Oct 30, 2009 6:08 am US/Eastern
CBS 2 Special Investigation: The Prescription High
On Long Island, Days Of Saying, 'Well, This Stuff Is Legal, How Can My Child Become Addicted To That?' Are Long Gone
SMITHTOWN, N.Y. (CBS) ―
CBS 2 HD recently told you about the raging epidemic of heroin use among teens on Long Island.
But now we need to tell you about another alarming trend among suburban teens.
They are becoming addicted to prescription medications -- with devastating consequences. Many times the abuse begins right where you would least expect it.
It's every parent's worst nightmare.
Linda Diorio said she finds peace at the grave of her eldest son, Erik.
"To this day I can't believe I'm without him," Diorio said.
She said Erik was a great kid who just made a poor choice. He chose to do drugs and in July of 2008 at the age of 19, that choice killed him.
"My husband had found him and he wasn't breathing and I heard my husband screaming," Diorio said.
The Diorios moved to Farmingdale with the best of intentions -- to raise their family in the security of the suburbs. For years, life was good. Erik was a typical teenager.
"He'd make you laugh and he'd make you crazy at the same time," Linda said.
But it all began to unravel when Erik was 16 and doctors prescribed vicodin after they took out his appendix.
"I knew it was a very strong painkiller, but like I said it was five pills. What can happen from five pills?" Linda said.
But when abused it is highly addictive, and Erik became hooked. As his addiction deepened, he eventually needed a less expensive and more powerful high so he turned to heroin, which on Long Island is both cheap and easy to find.
"It blew my mind. Even after I knew he was doing it I said I must be dreaming. This cannot be happening," Linda said.
Across Long Island, heroin use among teens is epidemic and prescription drugs are the gateway.
"I liked it right from the get go," Phil Ammirati said.
In Mineola, Ammirati was 16 when a friend offered to share his cancer-stricken grandfather's painkiller -- oxycontin. He thought it was no big deal.
"When you're a kid it doesn't seem as harmful. You're like this stuff is legal. It's a prescriptive drug. It's gotta be safe," Ammirati said.
But he became addicted and when the money ran out, he said he was forced to use heroin.
"It was cheaper and the same high," Ammirati said.
His mother was in denial.
"There is disbelief. It is very hard to make your brain accept that your child is addicted to heroin," Nora Ammirati said.
Another Long Island mother didn't want to show her face to CBS 2 HD. Not even her own family is aware of the extent of her son's heroin addiction. His story, the same as the others, started with prescription drugs.
Stolen right out of his mother's pocketbook.
"I noticed my pills were missing," she said. "Bad enough you're stealing this stuff but you're stealing it from me."
Instead of living in the comfort of his Smithtown home, right now her son is in jail, accused of stealing to support his habit.
"It was heartbreaking. I'm sitting here saying this is not supposed to be happening. This is middle class America," the mother said.
It is an epidemic on Long Island. Over the last four years, the number of admissions for treatment of prescription drug use and heroin among those ages 15 to 20 has nearly tripled.
"We all thought we were immune out here. We all have our little cookie cutter houses and we go to our PTA meetings and life is wonderful, but its not. It's an accident waiting to happen."
Phil Ammerati has been in recovery now for 14 months and has a warning for parents about the danger in their own homes.
"If you want to be safe, you lock a gun up in your house. Same difference," he said.
And Diorio said she wants others spared the heartache she lives with every day.
"I can only hope that it saves somebody, that it saves another family from having to walk in our shoes," Diorio said.
Officials in both Nassau and Suffolk counties are responding to the crisis. Police are targeting both users and dealers. And each county now has programs in schools to warn both students and parents of the dangers of prescription drugs and their link to heroin use.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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