Meet the drug dealer: 15 and freckle-faced and alreadyexperienced at his trade.
He started his lucrative Fairfax County business the same yearhe became a teenager, handling the hottest commodity -- marijuana --but also a boutique line of PCP, Ecstasy, Special K. Two yearslater, he was 'hooking up and dealing to a few adults.'
It was only then, the Oakton boy said, that he thought hislife 'was weird.'Teenagers dealing drugs is a reality in neighborhoodsthroughout suburban Washington, from leafy Bethesda to thelandscaped neighborhoods of Columbia and the quiet drives of Bowie.The Washington Post concentrated on Fairfax, the area's largestjurisdiction, to find out how and where suburban youths get theirdrugs -- gathering information about juvenile drug arrests and drugsearches, and interviewing 100 county youngsters in depth, as wellas scores of law enforcement, school, court and counselingofficials.Virtually all of the teenagers -- who were contacted throughtreatment centers, randomly at a mall and at the juvenile detentioncenter, where most were not being held on drug charges -- said theynot only use drugs but also sell them, mostly to friends and most socasually they bristle at the label 'dealer.'Drug counselors also said most of the teenagers they evaluatehave admitted distributing drugs in addition to using them.'The notion that an outsider is dealing to kids is a bunch ofmalarkey,' said Robert F. Horan Jr., the Fairfax commonwealth'sattorney. 'The average kid in this com munity gets his drugs fromanother kid.'The teenage drug problem in Fairfax is hardly worse thanelsewhere in the Washington area, but its very existence is notablein a county with low crime, affluence, a highly educated populaceand one of the best school systems in the nation.It is a county literally populated with people who moved therebecause they care about their children, yet drugs pervade it.Over the last four years, 6,000 juveniles were directed to thecounty's growing drug-treatment program -- and an equal number ofothers were referred at their request from there to privatefacilities.During the last school year, 111 were recommended forexpulsion for drug- and alcohol-related incidents, and there were544 suspensions. More than 560 were arrested in the last calendaryear in Fairfax and its incorporated towns for drug crimes, nearly12 times as many as were arrested a decade ago.Last year, of the children treated at Inova Fairfax Hospital'semergency room, 163 were found to be under the influence of drugs,although not all children are screened.As chilling as the statistics are, 'the numbers don't reflectthe depth of the problem,' said Patrick McConnell, who oversees thecounty's youth alcohol and drug services.Adults, of course, are at the top of the supply pyramid. Themiddle is murky. Teenagers who got drugs from someone outside theirage group said they came from older teenagers or young adults ages18 to their early twenties -- a group that would show up as adultsin any arrests -- but because drug organizations are tiered,teenagers may not know where their suppliers got the drugs. At thebottom, police, prosecutors and teenagers say, children are dealingto children, not just in Fairfax but across the country.Illicit drug use among eighth-graders has more than doubled inthe last six years, according to some national drug surveys, andalthough recent studies show a dip that might indicate a tapering ofthe growth, the numbers remain substantially higher than they wereat the beginning of the decade.Most of their drug deals, Fairfax teenagers said, are quicktransactions that take place in homes and cars but also in public,at theaters and sports events, at shopping malls and in parkinglots. The absence of open-air drug markets shouldn't be taken as anabsence of flagrant dealing, as one 17-year-old Chantilly girl'sdescription made clear. Teenage dealing goes on, she said, in spots'like grocery stores, elementary schools, places you'd never think adrug deal is going down. Tennis courts, pools.' It is 'everywhere,'she said, yet 'completely invisible.'Small, Casual SalesAsk Fairfax kids where they get their dope and the answercomes back: Fairfax kids.'My experience is that kids tell the truth' when asked incounseling about their drug use, McConnell said. 'The kids will tellyou exactly what is going on in the street.'What they say echoes what the nation's drug czar says.If your child bought drugs, 'it was from a student of theirown race generally,' said Barry McCaffrey, head of the White HouseOffice on Drug Control Policy.The criminal cases filed against 263 juveniles in FairfaxCounty bear that out. The cases, brought from July 1, 1996, to June30, 1997, show the defendants were overwhelmingly white, male andages 15 to 16. The youngest was a Reston girl, 11 at the time shewas charged with marijuana possession.The users and the sellers were high school athletes, runaways,honor students, gang members, cheerleaders, victims of sexual abuseand car thieves. Their parents lead busy lives as lawyers,government employees, business owners, teachers, constructionworkers and financial consultants.Like the Reston girl, the vast majority of defendants werefrom the county; only 16 were from outside. All but two county highschools had at least one of its students in the arrest records, anda number of middle schools and four private schools.Although some teenagers move large quantities of drugs forolder teenagers or adults, most said in interviews that they deal ina flurry of smaller, more casual sales to a tight circle of friendsand acquaintances. Girls said it is easier, and cheaper, for them toget drugs than it is for boys, and some girls said they have tradedsex for drugs.Marijuana possession was the most common offense in the courtcases, but there were 39 instances of distributing drugs on schoolproperty and 52 felony cases for distributing or possessing acontrolled drug.'Kids, across the board, report that it's easier to getmarijuana, LSD, drugs like that, than it is to get cigarettes,' saidThomas W. Minnick, the director of Northern Virginia CounselingGroup, a private treatment facility. 