WASHINGTON — Heroin is stronger than you, so don’t start abusing it or prescription pills.
That’s the message being hammered home by the FBI and DEA in a graphic, uncensored film.
“Chasing the Dragon” combines the tragic stories of seven people, whose lives and those of their families were permanently altered by their drug use.
One of the stories is the rapid downward spiral of 16-year-old Cierra. She was a well-adjusted teenager and competitive cheerleader, who after taking what FBI director James Comey called a wrong turn, found herself in the fight of her life.
“She was a convicted felon at the age of 18,” said her mother, Patricia Vallejo, in the film.
Shortly after returning home from a seven-month jail sentence — seemingly cured — Cierra took another turn no one saw coming.
“Dinner was done, and I’m hollering for the kids,” Patricia recalled. “My son and nephew come down, and Cierra doesn’t come down. I’m like, ‘she fell asleep or something.’
“So I go upstairs, and I’m knocking, and knocking, and knocking on the door, and there is no answer. I open that door, and my little girl is on the floor dead.”
Melissa is also featured.
“I met my first husband when I was very young,” she said. “I was 13, and then we got married at 17, so I got to grow up pretty quick.”
Melissa was 22 years old when her addiction started. “I got pregnant with my youngest daughter. Once I had her, they gave me OxyContins,” or the pain medicine, she said in the film.
She quickly discovered that heroin was much less expensive than pills.
“Heroin became my best friend. Heroin became the love of my life,” Melissa said. “I put heroin before my family. I put heroin before my children, and I thought that I couldn’t do nothing in life anymore without heroin.”
Her love for the drug was boundless. She contracted Hepatitis-C from sharing needles with people she didn’t know. She would use toilet water to shoot up when she didn’t have money to buy bottled water.
Melissa would use rainwater on the side of the road, sucking it up in the needle and shooting the dope that way.
“I didn’t care what it was going to do to me later on,” she said. “Just, I wanted it, the feeling of it, right then and there.”
Melissa said she was a prisoner who lived in crack houses with soiled mattresses. A woman overdosed in the bathtub.
“At one point, I had an abscess in my leg that was so bad that I had staph infection,” Melissa continued. “My leg was like four times its normal size. When the doctors cut my leg open to clean it out, I had maggots in my leg. They were eating the rot, the infection.”
Melissa survived despite her illness. Others in film were not so fortunate.
Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg said, each year, more than 46,000 people die from a drug overdose.
“The message is powerful and we hope that it scares people,” said Paul Abate, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington field office.
WARNING: Graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqdmWRExOkQ&feature=youtu.be
