Not your parents' pot

Detective warns parents about heroin-laced weed

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It’s not your mother’s marijuana, that’s for sure.

Detective Pamela Stark, of the Nassau County Police Department’s Community Affairs Department, tried to drive this point home to concerned parents at a drug-awareness forum hosted by the Coalition for Youth in East Rockaway on March 26. Stark sits on 11 coalitions and task forces in Nassau County.

“Weed is expensive on the street, and heroin is cheap,” Stark said, “so the pot is ‘stepped on’” with the addition of heroin. (An illicit drug is “stepped on” when it has other products or drugs added to it to increase its weight and ultimately maximize revenue for the drug dealer). Kids don’t realize that they’re becoming heroin addicts when they smoke pot, Stark said. “They feel heroic, euphoric … this has to feel good. The first time is always good … so they go back, and their dealer has another customer — and a heroin addict.”

Stark also cited a study of a group of students who said they only smoked marijuana — but 72 percent of them tested positive for crystal meth. “This is not natural, hippie-like, pure, organic weed anymore,” she added. “It’s cut with other things.”

Another of law enforcement’s biggest concern now is the abuse of prescription drugs, by children and adults alike. “It seems more respectable, because you’re paying a co-pay instead of a drug dealer,” Stark said. “But it’s a huge problem.” Oxycontin used to be used for the last stages of cancer, to control pain, she said. “It was never intended for a mouth surgery or knee pain.”

A parent and school district employee in the audience said that she had just had oral surgery that day and was given a prescription for Vicodin. “I didn’t even ask for it,” she said.

“There are really great doctors out there, but doctors are told to not let you leave [their office] in pain, or be in pain,” Stark replied.

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