Series: Wasted Youth -- Cases Of Neglect (Day 4 -- 2 Of 6)

DIRTY SECRET

Commentary: It's Time To Come Clean

Three days after Shannah Duggan and her unborn son died from a heroin
overdose, several addicts who knew her tried tracking down the origin
of her lethal drugs. They weren't seeking justice -- they wanted some
for themselves. If it killed her, they thought, it must be good
stuff. Strong stuff.

"That's how sick it gets," said Nick Saba, a recovering addict who
knew Shannah. "They think, 'Sure, it killed someone, but I'll be able
to handle it.'" This is the world addicts, their families and
everyone touched by the sickness of OxyContin and heroin addiction
live in. It's a world turned upside down, where the past is
forgotten, the present filled with pain, and the future out of focus
- - at best. It's a world that might seem far from where you live. As
we learned putting this four-day report together, it isn't. We're in it.

The young addicts we wrote about are our neighbors, our friends, our
sons and daughters -- they are the cheerleaders, honor roll members,
starting quarterbacks, college students. Everybody. Anybody. We met
dozens -- there are hundreds more.

They are sick -- and they are suffering. That means all of us, to
some extent, are as well.

Much of what they have to endure has been brought on by their
willingness to experiment, their ignorance of what's out there, their
flat-out stupidity. But many more share the blame for what has been
happening in this region. One hundred deaths in the last three years.
Close to 4,500 hospitalized for overdoses in this region.
Neighborhoods have been ravaged. Sports teams decimated. Families
broken. Futures lost. Still, there is little action, little
awareness, and a painful lack of treatment. In the wake of the
devastation, there is silence -- that's because of the stigma
associated with addiction. Parents of heroin addicts are ostracized,
ignored, and suffer professionally. When one person is sick with
addiction, the entire family shows the symptoms, carries the burden,
bears the scars. As a result, people aren't banding together,
publicly crying out -- and the sickness stays a secret. A dirty one.

Sadly, it's the parents of the dead who are most willing to talk,
most eager to act. They became the catalyst for this series of
stories -- but what they started, we all have to finish. No more secrets.

A sickness is sweeping through this area, stealing our children,
terrorizing our communities. Make no mistake -- we are in a war
against an unseen enemy. It's time to fight back.

It's time for parents to warn their children what's out there, what
can happen if they make the mistake of swallowing one OxyContin pill
- -- where that mistake could lead. It's time for school and health
officials to focus on the scourge that is OxyContin, and the monster
that is heroin. Heroin is cheaper than beer, and for someone
underage, easier to get -- yet many still deny it is even here. It's
time the law enforcement community treated an overdose death like the
crime scene it is -- and tracked down the origin and provider of the
poison. Many parents of fatal overdose victims said they didn't
receive one call from police once the body was gone. Not one call to
investigate. It's time for politicians to properly fund treatment
facilities -- no addict looking for help should ever be denied, as so
many are nightly. It's also time for legislators to examine what laws
can be written, or enhanced, to protect our kids. Police can charge
someone who provided lethal heroin with manslaughter, but not the
easier-to-prove negligent homicide, which they use in motor vehicle
deaths. It's time, in the end, for a full-fledged campaign against
this evil. And it's time we admit that we are all vulnerable --
heroin doesn't discriminate. It travels from person to person, town
to town, house to house. It kills and moves. Then kills again. For
years, it has traveled silently.

No more. Our children are dying.

Time to save them. Time to scream.