It was like ordering takeout in Dallas: Youngsters from 14 to 20 years old hung out at a shopping center to hook up with friends who would make the run. They’d “order up,” hand over their money, and runners would be on their way. These mostly middle-class suburban kids were going to “trap houses” where they bought drugs – cocaine, pills, and the cheap, cleverly marketed form of deadly heroin called “cheese,” says the Dallas Morning News
Dealers package the drug in ways that appeal to kids – often mixing their product with whatever’s available, meaning that users don’t know the potency of what they’re ingesting. Cheese is black tar heroin ground into powder and mixed with Tylenol PM or other antihistamines containing diphenhydramine. Dealers have found that the tan-colored, snortable concoction is more appealing to youngsters than more traditional forms of heroin. Since 2005, cheese heroin overdoses have claimed the lives of at least 24 people 18 or younger in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. A local county medical examiner, citing the case of a man, 18, who died last summer, said it was no different from the many heroin deaths he has investigated since the 1980s. “It’s nothing new,” said the doctor. “It’s just a matter of what you call it.”
Link: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/093007dnmetcheese.35be181.html