Heroin: The demon among us

Welcome to Livonianeighbors.com. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. To ensure your privacy, never use personal information in your screen name or email address ("janedoe@hotmail.com" or "Billysmom" for example).

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Heroin: The demon among us; Novi Observer
Topic Started: Mar 19 2009, 04:44 PM (81 Views)
D2ns	Mar 19 2009, 04:44 PM Post #1
Advanced Member Posts: 132 Group: Members Member #117 Joined: May 18, 2007	http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20090319/NEWS13/903190419/1030 Heroin: The demon among us http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20090319/NEWS13/903190413/1030 By Kelly Murad • STAFF WRITER • March 19, 2009 A charcoal drawing dated Christmas 2003 hangs on the dining room wall of Suzanne Okun's Country Place condominium, outlining the face of a 15-year-old boy who had his whole life ahead of him. He was a straight-A student who wore the No. 50 for Wildcat football. A boy who had aspirations of becoming an attorney. But, if you look closer, behind the almond-shaped eyes and charming smile, is a troubled boy whose last years of life were spent battling the demons of addiction. “He hadn't gotten in trouble yet, but you could see that was where he was heading,” Okun said of the sketch. Joshua Charles Short, or “Joshie” as Okun says when referring to her only child, died Dec. 11, 2008, of a drug overdose. He was 20. “Josh was brilliant. You'd never know the kid was an addict,” Okun said. “He had that charismatic personality, he could hide anything.” According to Novi police Chief David Molloy, Short was one of five heroin-related deaths in Novi since 2006. “The kids, they're not snorting heroin, they are actually injecting it,” he said. “Kids are traveling with candles, spoons ... anything they can use to melt the heroin down.” Okun refuses to hide the truth of her son's death. “I'm not going to let my son's memory just fade away,” she said. Shooting up Heroin is a highly addictive, illegal opiate drug, which users snort, smoke and inject, to achieve a feeling of euphoria. According to the National Drug Threat Assessment for 2007 issued by the National Drug Intelligence Center, there is little change in the overall amount of heroin use, but an increasing number of high-school and college-age students abusing the drug. “My first 10 years on the bench, I saw maybe two heroin cases. This week alone, I've seen four,” said 52-1 District Court Judge Brian MacKenzie. “It's more fashionable than it was five years ago. My guess is that heroin is becoming cheap again, and there's been an increase in production. “It used to be an urban drug, but now it's a suburban drug too.” The 52-1 District Court handles cases from Novi, Commerce, Wixom, Walled Lake, South Lyon, Milford, Highland and Wolverine Lake. Studies show a common effect of heroin is the addiction itself. A tolerance to the drug develops, causing users to take more heroin to achieve the desired euphoric effect. “I've heard people say kids take it once and they're hooked,” Okun said. From gateways to graves Less than one year before Josh's tragic death, another Novi mother, Sandy, lost her 20-year-old son, Kyle, to a heroin overdose. Kyle, whose last name is being withheld for anonymity, died Jan. 26, 2008. Josh and Kyle were friends. They both began experimenting with gateway drugs at an early age. “The group of kids are not stereotypically how you would think of heroin users to be,” said Claudia Walter of Novi Youth Assistance. “These were good kids, these were your neighbors and at some point the drugs took over.” Kyle, who was an avid hockey player, began smoking marijuana and drinking after losing his father to cancer at 15. By 16, he had his first run-in with the law and received a minor in possession citation. “Sometimes we're criticized for arresting kids for MIPs, but we see a trend of kids starting with these gateway drugs and it seems the progression is to go to heroin,” Molloy said. “It doesn't mean that every kid that drinks a beer is going to end up addicted to heroin.” In Josh's case, he too received a minor in possession early on, and was prescribed medication while on probation. “We had the suspicion he was dabbling into things, but not in excess, and certainly not into harder drugs,” Okun said. “The whole idea is in an affluent community you don't think your kids are going to get involved with this stuff.” Kyle also abused prescription pills, which is what Sandy believes led to the heroin addiction. “No child starts off using drugs with the expectation that they'll get addicted to heroin,” said Novi High School guidance counselor Donna Roemer. “It starts off often times with the pills, the Vicodin, the OxyContin.” Along with the painkillers, Molloy said the anti-anxiety medication Xanax is another prescription drug abused by young adults. “I'm concerned about heroin, but I'm more concerned about prescription drug abuse,” he said. “That is something parents need to be cognizant of.” Certified Adolescent Addiction Counselor Robin Walsh, of Henry Ford Maplegrove Center, believes prescription pills are the second most popular drug among young people today. The cost of addiction All Kyle wanted was to be normal again; the big brother to his two younger siblings. “Drugs and alcohol have taken me to some dark places, and I have experienced many hardships and severe consequences for my destructive actions,” he wrote months before he died in a paper titled “Drug Addiction,” penned for a Schoolcraft College class. “Addiction is a disease, not a flaw. It ruins lives and can leave you bankrupt, six-feet deep or behind bars.” After learning of her son Kyle's addiction through a text message, Sandy tried everything from substance abuse programs to collecting his paychecks to help him kick the habit. But the night before he died, Kyle relapsed and stole his $110 paycheck from his mother. She found him the next day with $50 in his pocket. “I say it cost him $60 to die,” Sandy said. Traces of marijuana, heroin and cocaine were found in Kyle's system. “In addition to the deadly health effects, it can also have an effect on the community because of the crimes they are committing to purchase the drugs,” said Molloy, noting addicts often commit theft and robbery to pay for their habit. “They're getting money for it somewhere.” For Josh, his addiction cost him his dreams. “He wanted to be an attorney. He would have been great,” said Okun, noting weeks before his death Josh was accepted to Wayne State University. “I think Josh always thought he could beat it, he could give it up. He made a stupid mistake.” Left behind Prior to the night of his December death, Josh had been clean since September. “I don't want to portray him as a perfect kid because he's not. He was hard to handle,” Okun said. “But finding out that he was clean, that's heartbreaking for me.” As any mother would, Okun is still trying to piece together the chain of events that occurred the last day of her son's life. “We know Josh bought heroin that day,” she said, explaining text messages from his phone revealed he didn't get high, so she thinks he did other drugs. “The combination probably put him in a coma and he crashed. “These kids and young adults think they have nine lives, they think they're infallible. (I want to tell them) ‘It's not what you do to yourselves, because you're going to be gone, it's what you do to those you leave behind.'” MacKenzie said there's a myth that heroin is not that dangerous. “Heroin takes the tightest grip and the deepest ownership. It is the scariest substance there is,” he said. “Once you start (using heroin), the wall of overcoming that addiction is so high that a lot of heroin addicts are addicts until they die.” What now? Three months after finding Josh's lifeless body on the basement floor, Okun is determined to bring awareness to parents and kids of the dangers of heroin use. “The plan is to get the community involved,” she said with hopes of forming a Novi task force to address the issue. “They need to know this is prevalent in the community.” The Novi Youth Assistance is seeking interested participants to join its drug and alcohol committee, slated for the fall, to help identify and address community needs, while promoting dialogue related to healthy decision making. “I think there's a real need for some further education in Novi,” Walter said. “I think awareness brings empowerment. If more parents are watching, our kids are safer as a community.” kmurad@gannett.com (248) 349-1700, Ext. 263


« Previous Topic · Saveouryouthtaskforce.com · Next Topic »