Heroin in a McDonald's Happy Meal? At one of the fast-food chain's franchise locations in Pittsburgh, it seems that all you had to say was, "I'd like to order a toy."
Shantia Dennis, a 26-year-old McDonald's employee from East Pittsburgh, was arrested Wednesday after undercover law enforcement officials said she was using Happy Meal boxes to sell heroin. After her arraignment Thursday, she was charged with criminal use of a cellphone, delivery of heroin, possession with intent to deliver heroin and possession of heroin and marijuana. According to a statement from Mike Manko, communications director for the Allegheny County district attorney's office, customers would call Dennis ahead of time to let her know they were coming, then order "a toy."
Using a tip from an informant, undercover officers called Dennis on Wednesday, then pulled into the drive-thru and placed the order.
The officers paid Dennis $82 for the normally $2 meal, which they say they received along with 10 small bags of heroin. When officers arrested Dennis and searched the McDonald's, they found the money they had used to pay for the drugs, 50 small bags of heroin in her purse, another $80 and some marijuana in her bra. No other employees were charged in relation to the drug bust and the store's owner, Iftikhar Malik, is believed to be unaware of the drug sales. According to the Associated Press, Malik also owns another location in Murrysville, Pa., where an employee was charged with dealing heroin earlier this year.
"The allegations related to this employee do not represent acceptable behaviors and are not consistent with my values," Malik said in a statement. "As such, we take these charges very seriously and we are fully cooperating with the authorities. We are also conducting our own thorough internal investigation."
(ALSO)
Ready access, low cost, pill-like high: Heroin's rise and fatal draw
At 33 years old, Jamie is trying to get clean.
The native Bostonian started at a young age: drinking, then smoking pot, then taking pain pills and eventually heroin.
"I never thought in my wildest dreams I would stick a needle in my arm," said Jamie, who didn't want his last name revealed. "Not in a million years."
But the low cost, the readily availability and the prescription pill-like high makes heroin a draw that's hard to resist.
"It's a monkey on your back that you can't shake," he says.
If autopsy results bear out what officials suspect, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman will be the latest in a growing list of substance abusers who paid a deadly price for using heroin.
In July, heroin (mixed with alcohol) took the life of "Glee" star Cory Monteith.
In August, Emylee Lonczak, a 16-year-old Virginia high school student who'd never injected heroin before, died when a friend shot it into a vein for her.And last week, Maryland officials said that heroin tainted with fentanyl had claimed at least 37 lives since September. Another 22 cases were reported in Pittsburgh and other towns in western Pennsylvania.
To be sure, heroin has been a scourge for a long, long time. But lately, it's showing an uptick that has authorities, health officials and parents disturbed.
"Heroin is pummeling the Northeast, leaving addiction, overdoses and fear in its wake," said James Hunt of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Office.
A 2012 survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (PDF) found that about 669,000 people over age 12 had used heroin at some point in the year. About 156,000 of those were first-time users, and roughly 467,000 were considered heroin-dependent -- more than double the number in 2002.
"I've been here over six years, and literally this is the first year that I can remember seeing this many people coming in here with an addiction to heroin," said Robert Parkinson, director of the Beachcomber Rehabilitation Center in Delray Beach, Florida.
It's not at an epidemic level yet, he says, but "it's going to be there. ... It's that bad."
Heroin remains comparatively rare, according to administration figures. By comparison, more than 31 million people used marijuana or hashish in 2012 alone, and another 4.7 million used some form of cocaine that year.
But about 4.6 million people -- about 1.8% of the teenage and adult population -- reported using heroin at some point in their lives, the survey found. The average first-time user was 23.
Here, we examine the reasons behind the rise in heroin use and its fatal draw:
It's cheap. Bill Patrianakos was hooked on OxyContin, a prescription pain reliever. He didn't just like it; he loved it. The problem was, he couldn't afford it.
"I was pawning things: stealing from my parents, my sister, everyone who cared about me," he said. "Even that wasn't enough."
So he moved on to heroin. It gave him the same high, he said, but at a fraction of the cost.
"I started out snorting," he said. "And, of course, to conserve my money, I moved on to shooting it."
The bottom line for users: Heroin is cheap.
Part of the reason is the nationwide crackdown on prescription pill abuse, which has made those drugs harder and more expensive to obtain.
In the first two weeks of 2014, police in Delray Beach, Florida, say, they seized more heroin than they did in the past 10 years combined.
"People were getting pills for $10 around here, and now it's much more expensive," said Delray Beach Police Sgt. Nicole Guerriero. "People are now turning to heroin to get their high."
And how cheap is heroin?
"We've heard for as low as $6 a capsule," she said.
It's everywhere. David is a self-described addict who doesn't want his last name revealed. His drug of choice is oxycodone. But he knows that when he can't get it, he can always score some heroin.
Proverbs 16:27 An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.
Nahum 3
1 Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;
2 The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.
3 The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
4 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
Jeremiah 18: 11 Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.
12 And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.
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