good news

Massapequa, New York (CNN) — Doreen and Victor Ciappa thought they got a second chance when their 18-year-old daughter, Natalie, survived a heroin overdose last May.

Her mother recalled how, after the overdose, Natalie promised to stop using, insisting she didn’t need rehab.

“She said ‘oh no, I’m not going. I’ll get myself off it,’” Doreen said.

Doreen Ciappa says she had no idea the packets she found among Natalie’s belongings after her first overdose were actually heroin. “I had spent hours on the internet trying to figure out what they were.”

During the year before the overdose, Natalie had changed. The straight-A student, cheerleader and accomplished singer had lost weight and began seeing less and less of her old friends. She was spending a lot of time alone in her room, writing songs and poetry. She started hanging out with a new boyfriend. Soon, she was missing curfew and fighting frequently with her parents. Despite their suspicions, the Ciappas say it never occurred to them Natalie was using heroin.

Within weeks of the first overdose, she went out to a party and never came home. Natalie had overdosed again, this time fatally.

Law enforcement officials say a tiny, one-dose bag of heroin, costing $5-$10, is cheaper than highly controlled synthetic opiates like Oxycontin or Hydrocodone — and easily accessible to teenagers.

“Unfortunately, today, a bag of heroin can be cheaper than a 6 pack of beer,” said John Gilbride, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s New York Field Division.

And this cheap heroin is deadlier than ever, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.  Unlike a generation ago, when the street drug was less than 10 percent pure — today’s version can be upwards of 70 percent pure. Teenagers are snorting it, smoking it in joints, and getting hooked faster, and overdosing more.

“Try heroin once, and you may not have the opportunity to try it again,” Gilbride says.

Wayne O’Connell, Managing Director of the Daytop drug treatment program’s outreach center on Long Island, says they are seeing teens as young as 13 using heroin.

According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Threat Assessment (2009), Mexican criminal groups are expanding Mexican heroin distribution in eastern states, taking over the South American heroin market. Mexican heroin production increased 105 percent from 1999 to 2007, while Colombian heroin production decreased 47 percent during about the same period. (1999-2006)