Cheap cheese heroin a deadly snare for teens

Posted: 6/15/07

Cheap cheese heroin a deadly snare for teens

By George Henson

Staff Writer

DALLAS—A killer is stalking Hispanic teenagers, and it is beginning to claim a wider circle of victims, a group of Dallas-area youth ministers recently learned.

The killer drug—cheese heroin—has become a favorite of many Hispanic teens, because a single dose in a small plastic bag sells for only about $2, said Javier Rios, a drug intervention/prevention and gang consultant with the Dallas Independent School District and interim pastor of Iglesia Bautista Compañerismo Oikos.

It is a tan-colored powder usually snorted through the nose with a tube, straw or small ballpoint pen. The mixture of black tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM tablets is highly addictive and very dangerous. More than 20 deaths in the Dallas area have been attributed to the drug. And arrests for possession of cheese are on the rise, so that number may increase.

Most cheese users—and fatalities—have been Hispanic so far, but the drug’s use is spreading among Anglos.

Nobel Schear, youth pastor at Royal Haven Church in Dallas, discovered three girls in his youth group were using the drug. His initial concern sprang from the girls displaying a lethargy that wasn’t normal for them.

“I started asking myself, ‘Why are they so tired?’” he recalled. He asked their parents, but was assured they were getting plenty of rest. The next week, one of the girls was caught at the school with cheese.

While the name may sound innocuous, the drug is deadly and addictive.

“Heroin is heroin is heroin,” Schear said. And its inexpensiveness makes it easy to slip by parents.

“It’s $2 a shot. So, it’s very cheap. Most parents would not even think to ask where $2 went. So, we need to be very aware of what’s going on,” he said.

Lethargy is a definite symptom of cheese use, Rios said.

“The liver transforms heroin into morphine. That’s why these kids who are dying are not walking around then suddenly falling over. They are all laying down. These kids go to sleep and don’t wake up,” he said.

Other signs of cheese use include excessive thirst, disorientation, and a sudden change in grades or friends.

“If you see something that is totally out of place for that child, a big red flag should go up,” he said.

Rios and Schear urged youth ministers to let school counselors know they are available as a resource.

Many youth are afraid they will be arrested if they tell someone at school, but they don’t have that same fear about telling someone at church, Shear said. Alleviating that fear may help some young people come forward.

Schools are looking for churches to become more involved, Rios said. Federal funds are available to churches—especially congregations in high-crime neighborhoods—to fund programs to help, he noted. But churches have to decide if they want to tap into those funds, in light of potential church-state entanglement.

Parents also need to be more involved with their children, Rios said. His conversations with parents have shown most can’t name their children’s five best friends. “I don’t mean their street names or nicknames, but the name their mama gave them and their last names, too,” he said. They also should know the names of their teachers.

The reason most parents don’t know is because their children don’t trust them with that information. “We need to help parents get back in tune with their kids,” he said. “I believe the church is a place where people come to get healed—spiritually, physically and mentally.”