St. Louis County Police Chief, Tim Fitch, says dealers are giving teens free samples of heroin. Sometimes teens are not told that its heroin. Once they get addicted to it, the teens start buying it from drug dealers.
This year, 69 people have died from heroin in St. Louis County. That's up from last year. And statistics show the people dying from heroin overdoses are younger than in the past.
The police chief says the heroin is coming mainly from Mexico via drug dealers in Chicago. He says Fenton is Ground Zero for heroin.
"I always ask them, how did you use this the first time?" says Fitch. "And they will almost always tell you it was in some party situation. They were already impaired by alcohol, or impaired by marijuana, or impaired by painkillers and they just took the next step."
The St. Louis County Police Department is setting an example for other departments around the country with their town hall forums on heroin. The chief gets calls from other departments about how they are educating the public. The next town hall forum is November 15th at Rockwood Summit High School from 7 to 8:30 PM.
Monday, November 14, 2011
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Although I wish Chief Fitch the best of luck in his fight I doubt that town hall meetings and other education programs will work to alleviate the problem. I’m 65 years old and was bombarded with anti drug messages on TV, at school and at home. Yet the problem persists to this day. Telling kids about the damage drugs can do won’t help keep kids off of drugs any more than telling people of all the health problems smoking can cause keeps them from smoking. We need to find out what the underlying cause is and attack that. The only way to stop drugs from entering the country is to eliminate the market for them.
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