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First of three parts

Sunday, February 09, 2003

By Susan Seibel

Four years after police first noticed heroin trickling into Butler County, the public's denial phase seems to be over. As the drug claims lives in a rolling wave of destruction groups of residents are coalescing to educate anyone who will listen about the dangers of heroin and launching efforts to fight it.

	Linda Auerback founded a group called Residents Attacking Drugs in Carroll County, Md. A videotape produced by the group is being shown in countries throughout the world. (Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette) FIGHTING HEROIN Today: Getting the word out Next Sunday: Law enforcement Feb. 23: Treatment and rehabilitation

The message seems to be getting through: A Jan. 15 meeting to educate parents about heroin use among teens and young adults drew 700 to Butler Area Senior High School. Another meeting is scheduled for Wednesday.

On that night, home drug-testing kits will be sold for $15, and parents will be able to talk with experts who can answer questions about heroin use and treatment.

Parents also will see a dramatic video telling the story of a typical suburban family destroyed when son Jonathan spiraled into addiction.

If the video, named "Heroin Kills," seems particularly apt for Butler County, that should be no surprise -- it comes from a place much like Butler County and was produced by a group of parents much like the groups coming together in Butler.

In fact, one of the biggest differences between Butler County and Carroll County, Md., is that heroin hit there several years earlier, seeping north from Baltimore.

That means people there have had more time to assess the damage and find ways to fight the drug, developing programs that have drawn national and even international attention.

For the next three weeks, the Post-Gazette will examine the ways Carroll County is fighting heroin and look at how efforts made there might relate to Butler County.

Carroll County

Carroll County is about the same distance from Baltimore as Butler County is from Pittsburgh. And Baltimore has been deemed "Heroin Capital of the Nation" by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The stories of Carroll County teens driving 35 miles into Baltimore neighborhoods to buy heroin sound all too familiar. Butler County teens, according to police sources, drive to Pittsburgh's North Side for theirs.

Carroll County looks a lot like Butler County, too, demographically.

The population of 150,897 is smaller than Butler's 174,083, but both populations are overwhelming Caucasian, of German and Irish descent.

Both are rural counties that have become more suburban in recent years, with some areas serving as bedroom communities to the cities.

Both are dotted with middle- to upper-middle-class homes, with parents who work in professional careers and want to raise their children away from the city.

A closer look at Westminster, the Carroll County seat, and Butler show that both are towns founded centuries ago with main streets lined with stores nestled in solid brick buildings that characterize the strong communities.

In both towns, descendants of the families that settled the towns in the early 1800s still live there, along with others who moved in because they'd heard they're good places to raise their kids.

Radical measures

Heroin began showing up in Carroll County around 1994, and teens began to die in 1996. That puts it about three to four years ahead of Butler County.

A group of parents called Residents Attacking Drugs produced "Heroin Kills" in 1998 and released it in 1999. Word spread quickly, and the parents found themselves flooded with orders. Within six months, the video was being shown across the nation. Today, it's shown worldwide.

Linda Auerback, founder of Residents Attacking Drugs, said she never imagined that the efforts of a small group of outraged and frightened parents would have worldwide impact.

But she's had requests for "Heroin Kills" from England, South Africa, Italy, Canada and most recently Albania. What she hears again and again is that residents want to start groups like theirs but have no educational tools for parents.

"We're such a small community!" Auerback said, but the response shows that "no matter how small you are, if you band together, you can make a world of difference."

"Heroin Kills," though hard-hitting, is shown to every eighth-grader in Carroll County.

And the video is only one of several tools the organization is using to try to save local teens. Members, some of them parents who have lost children to overdoses, travel to all corners of the county, talking about heroin and drug addiction, alerting parents and school officials to the dangers.

The county has been plastered with bumper stickers, billboards, signs, and even pencils and refrigerator magnets that read "Heroin Kills." They all offer phone numbers for help. The group also has a Web site, www.heroinkills.com, packed with information.

Lt. Terry Katz, commander of the Maryland state police barracks in Carroll County, said the barrage of information is helping.

"Truthfully, I'm a realist. We're at a plateau," Katz said, noting that heroin use is no longer increasing in the county. "We haven't gotten rid of it by any means. But we've blunted it."

And they've blunted it among teens, which is the positive news that RAD was hoping to hear. Although Carroll County General Hospital's emergency room is still seeing overdoses, the number decreased from 131 in 1998 to 83 in 2002.

And even that number is misleadingly high. It's been a long time, Katz said, since anyone under 19 has overdosed on heroin, and many of the adults overdosing "are what we call 'Frequent Fliers' ... same group of addicts who are overdosing regularly and cycling through the ER."

Katz believes there are about 600 addicts using heroin and/or crack in the county now.

A four-front war

Despite his badge, Katz is realistic about the role police play.

He said those who sit back and wait for law enforcement to clean up communities will wait forever, because it takes an entire community to overcome the drug. And throwing users in jail isn't the solution to the problem.

"When we arrest someone, we hear, 'You've done your job. What a great job!' " Katz said. "But I always think, 'No, we failed. If we'd have done a great job, we would have interdicted that kid before he went to jail.' "

Katz said heroin has to be attacked on four fronts, and only one of them involves arresting offenders.

The first front is educating parents and kids about drugs. Ideally teens can be convinced not to try them in the first place. Law enforcement is the second, trying to catch those who are using and dealing.

