Officials Keep Eye On Dallas As Heroin Mix Spreads, Deaths Rise
‘Olga Sanchez thought her 15-year-old son had stopped using “cheese,” a heroin mixture making its way across the Dallas area.
But this spring, Oscar Gutierrez’s brother found him dead in bed.
“He was very purple. He was very cold, cold,” said Sanchez, who had been attending drug counseling with her son since discovering his cheese habit last fall.
The deaths of at least 18 teenagers, ranging from ages 15 to 18, have been linked to the mixture of black tar heroin — a less refined form of the drug — and Tylenol PM tablets ground into a powder. [..]
Several factors appear to be driving the popularity of cheese. Kids often buy the drug from other kids. It’s affordable, selling for about $2 a dosage. And it is usually snorted rather than injected.’
