Just One Pill: Parts One, Two and Three of a Three-Part Series
Part One
Forget dealers—new generation of addicts goes straight for the medicine cabinets
The 10th-grader selected her favorite color. It was a very simple task that she and most young people have probably done countless times before. However, this time, the stakes were never higher. She was not choosing a color for a blouse, a cell phone case or curtains for her bedroom. Instead, she was selecting a pill from a menagerie of narcotics that her peers had brought to a “pharm party” – an alarming and frightening phenomenon that’s been making a comeback among teenagers throughout Long Island.
Buying The Pharm
“She was trying to fit in,” said Detective Pamela Stark of the Nassau County Police Department, who met with reporters from Anton Community Newspapers and recounted this horrifying tale, which occurred in central Nassau.
The pill the young teen selected had been prescribed for a dialysis patient. One of the party attendants probably took it from an ill parent or grandparent. When she took a second pill, after also drinking alcohol, she became nauseous, and then continued to get sicker until she had to be rushed to the hospital.