Cheese (recreational drug)

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Example of cheese, seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Cheese or Cheeze is a recreational drug that surfaced in the United States in 2005.

Cheese is formed by combining heroin and crushed tablets of certain over-the-counter common cold medication, such as Tylenol PM. Such a cold medication contains acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and the antihistamine diphenhydramine, the active ingredient in Benadryl. ^[1] Cheese may contain a 2% to 8% heroin purity level^[2]; an 8% purity level is, in some cases, enough to start an addiction in a user of Cheese.^[3] The powder is snorted instead of being injected. One tenth of a gram, which is one "hit", costs two United States dollars ^[4] on the black market. One quarter gram costs $5 ^[1]. The heroin in cheese remains a highly addictive substance, just like any adulterated form of heroin. Once a person is physically addicted, withdrawal symptoms may appear from 6 to 24 hours after the last dose of the drug.^[1].

The drug made many local news headlines when it appeared in several public middle and high schools in Dallas, Texas. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration^[5], some police agencies and the Dallas Independent School District dubbed the mixture "starter heroin." ^[6] The district handled fifty-four property cases and found twenty-four felony offenses involving "cheese" between August 15, 2005 and March 1, 2006, at eleven schools.^[7] On February 24, 2007, United Press International reported that DISD would increase drug-sniffing dog patrols in order to eliminate Cheese from its schools.^[8]

According to authorities, Hispanic teenagers are the demographic group most frequently charged with possession of the drug.^[2] DISD Police, on April 18, 2006, identified the youngest known user of Cheese as a 13-year old. By Feburary 1, 2007, usage of Cheese was reported in the fourth-grade level at several elementary schools; Monty Moncibais, a detective of the Dallas Police Narcotics Division, stated that children as young as nine years of age had abused Cheese.^[9]

Drug dealers, prior to the marketing of Cheese, had used the name "Cheese" to refer to other recreational drugs; for instance, dealers referred to a $10 bag of cocaine and a $5 bag of marijuana as "Macaroni and cheese".^[2] In addition, the name "Cheese" was used at one time in Denver, Colorado to refer to heroin.^[10]

Dallas-area treatment centers have noted that the drug's growing use has led to a lowering in the age of teens admitted to their programs. From a typical clientele of 15- to 17-year-olds admitted under court order, one Dallas-area center observed a shift to 11, 12, and 13-year-old children admitted voluntarily or at a parent's request.^[11] Michelle Hemm, the clinical director of the Phoenix Academy of Dallas, a drug treatment facility for teenagers, stated that individuals as young as 11 have been admitted as heroin addicts in the clinic.^[12]

1 Creation of Cheese
2 Deaths due to Cheese
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Creation of Cheese

Drug traffickers bring the raw black tar heroin into the country of consumption. In the United States, most traffickers ship tar heroin from Mexico.^[13]

Middlemen purchase the raw heroin from the traffickers and then sell the heroin to children at middle and high school campuses, according to drug counselors at the Phoenix Academy of Dallas.^[14]

According to a 14-year old girl being treated at the Phoenix Academy, the children then add water to the heroin.^[15] The watered-down heroin, often called "monkey juice" by the children, is mixed with Tylenol PM tablets.^[16] The makers of Cheese heat the mixture to remove excess water, resulting in the final product.^[17]

[edit] Deaths due to Cheese

Deaths directly attributable to this form of heroin are difficult to confirm because coroner's offices frequently do not have a way to track cause of death to one specific form of a drug.

One 18-year old Dallas woman's death was attributed by police to snorting cheese and drinking alcohol. At 7:30 A.M. on Monday, April 24, 2006, at the Pinkston High School 12th grader's residence in West Dallas, the woman's father tried to wake her for school. When the woman did not respond and the father found the bedroom door locked, the father climbed into the room through a window and found the woman dead on her bed.^[2]

On November 1, 2006, 17-year-old Keith "Tooter" Witherspoon died in nearby Mesquite; a story the following month in The Dallas Morning News profiled Witherspoon as "the first Dallas-area youth publicly known to have died of a heroin overdose since the 'cheese' concerns were raised."^[18] The death was also notable because Mesquite is located southeast of Dallas, indicating the problem had moved beyond its origins in the northwest quadrant of the city.

Oscar Gutierrez, a 15-year old eighth grader at Dallas's Marsh Middle School, died February 18, 2007, of a cheese overdose.^[19] Gutierrez' brother, who tried to wake Gutierrez during that morning, stated that the boy had overdosed on Cheese on a previous occasion.^[20]