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The number of teenagers seeking treatment for heroin abuse has skyrocketed, and the number of deaths from heroin among high school and college-age kids more than doubled from 1999 to 2009. NBC's Kate Snow reports.
Yardena Schwartz
NBC News
Chicago Police Capt. John Roberts never thought that moving to the suburbs would mean that his 14-year-old son Billy would immediately be introduced to drugs. And never did he ever imagine that Billy, a high school athlete, would even think of touching heroin.
After 33 years in the Chicago Police Department, Roberts was finally ready to retire. He couldn’t wait to move his family out to the suburbs, where he thought his kids would live in a safer environment, attend better schools and be sheltered from some of the ugly realities of city life.
But after growing addicted to prescription painkillers, Billy and his friends could no longer afford their habit. They soon turned to heroin, which they could buy for a tenth of the price of their favorite pill, Oxycontin. Billy was 19 when he died of a heroin overdose, but he wasn’t the only one of his friends to suffer that fate.
At first, Roberts couldn’t believe what was happening to his family , and that heroin could affect a good kid like Billy. But then he realized he wasn’t alone.
Across the country, heroin use is growing at an alarming rate and is affecting a surprising segment of the population.
“Kids in the city know not to touch it, but the message never got out to the suburbs,” said Roberts, who founded the Heroin Epidemic Relief Organization to help other families cope with the shock of teen heroin use. Like most parents in upper-middle class neighborhoods, Roberts said, “We didn’t think it would ever be a problem out here.”
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, initiations to heroin have increased 80 percent among 12- to 17-year-olds since 2002. In 2009, the most recent year for which national data is available, 510 young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 died of a heroin overdose. That figure was just 198 in 1999, meaning that the rate of young adult deaths caused by heroin more than doubled in one decade. Close to 90 percent of teen heroin addicts are white, data show.
Crackdown on painkiller abuse fuels new wave of heroin addiction
“Part of the problem is they don’t realize how bad it is,” said Roberts. “After Billy used it a few times, he thought he was OK, because he didn’t seem like a junkie.”
The biggest problem seems to be the connection between prescription painkillers and heroin. The opiate high that teens seek from drugs such as Oxycodone (the actual drug contained in OxyContin brand pills) may also be obtained from heroin, which is much cheaper, easier to buy, and offers users a more intense high.
“It’s hard to talk about the heroin problem without talking about the prescription drug problem,” notes Rafael Lemaitre, of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Given new research on skyrocketing prescription drug abuse, the link between opioid pills and heroin is even more alarming.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, deaths from prescription drugs tripled nationwide between 2000 and 2008. In a recent national survey on teen drug abuse conducted by the University of Michigan, one in eight high school seniors admitted to using prescription painkillers they weren’t prescribed. Overall, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, drug overdose (from both prescription and non-prescription drugs) is now the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States. Officials fear that the over-prescription of powerful painkillers and the lack of awareness about the danger associated with them could continue to fuel the problem.
“Kids are going to believe that this is not a problem, and parents are going to continue to leave their prescription opioids unattended if they don’t know about the risks,” said Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Department of Health and Human Services.
While marijuana has historically been the usual suspect, prescription pain killers are now becoming the latest and most dangerous gateway drugs.
In dozens of interviews with former young heroin addicts, NBC News found that every single heroin user had arrived at shooting up the same way: starting with expensive prescription drugs, which they purchased from friends for $20-$60. When they became too addicted to afford pills, they listened to friends who told them they could get a better, cheaper high if they used heroin instead. For $3-$10 a bag, they said, they started off by snorting the drug, never thinking that they would end up injecting it. Most of them started shooting up within weeks.
Alyssa Dedrick was an honor roll student from a nice Boston suburb, and her high school’s cheerleading captain, until she discovered Oxycontin. When she and her friends could no longer afford the pills, they tried smoking heroin. Dedrick, now 23 and fully recovered, never imagined she would ever try the drug, let alone plan on injecting it. She said she just wanted to see what it was like, but within a week she was putting a needle in her arm.
Chris O’Connor grew up in a loving Catholic family in a wealthy Boston suburb. His father works in commercial real estate, his mother is a homemaker. For a while, O’Connor was able to hide the fact that he was driving to the city on a regular basis to score heroin from dealers on the street. He earned excellent grades in high school, and even went on to study at Georgetown University, where he did pretty well at first.
“I just thought it wouldn’t affect me,” said O’Connor, who is now 27 and still recovering after more than 20 stints in treatment. “People who come from a privileged background are generally shielded from negative outcomes in life,” he said.
