Heroin, a scourge we must face

It looks innocuous enough: a wax-paper packet with a few ounces of white powder inside. But for a growing number of teenagers, the packet promises instant relief from their psychic pain, or, they believe, absolute coolness and widespread acceptance among their peers. What the teens fail to recognize is that the packet is really the devil in disguise and, potentially, an escape route that can — and many times does — lead straight to death’s door.

We’re referring, of course, to heroin. Once upon a time, this most insidious of opiates had to be injected and was available primarily in cities. Now it can be smoked or snorted and is widely sold on street corners and in high school bathrooms throughout Nassau County.

Because of heroin’s easy availability, and because it’s cheap ($7 or less per packet), people between the ages of 13 and 21 are trying it in alarming numbers, despite its ability to cause rapid addiction and its ravaging effects on the mind, body and soul.

Last week, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi held an urgent summit to help inform the public about the heroin scourge. We applaud the effort. Information is an important first step toward controlling — and, we hope, defeating — this epidemic.

According to knowledgeable sources, heroin makes its way across the South Shore by way of a “pipeline” that runs from Far Rockaway through the Five Towns, Rockville Centre, Baldwin, Freeport, Bellmore-Merrick and finally to the Massapequa area, where Nassau County police have reported six heroin overdoses and one death in the past year alone. Thus far this year, they have tallied 120 heroin arrests among young people. No community is untouched by this problem.

Heroin deaths among people ages 21 to 30 have skyrocketed over the past 13 years. In 1997 there were three deaths in Nassau County. In 2008, there were 17 — a six-fold increase. Each death represents hundreds of others who are abusing heroin.

The county’s Natalie Ciappa Law requires police to notify school officials when an arrest is made for heroin possession or sale within a school district. That, we hope, will give school officials the knowledge they need to help address heroin abuse on the local level.