Drug treatment programs are the third front, helping people get free of the grip of drugs. The fourth is what Katz calls "habilitation" -- teaching addicted teens who have been through rehabilitation how to live their lives without drugs.

Katz compared the overall effort to a war: To win, the community must attack on all fronts.

"Or it's like an apple," he said. "First you cut the skin, and then you start cutting pieces of the apple away. We're at the point where we probably have half an apple left."

The turning point in Carroll County's battle, Katz said, came when parents began talking about the deaths of their children. It sparked the formation of the resident group and jolted the community out of complacency. It was a key attack along the "public information" front.

"Police often get praise for being courageous, but here, there are people who have a lot more courage than any police," Katz said of the parents willing to share their stories.

A search for hope

If Butler County does, indeed, capitalize on Carroll County's lessons, much thanks will have to go to Karen Breightmyer.

It was a year ago that Breightmyer, a case manager in Butler Memorial Hospital emergency room, began searching on the Internet for something that would help stem the tide of addicts and family members showing up looking for help with heroin addiction.

"We just see so many. It's so heartbreaking," Breightmyer said. "It's almost like you don't know what to do. You feel backed into a corner with this."

She found RAD's site on one of her forays. "I saw the video and said, 'We need to get this!' We got four of them," she said.

Breightmyer passed the copies of "Heroin Kills" around to the staff, and began showing it to parents of addicts. The hospital also lends the video to anyone who wants to borrow it.

"Heroin Kills" uses actors to tell the story of Jonathan, a teen from an upper-middle class suburban family, cajoled into snorting heroin by his girlfriend's older brother, a dealer looking to expand his customer base.

Viewers watch Jonathan lose control of his life and experience the anguish of those around him.

Jonathan thought that if he only snorted heroin, he wouldn't become addicted or die, but the story ends tragically and graphically.

At the end of the video, real-life parents Shirley Andrews and Mike O'Hara give straightforward speeches on the deaths of their own children.

Andrews' son, Scott, died of an overdose just two weeks shy of his 17th birthday in 1996, eight weeks after he began drug rehabilitation.

Andrews, a school nurse, says on the video that she wishes the teens who cried at Scott's funeral had loved him enough to tell a responsible adult when he began using heroin. He might still be alive.

O'Hara's 15-year-old son, Liam, died in 1998 after snorting about $5 worth of exceptionally pure heroin through a ball-point pen shell. O'Hara knew his son had a problem with marijuana and had taken him for addiction treatment, only to be told by a counselor that the problem wasn't severe. Liam had fooled even the drug assessment counselor about his heroin use.

Three weeks later, he was dead.

Is Butler County there?

Could Butler County have its own version of Residents Attacking Drugs? It might already.

In October, an executive from Butler radio station WLER, which had run a series on heroin, met with an executive from Citizens National Bank, which was offering community drug awareness programs. They formed Butler County Against Heroin, and started inviting people from various institutions to join.

A number of Butler Memorial nurses got involved, as did Edward Fink, superintendent of the Butler Area School District. The nurses told Fink about "Heroin Kills," and persuaded him to show it at Wed-nesday's meeting.

Although the organization's first public session in January was only open to parents, students can attend the meeting Wednesday and can watch the video. It will be shown at 6:20 p.m. in the senior high school choral room, and again later, after those attending have a chance to learn about and buy drug-testing kits.

Those at the session also will be able to take part in an auction to raise money for the group. Fink said Steelers Hall-of-Famer Jack Ham -- who now runs a drug-testing business, among other interests -- will be on hand to autograph a football for the auction.

Ham won't be the only celebrity there. The former Big Boy statue that once greeted diners at the Big Boy restaurant in Cranberry will be auctioned off as well.

When Citizens National Bank bought the closed restaurant to renovate it into a bank, it inherited Big Boy as part of the deal. Now it's willing to part with the plastic commercial icon for a good cause.

Another group getting involved is Soroptimist International of Butler County. Club President Jan David of Butler Township said the professional women's group hopes to raise enough money to put copies of "Heroin Kills" at video rental stores throughout the county, so patrons can borrow them free of charge.

David said she chose the video project after watching a close friend struggle with a son's heroin addiction.

"Her son wiped out their savings account, checking account, credit cards ... everything. He's in jail now," David said.

David didn't think the school districts were doing enough to warn people and decided to push ahead herself and to get her group involved.

The Soroptimists are coordinating efforts with Butler County Against Heroin, and both groups cite the influence of county law enforcement. Several members of Soroptimist and several members of the anti-heroin group were at informational meetings held within the last two years by county Detective Pat Cannon, Butler police Lt. Tim Fennell and District Attorney Tim McCune.

There's hope

When Breightmyer ordered "Heroin Kills," she had no idea Carroll County was so much like Butler.

She was thrilled to learn that her Carroll County counterparts were not seeing teens in the emergency room from overdoes.

"This is great! I'm just so happy that I found that Web site," she said. "RAD was so helpful, so cooperative. I think they would be there to support anybody."

Though she knows nothing will stop heroin overnight, Breightmyer has faith in Butler County's residents.

"This county can do this. They can lick this problem just like other counties have."

Susan Seibel is a freelance writer.

Next Sunday: What steps have police and courts taken elsewhere in the fight against heroin? Can Butler County learn from them?