'Pretty amazing, when you thinkabout it.'Although marijuana and alcohol are widely popular, childrensurveyed in the county's public treatment program reported that theyhad used others: 40 percent have used LSD, and 75 percent have usedinhalants. They have sucked fumes out of the top of unshaken whippedcream cans, inhaled Freon from the family air conditioner and downedbottles of Robitussin cough medicine to find a high. Five seventh-and eighth-graders at Hayfield Secondary School were arrested inNovember after the school principal heard that a student was sellingother students Ritalin, a prescription drug for attention deficitdisorder.Children in treatment also said their drug use started early,often as young as 10 or 12.Among the 100 Fairfax teenagers interviewed for this article,nearly all said they had sold drugs undetected and weren't overlyconcerned about getting caught. Tellingly, it was often a behaviorproblem or crime other than drug use that landed them in trouble.'Nobody ever gets caught unless somebody snitches. It's theeasiest way to make money,' said a 17-year-old Clifton youth, beingheld on car theft charges. Like others in custody, and most of thoseinterviewed outside the court system, he asked for anonymity.One eighth-grader, caught dealing marijuana at his Herndonmiddle school after a classmate alerted an administrator, toldFairfax police that business was so good he had to hide his moneyfrom his parents to avoid suspicion.'He said he made so much money . . . he had to dig a hole inhis wooded back yard and bury it,' county police officer Gary D.Bailey said.When they want to finance their own supply, teenagers will buya little extra and sell it to friends. Some said they make hundredsof dollars a week or more, with business especially brisk afterschool, when parents are at work.Allowances and checks from part-time jobs help pay for thedrugs, some teenagers said, while others said they steal money fromtheir parents or mooch dope from friends.The hottest item is marijuana packaged in tiny,easy-to-conceal bags: in $5, $10 or $20 packets.A 16-year-old Burke teenager said she sold drugs for six yearsfrom her family's three-bedroom town house. Her mother 'doesn't knowI sold,' said the girl, who was being held in juvenile detentionafter running away from home. 'She knows I smoke weed, but she'llnever know how much. Six years dealing in the same house, I'mlucky.'Making a connection can be easy, especially given thatteenagers say they use the openness of an area to their advantage.'If we're going to do it, we're going to do it out in theopen,' a 17-year-old Herndon teenager said. 'The cops won't expectit.' The teenager, who was being held on petty theft and assaultcharges -- not a drug charge -- said he sold outside a multiplextheater.Another 16-year-old Burke teenager said he bought and soldmarijuana and LSD at the top of the Springfield Mall parkingterrace. Other times, it was at the local Roy Rogers.Over a two-year span, he said, he sold marijuana to about 200people, with 20 to 30 regular customers. He bought drugs, includingLSD and PCP, using money he made as a supermarket stock boy. Hedidn't view himself as a major dealer, just someone who sold hisexcess marijuana three or four times a week to help friends and makea little cash.'We sell it everywhere,' said a 17-year-old drug dealer fromReston, 'everywhere you see people.'He and other teenagers had smoked and sold drugs routinely ona hill at Reston Town Center, he said. But that wasn't where he wascaught. Police arrested him this year on a charge of possession withintent to distribute after they pulled him over during a routinetraffic stop in Reston and found marijuana in the car.In recent months, he said, he has bought drugs in Washington,in Laurel and near Iverson Mall in Prince George's County. He wouldsell $20 mini-bags at his high school, he said, in the bathrooms andby his locker. The boy said that during his freshman and sophomoreyears alone, he sold marijuana to 50 to 100 students.He never saw marijuana smoking or selling 'as a big deal,' hesaid. 'I still don't.'In fact, many of the teenagers saw no harm in marijuana. Thatperception is erroneous based on federal research that shows today'smarijuana is as much as 10 times more potent than versions common 20years ago. And teenagers didn't see themselves as dealers becausetheir trafficking often occurred in social settings.'We had parties in people's houses,' another 17-year-old fromHerndon said. 'We had field parties in the summer, Great Falls Park,kids go there and get high. We had hotel parties all the time,' withone member of the group renting a room for the night and invitingfriends. 'Any party I'd go to there would be drugs.'He called his business 'little stints of selling,' mostlymarijuana and LSD, typically buying $100 worth and making a quick$50 from resales. He sold at parties and rave dance clubs inWashington and Baltimore. His customers: a total of about 50 youthsin grades 10 to 12. The money, he said, was a nice supplement towhat he was paid for working at a diner. His suppliers were 'a guy19 or 20 who lived in Herndon' and another who resided in GreatFalls. 'He always had a pound.'The smoking and selling stopped recently when he started toskip class and was caught by a school administrator. Suspicious, sheasked him to empty his left pocket. He pulled out 20 hits of LSD.'She called the cops,' he said.In some areas of the 399-square-mile suburban county, drugdealing has more of an urban feel, as a pregnant 12-year-old fromthe Alexandria section of the county explained.She was a marijuana- and crack-dealing apprentice to herolder brother. 