Prosecutor Talks on Stark Heroin Reality

The statistics surrounding the growing use and abuse of heroin in Monmouth County are sobering.

And that jolt of reality is what Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni is using to startle people out of what he calls a common "collective yawn" on the subject from those who think the problem is not theirs.

Those people, he said, are typically from more upper middle class to more affluent households in and around Monmouth County.

"No one is paying attention to this epidemic," Gramiccioni told a capacity crowd of parents, students, schools staff and officials from Rumson, Fair Haven, Red Bank, Little Silver and Shrewsbury at a forum entitled "It's Time to Talk" at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School Monday night. "It's killing people in droves … People walk away thinking this is just an inner-city, lower middle class problem. I'm here to tell you it's not."

Gramiccioni pointed to the images in a music video he used to open the forum in which typical, attractive girl next door morphs into a drawn, sickly junkie who is turning tricks for drugs and then dies alone on her last high.

That girl, the acting prosecutor said, personifies Monmouth County's average young person typically thought to escape the drug plague by virtue of societal privilege. But, the drug saps its users of resilience and does not discriminate, he said.

"It's enslaving our youth," Gramiccioni told the crowd. "It is changing the morals, the ethics and the personalities of the children and young people that we grew up around and live around, regardless of what community you live in …"

The term enslaving, Gramiccioni said, means that the power of the drug on the psyche forces behavioral change,  "regardless what kind of household you were raised in or what kind of morals you might have … anything to get a fix. People addicted to heroin will do anything for that high."

And the drug's after-effects can be devastating, he said, with users ending up  HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis and more, not to mention a startlingly altered appearance.

Gramiccioni provided some stark statistics surrounding heroin use and abuse.
 
The most salient of the facts are:

• In only one year, heroin deaths of 18-25 year olds in New Jersey rose 24 percent, and most of the users did not start at 18;

• There have been 13 homicides so far in Monmouth County in 2013 and 37 heroin-related deaths;

• The heroin that's sold "right on the streets in this county is some of the most pure and addictive on the planet," with purity rates averaging nearly 50 percent and "we've seen samples upwards of 95 percent;"

• An average of only of five heroin addicts will go on to lead a productive life, meaning just functioning on a daily basis and carrying on with hourly employment and an average life. "Eighty percent who are addicted right out of the box are lost," Gramiccioni said.;

• 4.2 million people aged 12 or older reported using heroin at least once in their lives, and one in four who use it become addicted;

• Heroin use is not just about needles. In addition to being injected, it can be snorted, or smoked;

• The national purity average of heroin is 31.1 percent, with New Jersey's close to 50;

• Eighty percent of people who use heroin begin by using with friends, but 80 percent of addicts who overdose and die are found alone.

Gramiccioni highlighted some signs of heroin abuse, that he cautioned may be common in teens, but if noticed are still worth having a conversation about. Some of the most pivotal behaviors are: unkempt appearance, unexplained absences, change in performance, finding drug paraphernalia, change in friends kids spend time with, slurred speech, no interest in future plans, poor self image, lying and deception.

Where are kids getting heroin? Gramiccioni said that many are selling the drugs in order to finance gang activity, but the customers are everywhere, including the Two River area. And while bigger dealers may be in places like Asbury Park or Neptune, he said, neither is that far away and some are buying it there and likely selling smaller amounts or using.

He showed a picture of the collective mug shots of those arrested in the recent Hats Off sting. "The customers are people we live in and around," he said pointing to the slide of the mug shots. "They are in this community. Look at these faces, it doesn't discriminate at all …"

While heroin abuse is a sobering reality, he said the good news is that when parents communicate with their children, the children are listening. Most of the teens surveyed who did not do the drug, he said, said they did not because they didn't want to disappoint their parents.