Heroin - It's cheap. it's deadly, and teens think it's no big deal - News & Views - Cover Story - Gambit - New Orleans

12:38 Rehab has helped him accept that he must move at his own pace 0 Comments

Heroin - It's cheap. it's deadly, and teens think it's no big deal - News & Views - Cover Story - Gambit - New Orleans: "I've spent 11 months of the last two years in jail,' says Arun Rahman, who dropped out of one of the area's most expensive private schools two years ago, in his senior year, to try to kick a heroin addiction. It didn't work.
  Rahman, 20, talked to Gambit in late August, just four days out of a seven-month, court-ordered stay at the Narconon rehabilitation center in Baton Rouge. It cost his parents $36,000 to send the former National Merit Scholarship finalist there. Meanwhile, his older sister just graduated from Yale and is on a graduate placement in Paris. Rahman used to feel impatient — that he was missing out on many things because of his addiction. Rehab has helped him accept that he must move at his own pace, he says.
  Rahman left Benjamin Franklin High School after he was caught selling marijuana in the parking lot. 'They (school officials) said they had the right to expel him, but 'because we know he can make a new beginning, we're not going to put it on his record,'' says Rahman's mother, Zeenat Rasheed. 'It was in the middle of exams, so they let him finish his exams and said, 'Please just take him away.''
  Rahman's family did just that. He applied and was admitted to a private school, but his family did not tell the school of his drug history. His academic record earned him a scholarship, but the school had no inkling of Rahman's drug problem. His mother admits they withheld that information from the school, which has a policy of expelling students who use or deal drugs on campus.
  No doubt that school would not have admitted Rahman had it known of his drug problems."