York hosted an informative and emotional Drug, Alcohol, and Addiction forum Dec. 1 in the auditorium that mainly focused on the dangers of heroin.

Diana Smith, along with other administrators, are concerned for the the safety and well-being of their students.

“Your safety, health and well-being is the most important thing to us,”said Ms. Smith. “And we sense there is an opportunity to educate you and ourselves on an issue as critical as addiction.”

“The goal is to educate everybody about this problem, not just the parents and teachers,” said Ms. Goldman, Assistant Principal for Student Services. “We want to get the students involved as well.”

Richard Jorgensen, doctor, surgeon and Dupage County Coroner started the conversation by discussing the effects of heroin on the human body as well as the usage of such dangerous drugs in the medical field.

“Twenty-five years ago, we believed in America that nobody should be in pain,” said Jorgensen. “We [as doctors] started giving out opiates like crazy.”

“Today, eighty percent of opiates in the world are prescribed and used in America because we believed that we shouldn’t ever have pain,” said Jorgensen. “People started to get addicted to opiates because us doctors believed that we were doing the right thing.”

“As a surgeon, I cannot take someone’s kidney out or perform an operation without opiates,” said Jorgensen. “We use them in a very important way. Doctors don’t prescribe them are not horrible people. They do this because the only way we went into modern medicine was with the use of opium, morphine, and other types of drugs. However, these drugs are extremely dangerous.”

Jorgensen went on explain the effects of these drugs once they enter the human body.

“Opiates work by stimulating receptors in the brain and throughout the body,” said Jorgensen. “The longer you take the drug, the more addictive it becomes. In the same way a certain smell becomes unnoticeable after a while, your body develops a tolerance to the drugs, and so users need higher doses and develop faster ways to get the drug in their system.”

The discussion moved from what heroin does to the body physically to what the effects of heroin does to a family and/or community.

Julie Hendricks, who eldest son died of heroin, told her story about her son using the drug and how it eventually took over his life.  

“He used alone,”  Julie recalled. “He wasn’t being crazy and out of control with friends, He wasn’t having fun. He wasn’t hurting. He was surviving. He was using this drug to live he was so hooked on it.”

“He didn’t die from a heroin overdose. He died of heroin. Because there is no safe way to do heroin, no right amount. He died from that drug; he died of heroin,” she said.

Jennifer, who is a recovering heroin addict herself, also speaks out and gives some important warning signs about the usage of heroin.

“Something you want to look for: constricted pupils, constantly tired, chronic itching, vomit, diarrhea, sweating when it’s really cold out or being cold when it’s really hot out,” said Jennifer.

Steve, who has been sober for almost twenty three years, says that alcohol is a gateway to other types of drugs, including heroin.

“What these people are saying is true,” said Steve “Alcohol can lead right to heroin. Once you’re around alcohol, the other drugs do come on, and it’s hard to fight that fight when the others around you are doing the same thing your doing.”

Students who attended the forum commented after the presentations that they have never heard that heroin was such a deadly drug.

“I knew that heroin was bad like any other drug,” said Freshmen Sam Harrington. “But I didn’t know that people were taking that drug and overdosing in Elmhurst.”

The forum ended on a powerful note, with State Representative Deb Conroy saying that the truth of the matter is that passing laws and putting people in jail is only half the battle into stopping drug abuse.

“What I learned from doing these events is that we can pass laws, and we can put people in jail,” said Conroy. “And we can fight the dealers, but that’s only half the battle. The other half is choice and talking about it.”

“If you decide, you choose, you make the choice to try heroin, you are taking your life in your hands,” she said.