With the cost of prescription drugs on the rise and heroin becoming purer and cheaper, the drug that spawns fear in other generations has become more appealing to a younger set.
For teens living near major cities, heroin can also be easier to buy than prescription drugs. Rather than having to find someone who has a prescription, they can just do what Chris O’Connor did and take a quick drive into the city, where they know they can score at any hour of the day.
According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican heroin production has increased significantly in recent years, from an estimated 7 metric tons in 2002, to 50 metric tons in 2011. That sevenfold increase has made heroin more available in metropolitan areas across the country, including Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Illinois, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
For families like the O’Connors, who once considered themselves immune to heroin, the crucial difference between life and death was early recognition, treatment and constant support.
It’s taken Chris more than a decade, but he can now triumphantly say he’s been clean for at least a year. Many of the friends he once used with have not been as fortunate.
“I think ultimately what saved my life was the love of my family, being there for me unconditionally,” he said. “I had so many psychologists and therapists. The best ones weren’t the smartest ones, they were the ones who cared the most.”
Resources for addiction recovery:
Heroin Epidemic Relief Organization (HERO)
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Partnership for a Drug Free America
Nathan Weber / for msnbc.com
Spencer Leak, director of Leak & Sons Funeral Home on Chicago's South Side, stands outside St. Andrews Temple during the wake of Kenneth Jones, who was killed while allegedly trying to flee an attempted robbery on Saturday, June 9, in the Park Manor neighborhood.
CHICAGO – Business is disturbingly steady for Spencer Leak, Sr.
It’s not that he is unaccustomed to being busy. After all, he is a successful funeral home director with two locations and his family has been in the funeral business for almost 80 years.
It’s just that many of the people arriving for their “homegoing,” as the services often are called, are so young. Leak said he’s been doing upwards of 125 funerals a year for homicide victims, many of them young adults, some just teenagers, who are victims of the recent surge in violence rocking this city.
“These kids don’t expect to live a full life,” said Leak, a former executive director of the Cook County Department of Corrections. “You get about a thousand other kids who come to these funerals. They see how it’s celebrated and they think this is how I’ll be celebrated when I get shot.”
Chicago’s police commissioner has pointed to gang-related conflicts as the driving force behind the recent surge in gun deaths. From the start of this year through June 18, at least 240 people have been killed, according to the Chicago Police Department.
Just last weekend seven people were killed and 35 injured – marking the third weekend in a row with gunfire victims totaling well into the double digits. The weekend before, 46 people were hurt and eight killed across Chicago. The previous weekend, 29 were injured and three were killed in shootings.
More Chicago mayhem: 35 hurt, 7 killed in shootings
Homicides are up about 35 percent over last year at a time when violent crime nationwide is trending down. U.S. violent crime rates fell in 2011 for the fifth straight year, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data
On June 11, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) signed a new law into effect targeting gangs. The Illinois Street Gang RICO Act strengthens penalties for organized crimes. Also, police announced plans to put officers on overtime during weekends to patrol the city’s most violent neighborhoods.
“It’s a sad indictment on us,” said Leak. “The spike in crime we’re seeing now is not something that’s surprising to me. I’m talking to at least two-to-three mothers a week whose kids were killed in the streets of Chicago, and I’m just one funeral director.”
Nathan Weber / for msnbc.com
Pall bearers take the casket of homicide victim Kenneth Jones, 27, to a hearse after the funeral service at St. Andrews Temple on Chicago's South Side on Monday, June 18, 2012.
Leak believes the solution to reducing the incidence of murder is multifaceted, adding that police are doing all they can. But he cites a lack of religious upbringing among many of today’s young black men as a major factor in the plague of violence.
“We’ve got to start trying to get these kids into some type of church setting,” he said. “We’ve got to preach to kids and try to show them what they’re doing is wrong.”
‘More than just a gang situation’
That message is what Pastor Corey Brooks attempts to convey every day. This spring, he protested Chicago’s violence by perching himself atop a vacant motel across the street from his church on the city’s South Side. For 94 days, he sat in a tent on the roof, hoping to call attention to the problem while raising money to buy and raze the motel, which he has done.
Now, Brooks is walking across the country – from New York to Los Angeles – for his Project H.O.O.D. (Helping Others Obtain Destiny) initiative. He wants to build a $15 million community and economic development center in the motel’s place.
Brooks has developed a reputation for undertaking the risks of officiating funerals for suspected gang members, services which have been, on occasion, marred by further violence. He doesn’t believe the violence is simply about gangs.
