|
Noah’s Story |
Monday, November 10, 2008 11:42 AM EST
As Oakland sees rise in heroin use, father hopes son’s
tragic death has an impact on local youths
Peter Johnston went downstairs to the family room to tell his son, Noah that the
TV was blaring and had woken him up.
The scene Peter walked into when he got down the stairs made him forget if the
TV was really on at all.
What he found was Noah unconscious and his friend beating on his chest. “I had
no doubt he was dead when we got down there,” Peter, 52, said.
He said Noah’s friend called 911 and possibly other friends before he came
downstairs. Noah, an 18-year-old recent Rochester Adams High School alumnus died
about 1:30 a.m. July 29 of a heroin overdose. It was the first time he used the
drug.
“Time is stopped for us,” Peter said. “We just keep waiting for him to come
home. It seems so weird. He just graduated. He’s 18. He’s ready to fly, he’s
going go to (Oakland Community College) and he didn’t make it out of the nest.”
A warning to teens
As Oakland County sees a rising threat in heroin, Peter is working with Judge
Julie Nicholson of the 52-3 District Court Rochester Hills to share Noah’s
story, hoping it will impact other young people and make them think about the
consequences of their actions.
Video footage shot at Noah’s funeral was used for a seven minute video narrated
by Peter, which has been integrated into a 45-minute program Nicholson does at
area high schools, called “Have to Choose.”
“It’s basically about (Noah) and how his life ended so abruptly,” Nicholson said
of the video.
Since 2005, Nicholson has spoken to students in Rochester, Lake Orion, Oxford
and portions of Avondale school districts about how the choices they make will
affect their lives.
So far, she’s done the program with Noah’s video at Lake Orion High School and
Rochester High School and will present it at Stoney Creek, Adams and Oxford high
schools early in 2009.
After the Lake Orion viewing, Nicholson said, “You could hear a pin drop. I
think they heard the message. What they do with it is up to them.”
The video has images of Noah growing up, with Peter narrating as Noah and ends
with his casket.
“As hard as that is to look at, I wanted everyone to know you aren’t supposed to
see your 18-year-old in a casket. All I can do is preach to the kids that
parents should not bury their kids,” Peter said.
At the funeral, Peter had a message for Noah’s friends.
“I told every kid, ‘Only you know where to cross the line. Don’t cross the
line.’ Every individual has a line to cross and they need to determine where
that is,” he said.
Upswing in Oakland County
As far as drugs go, that line seems to be moving in recent years.
Nicholson has been a judge for 12 years and said she’s seen more cases involving
heroin use than ever before in the past two years.
Heroin is an illegal and highly addictive drug that can be snorted, smoked or
injected intravenously. It’s processed from morphine, a central nervous system
depressant, which is extracted from poppy plants. According to the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, people who use it have an initial feeling of
euphoria followed by dry mouth and heavy extremities.
“I don’t know if it’s the access, or if the dealers are targeting suburban kids
because they know they have the means to purchase it,” Nicholson said of the
rise in users.
She said she’s been seeing more 17- or 18-year-old people in her court with
heroin involvement than before, too.
“It’s something that’s occurring so we have to let (teenagers) know it’s out
there and what the consequences are,” she said.
In Oakland County, drug investigations involving heroin have risen every year
since 2005.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said the number of heroin investigations
in the county have increased from 29 in 2005 to 33 in 2006, 42 in 2007 and is
approaching 40 so far in 2008.
“We’re seeing a lot of that activity in segments you wouldn’t expect,” he said.
Dr. Agnes Wrobel, addiction psychiatrist at Henry Ford Behavioral Health-Maplegrove
Center in West Bloomfield Township, said she’s seeing an increase in people ages
16 to 25 seeking treatment for heroin use.
“I think there is some trend that people are starting to use earlier,” she said.
“It tends to be more available for whatever reasons and for whatever reason,
too. It doesn’t have the stigma it used to have. Kids are experimenting with it
and it’s stunning,” Bouchard said.
“They feel like they are OK,” Wrobel said. “(They think), ‘It’s not so bad
because I’m not using needles.’ The problem is, even if it’s used in a powder,
it’s going to cause same consequences.”
She said young people often have easy access to prescription drugs containing
opiates such as oxycodone, morphine and codeine. Eventually, many get addicted
and turn to heroin, which costs less money.
