38 people arrested in Washington area drug dealing ring…..  

It is nightmare on Elm street for many Washington suburban families as The Washington Post reported nearly 40 people have been arrested across Northern Virginia this week on charges of dealing heroin and prescription drugs as part of a large-scale investigation to battle what officials said is a dramatic increase in drug use and addiction among young people in the Washington suburbs.

The sting in this particular incident targeted drug dealers ranging from 18 to 54 years old, with police in those areas  reporting it was "alarmingly easy" to find and buy the drugs in suburban homes, retail store bathrooms, gyms, grocery stores and pharmacies. This shouldn’t be a surprise, ask any high school kids, they can tell you what is going. According the recent 2009 Monitoring the Future survey of thousands of kids across the country prescription drug abuse is more prevalent than street drugs.  

Police state kids are taking powerful painkiller prescription drugs such as Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycontin at parties and migrating to street drugs like heroin when the prescription drugs are hard to come by.

Drug addiction is a hellish nightmare for anyone, unfortunately prescription drug addiction is now hitting home for these Washington families in a deathly way. What should be a concern for parents and officials is street drugs such as heroin are actually easier to come by than the prescription drugs. In the 2009 MTH survey the biggest percentage of kids abusing prescription drugs were obtained via doctor’s prescription or from family or friends. This should tell you a few things, street drugs like heroin and cocaine are not leaking into the country, they are pouring in, and pharmaceutical grade prescription drugs are more valuable than street drugs. 

It took just three short years for the 26 year old Mindy Weakly, a beautiful young Washington area suburbanite to drown in the sea of drug addiction. She died on a concoction of drugs with her dealer and had become addicted prescription drugs after being injured in a car accident at 17. Her close friends and family had watched negative behavior such as “nodding off” in public for quite some time apparently not knowing what they were seeing or what to do until she “hit bottom”. This girl’s mother even met with her drug dealers to pay off a $300 debt, she was so distraught and caught up in the living nightmare of her daughter’s drug addiction.

This is tragic incident and it should be known drug interventions are the key and successful well over 90 percent of the time when done by a professional. Drug addiction can get so out of hand, parents get confused, and it’s like the entire family becomes addicted and play a part in the nightmare, like this poor woman who actually went out and bought drugs for her daughter.  

Across the country, the use of prescription drugs heroin has led to a significant increase in overdose deaths. The Medical Examiners office in Virginia reported a 91 percent increase in such deaths, from 384 to 735, from 1999 to 2008. In 2008, heroin and prescription narcotics accounted for at least 71 percent of all overdose deaths in Virginia.

My heart goes out to the families who have lost loved ones to drug or alcohol addiction, something has to be done about all those who are profiting from this nightmare. Someone has to take responsibility for the drowning deaths in the sea of drugs that are available to the nation’s youth, both illicit and prescribed.