“It’s more than just a gang situation,” Brooks said from Coatesville, Pa., an hour’s drive west of Philadelphia, where he was walking with about 10 people. “It’s much bigger than that. You have one of the most economically hit areas, in unemployment. You have a bunch of different social ills, no spirituality whatsoever. And violence is the result.”
A young girl's family family mourns as gang-related violence escalates in the Windy City. WMAQ's Natalie Martinez reports.
Brooks said members of his New Beginnings church are taking to the streets in the neighborhood every Friday and Saturday night, from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m. They walk around in groups and Brooks claims there have been no murders on those nights in the Woodlawn section of Chicago since they began the so-called “HOODvasions.”
“We need all hands on deck. We need all of the compassionate people we can get to get their hands on this issue,” said Brooks.
“It’s not just a black issue. This is an American issue.”
Leak agrees, calling on the president, himself a Chicagoan, to address the violence and get involved in the citywide conversation that seeks solutions.
And, he argues for tougher responses to nonviolent juvenile crimes like “stealing a lady’s purse or hubcaps,” Leak illustrated.
“If we don’t get these kids when they’re 7 or 8 years old, we’ll lose them,” he warned. “I used to get them at the jail at 17, and it was too late.”
These days the losses he gets could not be more final.
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EPA/MOHAMED MESSARA
Supporters of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi celebrate in Cairo's Tahrir Square after the Brotherhood claimed victory in the presidential election on Monday.
Analysis
CAIRO, Egypt – It could be the end of Egypt as we know it. Early, still unofficial, but credible results, show that the Muslim Brotherhood has won Egypt’s presidency.
However the military has made a series of decrees that threaten to usurp the new president’s power – setting the stage for a major showdown between the remnants of the old regime who make up the ruling military council and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Still, the biggest country in the Arab world is poised to start its first experiment in Islamic democracy.
Many Egyptians are celebrating – after all, a majority of voters elected the Muslim Brotherhood’s firebrand candidate Mohammed Morsi.
Other Egyptians are calling this a “black day” that will set back Egypt a hundred years.
Oh, that’s an exaggeration some Egyptians and Middle East analysts argue.
The Brotherhood will have to be answerable to future voters, they say.
Democracy will keep the group in check, they say.
The Brotherhood will be forced to adopt a center of the road policy, they say.
The Brotherhood is really quite moderate, they say.
Egypt will end up like Turkey, with an Islamist government, but secular laws, they say.
If Egyptians don’t like the Brotherhood, protesters can just go back to Cairo’s Tahrir Square and get rid of it, they say.
I wouldn’t count on it.
A power struggle is underway between the Egyptian military and the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which says its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, won the country's first free presidential election. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Democracy if undemocratic group comes to power?
The Muslim Brotherhood is a fundamentalist group. It is anti-American at its core, despite recently sending delegations to the United States to win friends. The Brotherhood is vehemently anti-Israel. The group is also largely anti-democratic. The Brotherhood was happy to use elections to gain power, but it believes wholeheartedly in Islamic law, the immutable rulings from God that are not subject to ballot boxes or opinion polls.
Military guards Egypt power as Islamists claim victory
If democracy brings an undemocratic group to power, is that a victory for democracy?
The Brotherhood has a few basic tenets which will likely be at the core of future policy, basic truths that shape its worldview.
They include:
On the positive side, the Brotherhood is basically a working man’s group that supports Egypt’s legions of poor, often ignored by former President Hosni Mubarak. If Mubarak's former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik had won the election, Egypt would very likely have turned violent, with an unpredictable outcome.
I also wouldn’t count on Egypt ending up like Turkey. In Istanbul, women often dress provocatively and there are bars on nearly every corner. The country is economically booming. The Muslim Brotherhood is much more hard-line than Turkish Islamists.
AP Photo/Ahmed Gomaa
Mohammed Morsi and his supporters celebrate his apparent victory in the Egyptian presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Cairo, Egypt on Monday.
Brotherhood vs. military showdown
The Egyptian military is terrified of the Brotherhood. Morsi has repeatedly said he will purge all parts of Egyptian society of “remnants” of the former regime.
The military worries that once Morsi is sworn in, he will try to imprison or at least sideline senior military officers. Sunday night, as votes were being counted showing Morsi in the lead, the military launched a controversial preemptive strike.
