Monday, April 11, 2011

Milwaukie High student, 17, dies from apparent heroin overdose

Article Author name(s): Nichole Dungca Title of article: Milwaukie High student, 17, dies from apparent heroin overdose Title of journal: The Oregonian Date of publication: Monday April 4th, 2011 http://www.oregonlive.com/milwaukie/index.ssf/2011/04/milwaukie_high_student_17_dies_from_apparent_heroin_overdose.html Key Points: Well, here’s a quick eye opener to students, teachers, parents, family members and friends of kids who use drugs. Students these days are not simply experimenting with alcohol and marijuana, but rather are more and more frequently experiment with other drugs such as pill, cocaine, meth and heroin. A seventeen year old junior at Milwaukee High School was found dead at his home on Friday due to a heroin overdose. Compared to the 1990’s deaths due to heroin overdoses have gone way down, but Oregon still sees about ninety deaths annually. Of all deaths very few are minors, but the impact is still great when they tragically occur. Drug experts speculate that some reasons that heroin is becoming more popular among young people are because 1) Meth use and it’s production has been “cracked down on” by the government, 2) because heroin is much less expensive that popular prescription drugs and is often much more potent and 3) because there is so much pressure on kids to fit in with the older crowd. Relevance: This article indicates that fellow students were aware of this boys drug use and noticed a decline in his interests and behaviors. I must assume that teachers and other adults, his parents included, noticed also, but nobody thinks that children as young as 15, 16 and 17 would be experiencing such deep drug use. I think we prefer to believe that teen angst, depression or just growing pains are the culprit to much of the offbeat behavior we see, and really we need to be taking a closer look into these kids’ lives to ensure that we avoid scenarios like this one.

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