Lt. Joseph Quisenberry of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Narcotic Enforcement Team
(NET), said that in Southeast Michigan the drug threat of heroin is third behind
cocaine and marijuana. Most heroin makes its way to the suburbs through Detroit
or Chicago, originally coming from Southwest Asia or Mexico.
Bouchard said about 900 grams of heroin have been seized so far in 2008. And
drug investigations have been conducted throughout Oakland County.
“There is no virgin territory,” Quisenberry said. “Anywhere where there’s a will
to purchase, there’s a seller willing to meet you.”
Knowing what to look for
Noah’s mother, Paula, said she was asked if she noticed a difference in Noah in
the time leading up to his death. She said nothing had changed.
He’d always been sweet, quiet, athletic and worked two jobs. Being an only child
until he was about 15, he was close to his parents.
The day before he died, Noah baby-sat his brother, then 2 years old.
The night he died, he’d met curfew and brought his friend home with him.
Paula said, just like every night, Noah told her goodnight, gave her a kiss and
said he’d see her in the morning.
“I honestly could not ask for a better child,” she said. “How many boys kiss
their mom at night?”
Paula said officials determined that Noah died instantly when his lungs
collapsed after he snorted the heroin. She said they were able to determine that
he’d never used heroin before.
“This has rocked everybody right to their core, because nobody ever expected
it,” she said of his death.
Wrobel said people who are most at risk for overdosing are young people who are
inexperienced with drugs or people who have an addiction but stop using heroin
for a few weeks, then relapse, not realizing their tolerance is lower then.
“What we need to stress is, even one-time use or couple-time use can result in
death,” she said. “This is something that is not safe. It might be the first and
the last time that you use.”
She said there are several things to look for when heroin or opiate use is
suspected. She said users often avoid conversation, are isolated from others,
seem sedated, nod off, sleep during the day and have pinpoint pupils.
Wrobel said eventually, the way people function in society and work decline, and
when they are deeply into addiction they start having financial problems as they
pay for the habit.
Stopping the cycle
“When people are using heroin or opiates in general and they try to stop, they
have pretty intense results,” Wrobel said.
Withdrawals, which include muscle aches, an upset stomach and running nose, get
so intense that most people who try to quit the drug go back to it after about
20 days, she said.
Wrobel said the first thing to focus on in treatment is the detox phase, which
can be helped with medication.
In her own experience, she said 60 to 70 percent of former opiate addicts will
do well with medical treatment combined with psychosocial therapy such as
Narcotics Anonymous.
She said it’s important that people know, “treatment is available and there is
hope.”
An important tool in fighting substance abuse is education, whether it be about
the treatment, or prevention.
Part of the prevention is done through programs such as “Have to Choose” and the
video about Noah.
“That age group, they have a tendency to think nothing could ever happen to
them,” Nicholson said. “For some reason when they see a situation that happened
to somebody that they know, they have a tend to listen a little bit.”
Looking for answers
Noah’s parents also want people to look out for their friends. An investigation
into Noah’s death is pending.
Under Michigan law, the supplier of a narcotic that causes death can be charged
with causing the death.
Partly because of the investigation, the Johnstons haven’t talked to some of
Noah’s friends, including the one at their house when he died.
“They have a code of silence. I don’t think the immediate friends that were
around him there that night will tell the truth,” Peter said.
He and Paula will never know exactly what happened the night Noah died, or what
was going through his mind when he chose to use heroin.
“I thought I knew a lot. I thought I was a fairly openminded, educated person,”
Peter said. “I know kids will do what they are going to do. I’m not blind to
that part of it. Where most kids would have started out when I was younger with
beer, now it’s pot.”
Questioning the use of illegal substances and abuse of the legal ones, he said,
“What pains them so much to go that far?”
The Johnstons question what Noah’s friends were thinking, too.
“I still think his friends failed him,” Peter said. “Friends need to watch out
for friends.”
“Friends tell people, ‘Don’t do stupid things,’” Paula said.
“I’m always going to wonder what would he have amounted to. We expected great
things from him,” Peter said. “I came down to what was a nightmare, but that
nightmare just doesn’t go away. You can steam clean the carpets all you want,
but it doesn’t go away.”
=========================================
Return to blitzkriegpublishing.com home page