St. Charles County Holds First Heroin Town Hall

Michael Calhoun

February 22, 2012 5:47 AM

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Crime, Health, Local News, News, Syndicated Local

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WENTZVILLE, Mo. (KMOX) — The scourge of heroin is creeping westward, with Wentzville the latest area where the community is coming together to try and stop the drug in its tracks.

There was a full auditorium last night at Wentzville’s Holt High School, for St. Charles County’s first heroin ‘town hall meeting.’

The program – with testimonials from families ripped apart by the drug, coupled with presentations from authorities detailing the spread of abuse and prevention methods – mirrored similar community events held over the last several months in west and south St. Louis county. The statistics, not as bad as in those areas, but still 138 overdose deaths in five years.

Wentzville police Chief Lisa Harrison says kids are commuting to get their fix. “Many of the drug problems are comig out of St. Louis city and also Kansas City,” she said.

Harrison announced a new program to provide home-drug test kits to parents: “They test it right there in the privacy of their own home,” she explained. “They can deal with their problem, if there is one, in private.”

She says the tests aren’t limited to heroin; they test for a full spectrum of illegal drugs.

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This is great and hopefully the naive parents out there attended this. The concern here is when kids get these pills in their hands. And they can do it with relative ease! I know nobody wants to admit that their child could be using drugs, but it’s true. Kids are walking around with drugs like they are carrying bubble gum. They have no fear of neither the legal nor physical health consequences of drugs. Myteensavers counselors treats teen addicts. Many of them say that they faced very few deterrents when beginning their drug use. The say that their parents did not take an active role in pushing the anti-drug message. They also say home drug testing could have prevented them or detected early drug use. Parents need to realize that they are fueling some of these drug habits with unattended prescriptions.