'He's not a bad person,' she said. 'He's got to makea living for his kids. He doesn't have a high school diploma.'She packaged drugs in tiny baggies and wore black at night,'so if the police roll by, they can't see you.' She was careful tostay away from someone else's turf. She could make $500 to $600 anight, she said, if she stayed out long enough.'Will I sell again?' pondered the child, who initially wasarrested on a charge of assault and battery. 'If I need money tohelp my mom.'A 17-year-old Great Falls high school football player saidhe's not sure he could give drugs up. 'I could live 40 years, butthe thought of not having drugs or alcohol for 40 years is kind ofscary.'At the Inova Kellar Center, a private, nonprofit treatmentfacility in Fairfax, weaning children from drugs has provenextraordinarily difficult, in part because of the close-knit natureof dealing. Giving up drugs can mean giving up friends. 'We have toteach them to have activities outside of drugs,' said SheriMitschelen, a program coordinator. 'We have to brace them forreturning back to the community.'Rude AwakeningIn one Fairfax neighborhood, a mother who thought she wassavvy and found out she was anything but sounds the same message.She got the word about a year ago at a Pampered Chefs party,one of those gatherings where neighbors get together to nibblerefreshments and buy cookware.Another mom pulled her aside in the kitchen and broke thenews: Her 14-year-old daughter was bragging to other eighth-gradersabout smoking marijuana.The girl's mother, 52, never thought her daughter -- an honorstudent and Division I soccer player -- would consider using anillegal drug, much less at such a young age.'Fourteen? It was just nowhere in my thought process, and Iconsider myself somewhat savvy,' said the mother, a part-timecollege teacher.Later that day, she and her 45-year-old husband, apharmacist, confronted their daughter, who admitted it was true.'After she smoked the pot, she said, `I have more friends now,' 'her mother recalled. 'That was scary.'Realizing other students were involved, and after agonizingfor hours, the couple decided to turn in their daughter to schoolofficials -- without telling her.The next thing they knew, their daughter was calling fromschool, hysterical. 'Mom, they found out!' she cried. She told hermother that she lied to school administrators at first but thenspelled out what she had done in a 'statement of facts.''On Friday the 15th we were in Band class,' when a friend gaveher 'a joint,' she wrote. 'He took it and showed it to me. I waslike oh can I smoke it with you. He was like sure. We got on thebus and went to our separate homes. He called me later and then wewent to smoke it around his house. I took like 4 puffs and hefinished the rest.'Her parents sent her for a drug assessment that concluded shehad been caught early in her use of pot. They also sent her to atherapist, to try to make sure she doesn't backslide. She wasallowed to stay in school. But as word spread, other parents begankeeping their children away. 'She had one friend who came up andsaid, `I can't be friends with you anymore,' ' her mother said.'That was tough, boy.'Her mother also began to feel ostracized. 'I just felt likethe whole world knew, and they thought we were terrible parents.'Concerned that the neighborhood didn't have the full story,she decided to tell other parents what happened -- and broke thenews at a New Year's Eve party.'I told these parents' about her daughter and about the drugsthat were at their children's school, the mother said. 'They weredumbstruck that I was telling them this. I mean, I'm their PTApresident.'Tomorrow: Why more teenagers are not caught.About the ReportingTo learn where and how Fairfax County teenagers get illegaldrugs, The Washington Post interviewed 100 county teenagers over thelast six months.The teenagers, who agreed to talk about their drug use oncondition of anonymity, came from three primary sources: the FairfaxCounty Juvenile Detention Center, private and county drug-treatmentprograms, and interviews at a local shopping mall.Follow-up reporting with parents, school officials, drugcounselors and law enforcement officers helped verify details ofsome of the teenagers' accounts and substantiated the broad themeslaid out by most of the teenagers interviewed: that they deal drugsas well as use them, that teenagers operate with relative impunityand that adults responsible for children often are unaware of theextent of the drug trade.Nearly all of the dozens of teenagers interviewed at thedetention center, for example, were not there on drug charges. Theywere being held briefly on charges from vandalism to car theft, yetnearly all said they had used and distributed drugs regularlywithout detection by police or parents. Several of the dozens ofteenagers randomly approached at the food court at Springfield Mallpulled out drugs and paraphernalia from their pockets duringinterviews.A computerized database of juvenile charges filed in FairfaxCounty over the last year helped round out the information aboutteenagers involved with drugs. The records did not identify theteenagers by name but provided a demographic profile of the group bygiving each age, race, school, drug charge and city or town.The series was reported and written by Patricia Davis, a Metroreporter based in Fairfax, and Pierre Thomas, who was a Nationalreporter covering the Justice Department for The Post before joiningCNN as a correspondent.The teenagers, most of whom were white, came from disparatebackgrounds, yet their descriptions of teenage drug trafficking werestrikingly similar. They also echoed what drug-treatment counselorssay they hear from many of the hundreds of Fairfax teenagers theyevaluate each year.
