<p>"More and more suburban teens are turning to smack to get high, defying conventional wisdom that big, metropolitan cities are the worst harbingers of heroin.</p>
<p>Some say that while there is a lot of outreach for kids in urban areas, suburban kids slip through the cracks and are exposed to drugs their parents thought were miles away.</p>
<p>Around the nation, teen deaths from heroin use have also gone up, from just 198 in 1999 to 510 in 2009, a 157 per cent increase, according to the National Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.</p>
<p>'Kids in the city know not to touch it, but the message never got out to the suburbs,' retired Chicago Police Captain John Roberts said to NBC. 'We didnt think it would ever be a problem out here.' " ...</p>
<p>Parents from the 'burbs: Are you hearing about heroin use in your community? We can all read the statistics, but I'm wondering if you see this where you live.</p>
<p>Absolutely. We began hearing about heroin abuse among teens about 2 years ago in our community about 100 miles north of Manhattan. Our school district has run informational meetings at the middle school and high school this year to help familiarize parents with the drugs du jour, including heroin. We’ve had at least one confirmed death in our small town linked to heroin abuse and it has been implicated in at least one other.</p>
<p>From the midAtlantic Burbs: Yes, I know a few kids who have experimented, but I don’t know of any heroin related deaths. </p>
<p>And if I (a parent whose kids don’t tell everything about everything they know that happens in the county) know a couple of experimenters, it must be somewhat widespread around here.</p>
<p>Our private high school is starting drug testing this year and I fully support it. The rumor is that several kids are leaving because of it. “Hey mom and dad, can I change high schools?” This will be interesting. We had one heroin death about 7-8 years ago.</p>
<p>A boy my older daughter knew from K through 12 was a dealer in most everything, including heroin. We’re in a white, middle-class suburban community. He’s been in rehab a couple of times. Smart, in the top of the class, lots going for him. Now, not so much.</p>
<p>The nephew of someone I went to school with OD’d a couple of years back. An upper-middle class white bread city. It was commonly known - or so my daughters say - that that particular school had a huge heroin problem.</p>
<p>My best friend from childhood almost died of a heroin overdose a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>I didn’t know anyone other than him that did heroin. No one could afford it even if they wanted it. Weed is the drug where I grew up. Pills too. White suburb of Detroit.</p>
<p>I do the data for the state of Washington. The average age of folks entering treatment for heroin addiction is now 26 - it was 34 only seven years ago. About 40% started using in their teens. Even among those publicly funded (i.e. the poor), they are overwhelmingly white. </p>
<p>Our current estimate is it is likely there are 100,000 adults addicted to heroin and other opiates in our small state. Almost all of them started with prescription-type opiates. (Virtually everyone we see at our needle exchanges says s/he was addicted to opiates before using heroin.)</p>
<p>We are now dispensing NarCan kits to help users and user families reverse overdoses.</p>
<p>Heroin use is on the rise because it has gotten so cheap…a $10 bag will give you quite the high, and because its so pure kids can snort it instead of having to shoot it. Its a big bad world out there and if you think its not in your community, then you need to take your blinders off.</p>
<p>I believe that it is around in in Michigan because it makes the news now and then, but we’re not hearing much in the rural areas only about meth lab busts. Not sure if it’s in the school, but I’m def asking my rising senior. If it is he’ll know. I’m shocked that it’s a ten buck drug if that’s true.</p>
<p>Confirming Romanig. The kids just came in and I asked. One of the kids’ dad works in addiction counseling and confirmed that as far as they see it’s mostly on the eastern side of the state (Michigan). But it’s good that the addiction specialists are discussing (and good that this dad talks about things like this int he presence of the kid which clearly must happen for that kid to know that.) Heroin was nasty stuff in the 70s and it’s undoubtedly nasty stuff today. I’ll be happy when today’s kids stop romanticizing the 70s.</p>
<p>Unfortunately this does not surprise me. Yes, I know young people who have died from drug abuse. Yes, I know kids that have been in rehab, for drugs and alcohol. I know one that was specifically a heroin addict and is now in recovery.</p>
<p>As an employer, I see way too many kids who have messed up their lives BIG TIME with drugs. As a parent of young adults, I have seen some college students with drug addiction problems and deaths. However, as a parent I could ignore it, because it’s not my kids. As an employer, I see a lot of young people struggling with drug addiction. Mostly I see the ones that are trying to get clean and succeeding – but many of their friends are not so lucky, and those I just hear about.</p>
<p>IMHO drug abuse of all sorts, but heroin in particular, is the biggest problem facing this country.</p>
<p>I should have added that still far more people are dying from prescription-type opiate overdoses than from heroin. (They are essentially pharmacologically the same.) But we have seen a turn in use patterns over the past 2-3 years.</p>
<p>In our state, heroin is actually at its lowest purity in 20 years. We have no China white heroin here (which is surprising, because in British Columbia, that is most of what they see.) Mostly black tar heroin from Central America.</p>
<p>Definitely have heard of it, when i saw the headline I knew it would be another article about our town. Not even sure of the actual death count but at least four I can think if off the top of my head. These are good kids with attentive parents, it’s mind boggling. I can’t help think this is a side effect of the stress being in our high pressure high school in one of America’s Top 10 Places to Live. This place is out of control.</p>
<p>Black tar heroin from Mexico is common in this suburban mostly upper middle class area. The kids start out with oxycontin, vicodin, etc, but then switch because it’s much cheaper. 20-30 deaths in the area in the last few years under age 26, including a friend’s son…</p>