WASTED YOUTH - WHAT'S KILLING OUR CHILDREN

First Of Four Parts

Deborah Pendergast woke to the snores coming from her 24-year-old
son's bedroom. And then it went silent. By the time she reached the
door, it was too late. Her youngest son, Robert Pendergast Jr., was
dead of a heroin overdose.

In the early hours of May 2, 2005, Pendergast, of East Bridgewater,
became one of the dozens of young people to die of a heroin overdose
in the region since 2004.

Young adults throughout the region who experimented with OxyContin,
the powerful prescription painkiller, are now experimenting - and
getting hooked - on heroin.

And the drug is taking a deadly hold.

Seventy-four people have died of opiate-related overdoses - including
heroin - between Jan. 1, 2004, and Aug. 31, 2006, an examination by
The Enterprise of death certificates filed in 28 local communities found.

Of those deaths:

Three out of five - or 43 people - lived in the suburbs. Twelve
people, or 16 percent, were under age 25.

Sixteen were tied to OxyContin, and its chief ingredient oxycodone,
which experts are calling the gateway drug to heroin addiction. And
the deaths are continuing. Since September, more than a dozen others
have died of suspected overdoses.

They include:

An 18-year-old Abington girl, found at home in December, six months
after graduating from high school. A 24-year-old Rockland man, found
in the woods in October three weeks after leaving a drug rehab
program. A 22-year-old Whitman man, found at home in November. A
23-year-old Hanover man, found Thanksgiving Day on his bathroom floor.

Many more have overdosed and survived.

From 2003 to 2005, 2,682 people from this region were treated in
emergency rooms for opioid-related abuse, dependency or poisoning,
according to the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy.

Those numbers tell only part of the story.

In Whitman, fire department emergency medical technicians responded
to 20 overdoses from September to November; one person died.

In Easton, the narcotic-antidote Narcan was administered in nearly
half of the overdose calls - 10 out of 21 - by fire department EMTs
last year, Easton Fire Chief Thomas F. Stone said.

And in Abington, 91 residents were treated at emergency rooms in
opioid-related cases between 2003 and 2005, according to state records.

Heroin - once seen as a problem of the urban streets - is moving up and out.

"These people are not dirt bags," said Hanover's Theresa Cairo, whose
daughter, Jill, died of an overdose at age 24. "They are intelligent,
beautiful people. It is someone who looks like your daughter. It is
someone who could be your daughter."

Desperate families are turning to the courts in increased numbers,
pleading with judges to arrest and commit their children to treatment
programs for up to 30 days. Attendance at one support group for
parents with addicted children, Learn to Cope (learn2cope.org),
doubled in three years, from 25 to 50, and nearly 300 people now log
onto their online message board.

The number of beds in drug detoxification and treatment programs
increased - along with state funding - in the past two years, and
officials say the beds are filling up as soon as they're empty. Many
entering those programs are heroin addicts in their early 20s from
middle- and upper-class, two-parent homes, who first got hooked on
OxyContin, officials say.

"It has no psychological profile, it has no socioeconomic profile,"
said Dr. Michael L. Dern, a Brockton physician who has treated young
heroin addicts.

While one national survey found the percentage of high school
students who admit using heroin at least once is dropping, the number
of college students and young adults who used the drug between 2004
and 2005 remained steady. Even more troubling for the future,
OxyContin abuse among eighth-graders nearly doubled since 2002 - from
1.3 percent in 2002 to 2.6 percent last year - raising the specter of
yet another wave of heroin addicts in the next few years.

The link between OxyContin abuse by teens and heroin addiction is a
strong one. Several recovering addicts said they got "high" on
OxyContin while in high school, got hooked, then turned to heroin
when buying the OxyContin on the street got too expensive.

"It is alarming," said Abington Police Chief David Majenski. "We have
made a tremendous amount of heroin arrests and it is not slowing down at all."

The Numbers

74 - Deaths locally from opiate overdoses between 2004 and 2006.

300 - Members registered to support-group Learn to Cope's Web site.

2,682 - People treated in local ERs for opioid-related abuse 2003-2005.

What Is OxyContin?

- -OxyContin, or OC, is the trade name for a controlled-release form of
oxycodone, the opioid prescribed for chronic pain.

- -Oxycodone is a semisynthetic morphine derivative.

- -Purdue Pharma LP began making OC in 1996.

- -OC differs from other oxycodone-based pain relievers in that it is
not mixed with acetaminophen or ibruprofen.

- -This purity allows abusers to chew, snort or inject the medication
to get an instant "high."

Source: National Institute on Drug abuse (nida.nih.gov)

What Is Heroin?

- -Heroin was first synthesized from morphine in 1874.

- -It is produced from the resin, or sap, of the opium poppy, and is a
white to dark brown powder, or tar-like substance.

- -It's mixed on the street with sugar, starch, quinine and sometimes poisons.

- -It can be smoked, snorted or injected.

Source: whitehousedrugpolicy.gov.

What Heroin And OC Do

- -Give user a surge of euphoria, or "rush."

- -Create feeling of warmth on skin, a dry mouth and heavy extremities.

- -After the rush, cause user to go "on the nod," an alternately
wakeful and drowsy state.

- -Cloud mental function and depress respiration.

- -Can cause collapsed veins, infection of the heart lining and valves,
abscesses, and liver disease over prolonged use.

Source: National Institute on Drug abuse, www.nida.nih.gov

Signs Of Heroin Addiction

- -Missing spoons, or burn marks on the bottom of spoons.

- -Belts with teeth marks on them.

- -Powder on coins.

- -Itching.

- -Sweating.

- -Pinned (contracted) pupils.

- -Weight loss.

- -Dark eye circles.

- -Track, or needle, marks.

- -Discarded cigarette filters (used to filter the heroin).

Source: Learn2cope.org

Where To Get Help:

- -To find a drug treatment program near you, call the Mass. Substance
Abuse Information and Education Hotline at 800-327- 5050, or visit
helpline-online.com.

- -For families looking for support, check Learn to Cope at
Learn2cope.org. The group meets Monday nights at the Stoughton police station.