Scottsdale school heroin ring hit 16 teens face charges; 2 men held in selling Holly Johnson Sixteen teenagers are accused of buying Mexican heroin from a drug ring that targeted three Scottsdale high schools, authorities said. The teens face charges of drug possession and conspiracy to purchase narcotics. All of the arrested youths have been released, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said. Jose Hernandez Jimenez, 21, and Cesar Rodriguez Perez, 18, supplied the highly addictive drug to possibly 30 additional students from Saguaro, Chaparral and Desert Mountain high schools, Sgt. Paul Chagolla, a Sheriff's Office spokesman, said Monday. Neither the transactions nor the arrests took place on school property, authorities said. Most sales were to 16- to 18-year olds, but authorities think youths as young as 13 bought the drug. Jimenez and Perez face a preliminary court hearing at 8:30 this morning. They were booked into Madison Street Jail last Tuesday on drug-related charges. "This is a wake-up call, and it's sending a message out that heroin can be found anywhere," Arpaio said. Scottsdale Unified School District Superintendent John Baracy said Monday that he was not notified of the arrests. "We will go forward at this point and try and find out what happened and then make the appropriate response," he said. All Scottsdale schools have a zero-tolerance drug policy. Tom Herrmann, a district spokesman, said Scottsdale has a very active parent community. "This will come as a shock to a lot of people," he said. An investigation of the ring, comprised mainly of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, began in June and investigators are still trying to determine how much heroin was smuggled into the United States, Chagolla said. Heroin can be bought for as little as $5 and may result in devastating effects on developing adolescents, said Nicole Pena, a spokeswoman for Drug Free AZ. "In addition to developmentally stunting growth, heroin does severe damage to the brain," Pena said. "It's said to cause deep depression, and it's so addictive that it becomes a person's focus. When you're 13, that's dangerous." Teen abuse often starts with smoking or snorting the drug rather than injecting it, according to Drug Free AZ Director Shelly Miller. Teens mix heroin with marijuana or tobacco or smoke it using a water pipe. "There's a big misconception with kids that smoking heroin is less addictive," Miller said. Heroin can range in color from whitish brown to dark brown. Black tar heroin, made primarily in Mexico, is most prevalent in the Southwest, and dealers often market the drug where kids have cash at the ready. www.azcentral.com
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