Making Peace with the Dragon on One Atlanta Streetcorner – Heroin Stories, Part 3

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["Making Peace with the Dragon on One Atlanta Streetcorner" is the final part of a three part series on heroin addiction. Check out this page for parts one and two.]

Mona Bennett never leaves the house without her Braves baseball hat. The cap itself is hidden beneath dozens of buttons of all shapes and sizes pinned to every available surface with messages from “Rock the Vote” to “This place really cooks!” But Bennett is most proud of a series of buttons from the Atlanta Harm Reduction Center (AHRC) where Bennett is the program director. The buttons and the hat always draw curious stares and questions. And Bennett is always happy to answer.

Chasing the Dragon; Finding the Exit – Heroin Stories, Part 2

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["Chasing the Dragon; Finding the Exit" is part two of three part series about heroin addiction. Bookmark this page for updates.]

Editor's Note: The following story contains graphic language and images. It may not be suitable for all readers. One day, long before he found himself wanting to die in a cheap motel, Chris Blum got caught shooting up heroin at work. Needless to say, he lost his job.

Bound by the Needle, the Dealer and the Drug – Heroin Stories, Part 1

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Chris Blum is laughing again, each breath a small wheeze followed by a noise that cuts through the surrounding sounds of the coffee shop patio. It’s full and rich, staccato and guttural; four beats long, the laugh of a man who sees the blessing in having anything to laugh about at all.

He’s a big guy, tall with a softness that comes with the newfound freedom to eat food without vomiting it back up again. Not long ago, Blum was a heroin addict. On this hot, sunny afternoon, Blum is sitting under an umbrella, dabbing perspiration away with a napkin and telling me about one of his jobs when he was an addict: a money collector for his dealer.

“I was a nice guy the first time,” he says, smiling. “The second time you didn’t see me coming.”

But then there’s the change, the dip from major to minor keys as he stops laughing. Sitting outside, I can’t see his eyes behind the dark sunglasses, but his smile quickly fades as he recounts one method of collecting a debt.

“The second time,” he continues, “you’d walk in the door and your girlfriend would be duct-taped and I’d have a gun to her head and a broomstick shoved up her ass.”

Blum pauses for a moment turning his face to mine, his last words hanging there awkwardly.

Chris Blum. Photo by Ryan Schill
Heroin addicts will do anything for a fix, Blum tells me, things they never thought they were capable of. For Blum, that meant helping his dealer with the dirty work.

“You’re not a very nice guy if you’re collecting money for drug dealers,” he said. “At that point, I did more drugs just to erase the memories of the crazy shit I was doing to people.”

Missouri Won’t Let Teachers Friend Students on Facebook

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Teachers in Missouri may want to spend the last few days before school begins removing their students from their friends list on Facebook. Missouri Senate Bill 54, just signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, prohibits contact between teachers and students on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The measure is supposed to clearly define student-teacher boundaries. But, according to some educators, the bill isn’t clear enough. "It says current and former students, that's what the bill reads,” a Nixa, Mo., School District spokesperson told Missouri’s KSPR. “Does that mean students you've had in the classroom, the school district?  What if you've changed school districts?"

Lawsuit Claims Arkansas School Won’t Allow Black Valedictorian

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A graduating Arkansas high school senior claims her school denied her valedictorian status because she is black, despite boasting the highest GPA in her class. According to the court document filed by her attorney, 18-year-old Kymberly Wimberly would have been the first black valedictorian of McGehee Secondary School since 1989. Forty-six percent of students in the school are black, according to the Huffington Post. Wimberly’s mother, Molly Bratton, said she heard school personnel say giving Wimberly valedictorian status would cause “a big mess.” Subsequently, McGehee’s principal Darrell Thompson told Bratton that he was naming a white “co-valedictorian.” The school board would not hear Bratton’s appeals. In an interview with the McGehee Dermott Times-News, District Superintendent Thomas Gathen said, "It's not a race issue; it's an academic issue."

Teens Living Near Fast Food Eat More Fast Food, Study Finds

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Following in the footsteps of the familiar movie maxim, “If you build it, they will come,” a new study found California teens that live in neighborhoods with lots of fast food restaurants eat lots of fast food. The study found that the average California teen lives or goes to school in an area with more than seven times as many fast food restaurants, liquor stores and convenience stores as healthy food options such as farmers markets and grocery stores. The unsurprising result: the average California teen is 18 percent more likely to eat fast food at least twice a week than teens who live in neighborhoods with more healthy options. All of that junk food leads to the intake of excess calories that often leads to obesity, diabetes and other health problems, according to the research. "We have put our children and youth in harm's way,” said Robert K. Ross, M.D., president and CEO of the California Endowment, which funded the study.

Georgia Governor’s Office of Children and Families Executive Director to Resign

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The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange has obtained an email that says the Georgia Governor’s Office for Children and Families (GOCF) Executive Director Jennifer Bennecke will resign August 15. The email to GOCF’s advisory board members, says Bennecke will not return following maternity leave. According to advisory board member Judge Steven Teske, Bennecke is resigning for personal reasons. JJIE also received a letter to GOCF from the Georgia Office of Audits and Accounts saying it will perform a "special examination" of GOCF's "performance and expenditures, including Children's Trust Fund revenues, that may be considered in connection with potential mergers with other organizations." Former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue created GOCF in 2008 by joining together the Children’s Trust Fund Commission and the Children and Youth Coordinating Council into one organization.

Juvenile Justice Reformer Allen Breed Dies at 90

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Juvenile justice reformer Allen Breed died last weekend at 90. Breed was the former director of the National Institute of Corrections and the California Youth Authority Allen Breed. In 1974, he was an important champion of the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Act. “He was a real force,” said John Wilson, former deputy administrator of the federal Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and a consultant with Institute for Intergovernmental Research. Wilson said Breed was a “straight shooter.”

Later, Breed led the board of directors of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency for 10 years.

Kids Learn Defense Against Kidnappers

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Most parents don’t want their children to fight but at radKIDS, hosted by Gainesville, Ga’s., First United Methodist Church’s Fit Fun Camp, parents looked on with pride as their kids punched, kicked and elbowed a police officer dressed in a heavy, rubber protective suit. The children were demonstrating techniques for defending themselves against attackers or kidnappers while Crime Prevention officer Joe Britte of the Gainesville Police Department played the role of the bad guy. According to The Gainesville Times, the radKids program — Resist Aggresssion Defensively — taught kids how to escape an attacker through homework assignments and activities. "If you ever have that happen to you, you know what to do," Madison Sartain, 10, a rising fifth-grader, told The Times. After participating in a similar women’s self-defense course, First United Methodist Church’s recreation director, Vicky Bailey told The Times she wanted her church to host the program.

Georgia Chosen for Study of Legal Representation of Abused Children

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More than 100 Georgia attorneys will participate in a four-year study of the legal representation of neglected and abused children. Georgia was chosen as one of two states to be research and demonstration sites for the National Quality Improvement Center on the Representation of Children in the Child Welfare System. The Georgia Supreme Court’s Committee on Justice for Children will administer the study in partnership with the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University and the Georgia Association of Counsel for Children. “Being part of this study provides Georgia a good opportunity to train attorneys to become better advocates for the children of our state,” Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harris P. Hines said. “It is hoped that the training will have a positive impact by lessening the time it takes to safely return children to their parents, or if this cannot be done, to timely find permanent families for Georgia’s foster children.”

The National Quality Improvement Center at the University of Michigan Law School collaborating with the U.S. Children’s Bureau chose Georgia and Washington as the two test sites.