Plano Officials Concerned Over Rising Use Of Heroin Mixture
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PLANO (CBSDFW.COM) - Drug abuse counselors in Plano say young people are getting high on heroin at an alarming rate.
Part of the rising popularity may be from a new dangerous way users are ingesting it.
Nighttime sleep tablets are not just for getting some shut eye. Drug counselors in Collin County say they are contributing to a surge in the use of heroin among teens.
Just a few weeks ago, a teenager who doesn't want to be identified, was a student in Plano. But he's now focused on something more important than high school.
"I went to inpatient rehab for about 10 days. i've been clean for 37 days now," says the teen.
He says he used heroin every day for a year before his body and his parents forced him to get clean.
"I would go two or three days without sleeping," says the teen.
That's because he was mixing black tar heroin with various over the counter sleeping pills that Plano drug counselor Grace Raulston says teens refer to as bust a mix.
"To make the high last little bit longer and may cut some of the sickness," says Raulston.
Raulston says she recently surveyed 800 substance abusers in Collin County and found as many as one in three are now using heroin because snorting is more appealing than shooting up.
"There's definitely a lot of that going on right no," says the teen.
The student says as many as ten classmates were using before he withdrew from school to focus on treatment.
"Are you going to be able to stay clean? Yes definitely," says the teen.
But he's still struggling with a severe sleep disorder from constant misuse of what's supposed to only be used to treat insomnia.
"If you do try get out of it as fast as you can," says the teen.
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