In a decree that is very likely illegal, the military declared that the new president does not have the authority to declare war or remove military officers. The military declared its autonomy and immunity in a blatant attempt to castrate the new president before he takes office.
The power struggle between Morsi and the military that is now under way will likely take months to sort out. Morsi and the military will battle over the parliament, the constitution and Sunday night’s decree.
While it’s too early to know who will win this showdown, it seems unlikely that the military can hang on to its self-appointed authorities – as every Egyptian knows the kinds of powers a president should and should not have.
Ahmed Youssef / EPA
Egypt's popular uprising over 18 days of popular protest culminated in the downfall of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, 2011. CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE A FULL SLIDESHOW
A new dawn
It’s a new dawn for Egypt. If the military truly feels threatened, it might stage a real coup, sending tanks into the streets, instead of what many Egyptians have called its attempted “soft coup,” through decrees and court decisions in recent weeks.
The Muslim Brotherhood talks about understanding and moderation. After declaring victory last night, Musri said he will be inclusive. Morsi wants to reassure Egyptians and Egypt’s allies that the country will remain stable. If pushed, however, the Muslim Brotherhood’s true colors will show.
Good luck, Egypt! Critical choices and potential major changes lie ahead.
Already Monday, Shafik’s campaign started contesting the early, unofficial results, as Egypt hangs in the balance.
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Some of the new regulations on banks have been eating into their profits which means they're finding new ways to make money: by charging additional fees. NBC's Lisa Myers reports.
By Talesha Reynolds
NBC News
While some banks are moving toward simpler, more consumer-friendly disclosures, others continue to hit customers with “hidden fees and deceptive practices,” according to a recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust analyzing the practices of the country's largest banks and credit unions.
The study said Americans paid an estimated $29.5 billion in bank fees in 2011.
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The Pablove Shutterbugs program is lifting spirits by teaching kids about the art of photography as they battle a serious illness. NBC's Chris Jansing reports.
By Craig Stanley
NBC News
LOS ANGELES – When Layne Simkins, 12, was diagnosed with leukemia last year, he spent a lot of time in the hospital.
And while there, in addition to receiving treatment, he also developed a new skill: the art of photography.
Through a program called Pablove Shutterbugs, Layne and other children living with different types of cancer are given a digital camera and a photography mentor for hands-on training.
Click here to learn more about Pablove Shutterbugs.
Layne, whose work was featured at the 'Gallery Show' in Los Angeles in May, credits mentor, Graham John Bell, for much of his newfound artistic insight.
"He's taught me a lot of skills -- how to hold the camera and how to keep it still when you're taking the pictures," Layne said. "He's the one who showed me that you could see the most boring thing ever and just take a picture of it a certain way, and it will just become really interesting."
Aiden / The Pablove Foundation
Kids diagnosed with cancer discover the art of photography in the Pablove Shutterbugs program.
'The world really is a beautiful place'
Layne, now in remission, has come a long way as a photographer. His mother, Wendy Simkins, said she's also noticed another kind of growth.
"It's helped him come out of his shell a little bit more," she said. "Since he's been diagnosed with the cancer, he's had a tough time, 'cause he's stuck at home. This gave him an opportunity, when he was able to go out or do things, that he can look through the lens and not really think about what was going on with himself. [He] could really think about, 'Wow. There's a whole world out there, but this is just a small part of my life that I'm battling now. But I have such a great future to look forward to. And the world really is a beautiful place."
Jeff Castelaz and Jo Ann Thrailkill reflect on the life of their son and the inspiring moments of creation born in his memory.
Pablove Shutterbugs co-founder Jo Ann Thrailkill said part of the program's purpose is to help bring a sense of normalcy to the lives of children afflicted with cancer.
"Your child isn't in school when they're in treatment and ... your life is constantly revolving around medical appointments," Thrailkill said.
Thrailkill's husband and co-founder, Jeff Castelaz, added, "We're trying to help families to get their child into a situation where they can be in sort of a school-type situation. Where they're learning something."
The program is named after the couple's youngest son, Pablo, who died in 2009 from Wilms Tumor, a rare form of childhood cancer, at the age of six. They started the Pablove Foundation in 2008 to raise money for pediatric cancer research. Three years later -- with the help of their friend Catherine Berclaz, a producer, creative director and co-founder -- the Pablove Shutterbug program was born.
Catherine Berclaz discusses the origin of Pablove Shutterbugs and its mission—to teach children with cancer how to express themselves through the art of photography.
Pablo had a strong interest in photography, often taking photos and arranging shoots with his older brother, Grady. Jeff and Jo Ann said the photos Pablo took are a strong part of his legacy today.
