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TwitThisRaves like this one in Orlando, Fla., are the place to be for suburban teens like Sarah. And while they may appear safe, many have a sinister edge: trolling the periphery of the dance floor are dealers looking to sell marijuana, cocaine, heroin and psychedelics such as Ecstasy.
That night in 1995, Sarah ended up in a motel room rented by a dealer she knew. There she saw thin white lines of a powder that she thought was cocaine laid out on a table. Only after snorting several lines was she told it was heroin.
While Sarah had never tried heroin before, plenty of kids at the raves snorted it. The high it gave the user was more powerful than almost anything, they said. Sarah already smoked pot and took cocaine and Ecstasy; in her quest for a high, she was willing to try almost anything.
But after snorting the drug, Sarah felt nauseated. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. She began to throw up. With her head spinning, she feared she was dying. Then she passed out.
Heroin is back, and it's hooking a new generation of users. Between 1991 and 1997, the number of eighth-, tenth- and 12th-graders who have tried the drug doubled.
Among these young people, heroin has a new image. It's no longer perceived to be used only by down-and-out addicts, holdovers from the drug's heyday in the 1960s. Those addicts injected the drug, but today's users mostly snort or smoke it, making heroin seem less dangerous.
In fact, say experts, heroin is even more potent and deadly than it was 30 years ago. Those who snort or smoke it risk respiratory and heart damage and potentially fatal overdoses. Teens who go on to inject the drug may additionally risk hepatitis and HIV infection. And, confirms Dr. Herbert D. Kleber, medical director of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at New York City's Columbia University, even smoked or snorted, "heroin is highly addictive."
Teenagers seem unaware of the dangers. In 1996 the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that only 50 percent of those between the ages of 12 and 17 considered heroin to be a "great risk"—compared to almost 90 percent of those over 35.
Orlando, a port of entry for South American heroin, has been among the first communities to pay the price. "Heroin has returned with a vengeance," says Linda Chapin, chairman of Florida's Orange County, which includes Orlando. "Our kids stumbled into a deadly game of thrill-seeking."
Eighteen-year-old Julie Dean lived with her mother, Mary Scattergood, in Satellite Beach, a small town on Florida's east coast. They were close, but like many teens, Julie found her hometown limiting. "This town is beat and Orlando is fun," she wrote in her journal in early 1995. She loved dancing at the raves, which she assured her mother were safe. "They're just really cool music and lights."
But in her diary, Julie told a different story. It was at the raves, Julie wrote, that she tried Ecstasy and "roofies" (Rohypnol), a sedative in the same class of drugs as Valium, but illegal in the United States. Experimenting with drugs worried her a little, but she thought she could control her use. "Just because I go to clubs doesn't mean I'm some kind of loser. I still have a job and do good in school," she wrote on March 20, 1995. "I am responsible. I 'use' drugs, but I know not to 'abuse' them."
On September 26, Julie told her mother she was going to Orlando to a club. She left home accompanied by two friends. Exactly what happened will never be known. But by the next morning, Julie was dead from a heroin overdose.
Scattergood continues to ask herself how she didn't know that her daughter was using heroin. "Part of me wishes I'd read her journal or snooped in her things," she says. "I've learned in the most tragic way possible to what extent I should have been aware of what Julie was doing."
Julie Dean's death, the area's first teen heroin fatality in 20 years, was one result of the recent influx of heroin from South America. With the drug bringing in heftier profits than cocaine, many Colombian drug producers have turned to heroin. Last year, the Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates, more than 12 metric tons of the drug entered the United States.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), some 100 rings of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Colombians are smuggling the new, more potent powder through Puerto Rico to the U.S. mainland. The San Juan-to-Orlando pipeline is one of the largest and fastest growing of the drug routes.
"Young people represent an untapped market," explains DEA agent Ric Hershey, formerly of the agency's Orlando office. "We're just seeing the start of a trend."
In Orlando, as elsewhere, the kids who are experimenting with heroin don't fit the old stereotype of a heroin user. But the drug's new victims do indicate a pattern. As with Julie Dean, most were trusted by their parents. And most had experimented with other drugs before "graduating" to heroin.
May 14, 1996, the last day of school, was the first day of a bright future for Michael Apple. He had just been voted best-looking boy in Colonial High School's Class of '96. His A-plus average showed he was one of its most promising. He also excelled in football. After practice he'd work at a restaurant before heading home to study at his mom's suburban apartment. His long days paid off: all the colleges he applied to accepted him.
But for all his good habits, Michael also had bad ones. One day his mother, Debi Gillham, came home to find her son stoned on pot. When she confronted him, he apologized, saying he'd made a mistake. "Don't worry," he assured her. "I've got it under control."
Gillham thought experimenting with marijuana was a phase for most teens and assumed her son would grow out of it. She never thought that he might be involved in other drugs. But by his senior year, Michael had begun snorting heroin. Soon he was using more and more, mixing it with other drugs to enhance the high.
On the night of May 14, he left home to celebrate his approaching graduation with his friend Ben Barrow, also 18. The boys partied hard, snorting heroin in the back seat of a drug dealer's car. Later, Michael ended up in Barrow's apartment with several other teens. No one noticed that Michael and Ben were finding it difficult to breathe. At some point Michael vomited and passed out. When someone finally called 911 and an ambulance arrived, both boys had been dead for a while.
Michael Apple became the fourth Orlando teenager to die from heroin in less than a year. His death prompted a review of morgue records, showing that the Orlando area was caught in an undetected heroin epidemic. From no heroin deaths in 1993, the toll quietly jumped to six in 1994, 20 in 1995—and 30 in 1996.
In February 1997 the tragedy was featured in the DEA's first national conference on heroin abuse. As the faces of Mike Apple, Julie Dean and other dead Orlando teens flashed across a screen, 300 drug agents and experts examined how heroin took Orlando by surprise. "These kids believe they can stop any time," said DEA administrator Thomas Constantine. "They can't. We're finding widespread addiction."
"Parents don't even consider that heroin might be a risk for their children," adds Ginna Marston, executive vice president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. "That's proving to be a fatal error. Parents must tell kids forcefully, 'This drug can kill.' "
Blocking heroin use before it starts is particularly important because of the drug's highly addictive nature. Sarah Jenkins knows. Her overdose when she first took heroin should have been a warning, but she didn't pay attention. Despite her brush with death, Sarah tried the drug again.
Finally, after Sarah began failing in school and stealing to support her drug use, her parents had her arrested for theft. She spent five months in drug rehabilitation.
Today, at 19, she's been clean for more than two years. She hopes to get back on track, but the college education her parents had saved for will have to wait: her college fund was spent paying to treat her drug addiction.
Still, Sarah considers herself lucky. Most of the 40 teens who went through rehab with her have gone back to drugs. Right now, she's not sure her life will have a happy ending. But she is certain of one thing: "I'm glad I'm still alive. Other kids can't say the same."
(*Name has been changed to protect privacy.)
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