unusual that it's strictly being seen here as much as it's been
seen."

Dallas schools Deputy Chief Gary Hodges said it is even "more strange"
that cheese has mainly been confined to schools in Dallas'
northwestern section.

"Not only is it still not very well-known in the suburbs, it's pretty
well isolated within our own school districts right now," Hodges said.
"And as far as the primary (Hispanic) users, we think that Mexico is
the initial source of the black tar heroin, and it's being marketed in
such a way that it stays in that community here."

Even though there is a tight concentration of cheese usage right now,
Hodges said odds are good that it will eventually spread.

"Some people have compared cheese to crack cocaine," he said. "(Crack)
was an urban situation for a while, then it exploded into a nationwide
problem."

Longview Police Sergeant Keith Sloan, who heads the County Organized
Drug Enforcement unit, said local heroin incidents have historically
been few and far between.

"Heroin is kind of reclusive as far as its users - they don't usually
like to share it," Sloan said. "But it's like anything else in that
it's just a matter of time before cheese shows up here."

"We're at a point of asking questions and identifying strategies
rather than having immediate solutions," Erwin said. "This is a
relatively new issue that we as preventionists and interventionists
have run across."

School administrators from Longview and Pine Tree said, in addition to
regular communication with school resource police officers, they
regularly communicate with Dallas schools.

"Any time a drug starts to spread across our state the way 'cheese
heroin' has, it is alarming and something LISD will take very
seriously," said James Wilcox, superintendent of Longview Independent
School District. "We will be proactive in addressing this issue with
Longview police and our staff."

Pine Tree ISD Superintendent Lynn Whitaker said information sharing
with other schools and law enforcement is a "priority" in their plan
for the prevention of cheese use.

"When we first discovered cheese in 2005, we put out a law enforcement
bulletin, and every place I go now, investigators tell me they know
about cheese only because of Dallas schools," Hodges said. "Hopefully,
by getting as much information out as we can, we can prevent cheese
from becoming a problem elsewhere like it has here."

What is "Cheese"?

- - Black tar heroin combined with crushed Tylenol PM
tablets.

- - Highly addictive and very dangerous.

- - Tan-colored powder usually snorted through the nose with a tube,
straw or small ballpoint pen.

(Source: Dallas Independent School District Police and
Safe & Drug-Free Schools/ Abstinence Education
Programs)