"What we realized about Pablo was that, when he passed away, every possible photo we could find that he took or that he was in -- became very, very precious to us," Jeff said. "The photos and videos that we found that we had never seen, really, to this day, carry a really important place in our lives."
An amazing imagination
Pablo’s passion for photography lives on in Pablove Shutterbugs, which gives its young participants an opportunity to cultivate their photographic proficiency.
"A lot of our kids are painters," Jeff said. "They like to draw, but they can't be touching those materials anymore. I think, with photography, it's something clean. It's a way for them to express themselves."
Layne's mentor, who said Layne showed "amazing creative imagination" despite battling fatigue during the early weeks of the program, says Pablove Shutterbugs gives the students a sense of control.
NBC's Chris Jansing sits down with shutterbug Layne Simkins. Layne shares some of his work and talks about his battle with cancer.
"Photography for me has always had the power to freeze a split second in time - something that will never happen again, that's it, it's history," Bell said in an e-mail. "This enables them if they wish to remove themselves outside of their current situation and play with those split seconds on their terms."
Beyond creative expression, Berclaz said the program includes educational and social components. But one topic they choose not to discuss is cancer.
"In this room, cancer has no place," Berclaz said. "We talk about photography. We talk about visuals. We talk about what colors they like. We talk about technique ... They get to talk about something else besides cancer treatment with other kids, which is a really great thing for them ... And the work they put out is astonishing."
Berclaz recalled a positive experience in which she asked one of the past program participants how he enjoyed a class session.
"I love it," the student told her. "There's no needles."
Layne, who said he often had to deal with those needles during hospital visits, was appreciative of the program. In fact, he's incorporated photography into his future.
"If I'm not, like, a photographer when I grow older," Layne said, "I'm sure taking pictures would definitely be a hobby [of] mine."
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The latest medical images can provide spectacular pictures, giving doctors and patients enormous amounts of information about a wide range of medical conditions. But doctors may have gotten overly enthusiastic about using them.
A study out Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the number of MRIs quadrupled, CT scans tripled and PET scans went up 57 percent between 1996 and 2010. The researchers tracked up to 2 million members of six large health systems in the U.S.
There is no question that before performing a surgery, for example, a doctor wants to see as much as possible. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) uses magnets and radio frequency fields to scan the body and help doctors make diagnoses of tumors, torn ligaments or strokes without surgery. A PET, or positron emission tomography, scan can be conducted alone or combined with MRI with radioactive isotopes to show metabolic activity in the body such as cancer.
The images help; the question is just how much.
“The increase in use of advanced diagnostic images has almost certainly contributed to both improved patient care procedures and outcomes, but there are remarkably few data to quantify the benefits of imaging,” radiology professor and lead author Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman from the University of California, San Francisco, and her colleagues write.
Why does it matter? The biggest reason is cost. Americans now spend an estimated $100 billion a year on medical imaging. For each patient, each procedure can cost between a few hundred and several thousand dollars. Usually doctors order them for the best of reasons, but sometimes it is defensive medicine based on the fear of lawsuits or, even worse, the need to amortize the huge cost of a piece of equipment the practice has purchased.
Another major downside of increased imaging is the “false positive,” which is the discovery of a growth or other apparent problem that presents no danger but needs to be removed -- with additional cost and anxiety.
The biggest danger with scanning comes from CT, or computed tomography. A CT scan exposes the patient to huge amounts of X-rays. One CT scan of the chest, for example, zaps a patient with the same amount of radiation as 150 old-fashioned X-rays. In their survey of medical records, the authors of the latest study found that 3.9 percent of patients were receiving an exposure or more than 50 millisieverts every year. In comparison, that is about the equivalent of the one-time amount that the Japanese government estimates that the nearby residents of the Fukushima power plant got in the hours before they evacuated.
A recent Institute of Medicine report on risk factors for breast cancer listed chest CT scans high on the list. Last week, an international study found that children who get CT scans have a slightly higher risk of later developing leukemia and brain cancer. While the absolute risk of cancer is still small, the British researchers suggested minimizing radiation exposure as much as possible.
In a separate report released by the UCSF researchers Monday, Smith-Bindman said a woman should ask her doctor these questions before getting a CT scan:
For the sake of our pocketbooks and peace of mind, we all might be well advised to ask our doctors the same questions about any medical scan we receive.
Robert Bazell is NBC's chief science and medical correspondent. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter @RobertBazellNBC
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