Cheese (recreational drug)
"Cheese" is a heroin-based recreational drug that came to the attention of the media inside and outside[1] the United States after a string of deaths among adolescents in Dallas, between 2005 and 2007.
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration,[5] some police agencies and the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) 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.
[15] Jane C. Maxwell, a senior research scientist of the Gulf Coast Addiction Technology Transfer Center at The University of Texas at Austin, stated in "“Cheese” Heroin: Status as of May 2, 2007" that she believes that the effect of Cheese could increase due to media reporting aspects such as "unsubstantiated numbers" and "sensationalistic emphasis" regarding "new highs" and "schoolboy drugs," leading to copycat outbreaks.
Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, the commander of the narcotics division of the Dallas Police, said that he encountered more White and Black teenagers using the drug.
This releases the bound hydrochloride salts on both the diamorphine and DPH, such that the HCl ions dissolve into the water while the heroin and diphenhydramine are freebased; this allows the molecules to precipitate out as the solution is titrated.
Lastly (and optionally) the super high purity (90%-99%) heroin-DPH mixture is added to a water solution and hydrochloric, acetic, or citric acid is carefully titrated to yield up to 99.9% pure "cheese" heroin in the salt form, which is again run through a micron filter and extracted to a powder via evaporation (water-soluble, and as such is the type used for injection and insufflation ROA's) otherwise this step is excluded and the Cheese is in a super pure base form (which can be efficiently smoked).
One of the earliest published instances of a death attributed to cheese heroin was that of Karen Becerra, an 18-year-old high school senior found dead by her father in their West Dallas home on April 24, 2006.
The first middle-school "cheese" death in published accounts was that of Oscar Gutierrez, a 15-year-old eighth grader in northwest Dallas, who died February 18, 2007;[23] his brother stated that the boy had previously survived an overdose of the same drug.
[24] Community rallies followed Gutierrez' death as parents and others urged the police and school district to become more active in fighting what was viewed as a growing problem.
Susan Dalterio, a University of Texas at San Antonio pharmacology expert, insisted that the combination was unlikely to be a coincidence, as a person sleepy from diphenhydramine would be unlikely to be abusing heroin at the same time.
[32] On April 18, days after findings from the medical examiner's review were published, two more deaths occurred, though once again their connection to cheese heroin took weeks to be confirmed.
Parents and police organized a June 30 March, Sen. John Cornyn visited the area as part of an anti-cheese campaign in early July, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy gave a press conference from Dallas ISD headquarters in August praising the district's efforts, and local stores pulled Tylenol PM and similar drugs from the shelves to make them less accessible.
[42] Additional suburban deaths in September — in Irving to the west and Rockwall to the east — were believed to be linked to cheese heroin, though police cautioned toxicology reports would not likely be complete until November.
