Easton-Redding Community Coalition

Chief Gives Sobering Message

May 19, 2005
Easton Courier Article
Larissa Lytwyn, Editor

The auditorium at Joel Barlow High School was virtually silent Monday as 350 students and parents watched an undercover officer's surveillance video of a 17-year-old girl trying to inject herself with heroin.

The video, shot a few years ago, showed the girl sitting in her parked car, struggling to inject herself with the drug. She looked like a typical teen from this area: white, casually dressed, with her hair pulled back in ponytail.

"This girl had just been in rehab," said Thomas Pasquarella, chief of Connecticut's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) division. "It was there she got the black arm band you see her using to coagulate her blood. Another addict at the rehab facility gave it to her."

The girl tried unsuccessfully to pierce one arm with the needle. She ducked her head nervously, then tried a vein on her other arm. The needle went in.

After getting her fix, the girl tossed the used needle on the ground and drove away.

The girl is not alive today, Pasquarella said. She died of a heroin overdose.

The video was part of Pasquarella's presentation at the Easton-Redding Community Coalition's (ERCC) second annual "Family University: Avoiding Risk Behaviors," where he was the keynote speaker. His message was simple: "To keep your kids safe, know where your kids are at all times. Know the what, the when, the where, and the how.

"First of all," Pasquarella told his audience, "drugs do not discriminate. They cut across all racial, generational and economic lines."

To prove his point, he showed more surveillance videos - a montage depicting people of all ages and colors, snorting crack and cocaine in broad daylight.

Another video showed a man shooting up just before getting into the school bus he drove for a living.

"We got him just before he began to drive," Pasquarella said.

Drugs More Potent

The DEA chief then provided a brief history of the types of drugs being used in the beginning of his career in 1982 versus today.

"I was in New York, and one thing that really struck me was how diverse this [drug problem] was," he said. "I was in Wall Street boardrooms; I was on the streets of Harlem."

The heroin that was on the streets in the early 1980s was generally 2 to 5 percent pure, he said. Today, it's 95 percent pure.

"Heroin is so strong now that you don't need to inject it," Pasquarella said. "You could smoke or snort it."

In fact, a single intravenous hit could be instantly lethal.

"We've seen cases where the user died before they could pull the needle out of their arm," he said.

Part of the reason for the increased potency, Pasquarella explained, was the fear of deadly diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B, that could pass through bodily fluids in shared needles.

Marijuana is also far more potent today than it was in the 1960s and 70s, he said.

Pasquarella also spoke about the changing drugs of choice.

"We are seeing a sharp increase in the use of inhalants among teens and pre-adolescents," he said. "Why? Because it's cheap and it's accessible."

These inhalants include typical household products such as aerosol sprays, glues, cooking sprays, model cement, paints and paint thinners.

Drug abusers also favor prescription medicines, including anti-depressants and anti-anxiety treatments such as Xanax.

Changing face of abusers

Another marked trend the DEA has seen is the dropping age of drug-users.

"In 1983, the age of the average drug user was 26," Pasquarella said. "Now, it's 17.7."

Moreover, girls are using heroin and other illicit drugs such as LSD and crack/cocaine as much as or even more than boys, he said.

Mental health experts attribute the trend to a higher incidence of depression in teen girls, expressed through such behaviors as eating disorders and substance abuse.

Pasquarella also sought to eradicate "the myth of the trenchcoat-clad figure lurking in the school yard."

"The providers are much more likely to be your child's friend's older brother home from college," he said.

Lethal Mixes

Overdoses aren't the only lethal consequence for abusers. According to Pasquarella, dealers mix drugs with a variety of toxic substances, including rat poison and Ajax.

Many of the popular "designer" or "club" drugs such as ecstasy, and date-rape drugs like GHB and Rohypnol, are actually derived from horse tranquilizers, he said.

One police video depicted two men mixing crack/cocaine with several household cleaners and rat poison.

Many in the audience audibly moaned at that point.

Another aspect of drug abuse Pasquarella discussed was the means by which drugs are smuggled into the country, particularly from South American nations. Often, he said, the drugs are brought in by human "mules" -young or impoverished people who swallow small balloons filled with cocaine in order to get past drug agents at airports. If any of the balloons break, the carrier can die instantly. Yet many take the chance because they are desperate for the money.

In concluding his presentation, Pasquarella said, "Sometimes parents ask me if they should worry when their child has just been 'experimenting' with drugs. I tell them, 'Would you let your child 'experiment' with Russian roulette?'"

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