Death of GA Tech Pitcher linked to drug use

[nonesuche]

This is alarming, heroin use?????? My neices and nephew graduated from the Wesleyan School and I have a good friend who also teaches there. I have always said that private schools have their own designer drug issues with students, simply because of the funds those kids have to pay for drugs. But heroin ??????

How does such a bright kid will all of the advantages end up using heroin?????

http://sports.aol.com/story/_a/report-shows-player-died-of-overdose/20080530165709990001?icid=100214839x1203108069x1200126786

Report Shows Player Died of Overdose
By MIKE STOBBE,AP
Posted: 2008-05-31 17:26:01
ATLANTA (May 30) - A medical examiner's report shows a heroin overdose caused the death of Georgia Tech pitcher Michael Hutts.

The Fulton County Medical Examiner's office released the report Friday. The report offers the final word on what killed the 21-year-old baseball player, who was found dead in his Atlanta apartment on April 11.

Police suspected an accidental drug overdose from the beginning. Hutts' roommate, Ryan Tinkoff, told police Hutts had injected heroin in the past and believed might have used heroin the night of April 10.

But investigators have been sifting through the medical evidence. A preliminary medical examiner's report in early May found Hutts died from acute morphine toxicity. Heroin is a modified form of morphine, and quickly breaks down in the body into morphine.

Still, the possibility had lingered that Hutts died from morphine and not heroin, said Dr. Geoffrey Smith, an associated medical examiner.

Toxicology results, released Friday, showed a small amount of actual heroin in a urine sample from Hutts' body, as well as the heroin metabolite 6-monoacetylmorphine.

An Atlanta Police spokesman, James C. Polite Jr., said the final report was clearly important information.

"The findings of the medical examiner are crucial in how we investigate," Polite said.

Polite said he did not know if the case's investigators had seen the report, or whether additional detective work into where he got the drugs was going forward.

A few hours after the report was released, Georgia Tech won its opening game in the NCAA tournament with an 8-5 victory over Louisville.

"We've already been through this stuff," pitcher David Duncan said. "We've tried to put it behind us as much as we could. We were just trying to focus on the game."

Hutts grew up in Dunwoody, an Atlanta suburb, and graduated from The Wesleyan School in nearby Norcross. In college, he was listed on the dean's list with a management major last year.

Hutts died less than a week after his best game of the season. On April 6, the reliever threw two scoreless innings against North Carolina, allowing one hit. Overall, he made nine appearances this year.

"We recognize this as the final chapter in a very sad story for the Hutts family and for the Georgia Tech community," Georgia Tech athletic director Dan Radakovich said in a prepared statement Friday.

"It is a story of a fine young man who excelled in academics and athletics whose life was cut short by a very tragic mistake in judgment," he said.


Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

[2NJSons_Mom]

I'd venture to guess that this is not the first time this young man used poor judgement, and had used for some time.  My boys had a friend who died 2 years ago of an overdose.  He had become addicted to prescription drugs and then used heroin.  He'd been prescribed methodone, and sadly took too many various meds which killed him.  One doctor was treating him for a back problem, another for depression/bipolar simptoms, and another for dependency.  It was easy for him to manipulate because each doctor wasn't in contact with the next, not to mention what he could buy on the street..  He'd been a talented football & wrestling star in the local high school and I can still see his face as clearly as the last time I saw him alive. 

[pdh3]

Heroin is not just for street junkies anymore. Lots of kids are using it now to replace prescription meds when they can't get their hands on those. Kids are stealing their parents' meds, or becoming addicted after an injury of some sort, and heroin is a fall back drug. And kids with bi-polar or other emotional issues will self-medicate.
I left the mortgage industry for the obvious reasons last fall, and went to work for an addiction specialist/psychiatric practice. One of our doctors specializes in children and adolescents, and one specializes in adults with addiction issues. We have seen a lot of heroin addicts who moved to methadone, and then come to us to get clean from the methadone. We have an outpatient program that has a lot of success. Most of them started out on prescription meds for pain, such as hydrocodone ( Oxycontin) or stole thier family members pain meds or those drugs that reduce anxiety such as Klonanpin. The parents are usually in denial until it gets too serious to ignore. If this kid was shooting up heroion, he was no novice to drug use.
My kids go to a public high school that has very high academic standards, and was named as one of the top five  public high schools in the US. The athletic and academic pressure on these kids is tremendous. The result is a very big drug problem. There are lots of well-to-do families here, and they all expect a lot from kids who may not be able to deliver. Not all kids here are academically gifted, but almost all the parents believe their kids are genius level when they are just good students. Or they want their kids to play sports professionally, so they put all kinds of pressure on kids who may not be cut out for that too. I have personally seen a kid get out of a car on the street in front of the school and hand a joint to another kid.....in broad daylight, in a quiet family suburb, in front of all kinds of parents in cars. Drugs are rampant no matter where your kids are, and all kinds of drugs are available. The focus has been shifted since 9-11 to terroism, illegal aliens, and the economy, and people have kind of forgotten about drugs. But from what I see at work every day, it's gotten a lot worse.

[nonesuche]

2NJSonsMom & pdh3 - I guess I've been lucky my two kids have respected clean living thusfar. I am just so disheartened to think heroin is so rampant now. In discussing this death with son today he stated that at Bama, that many in the fraternities use cocaine frequently. This is just terrible.......no wonder your new work is so hard on you pdh.

[2NJSons_Mom]

2NJSonsMom & pdh3 - I guess I've been lucky my two kids have respected clean living thusfar. I am just so disheartened to think heroin is so rampant now. In discussing this death with son today he stated that at Bama, that many in the fraternities use cocaine frequently. This is just terrible.......no wonder your new work is so hard on you pdh.

We all are lucky our kids have respected clean living, but sadly mine loved the friend they lost.  They knew he had problems and he had tried to recover.  They still have messages saved on their answering machine that he'd left.  They were always available for support.  We know of 2 other young men who are now in counseling once again, after many failed attempts.  Their parents have endured this nightmare for years. 

I, too, can understand how pdh3 feels after a day on the job, and want her to know that I saw how truthful & factual she was in her post.  She said a lot of things I was thinking when I posted, because it seemed she'd described my son's friend, who I loved like one of my own...... I've been oblivious at times, and thank God that my sons discuss things with me...in doing so they've opened my eyes to those things foreign to us here in this house. 

[pdh3]

I've been fortunate too, in that my kids are not into alcohol and drugs either. They are all dedicated, hard working, and are gifted academically. I am thankful every day that God has guided me all these years, because I did lean on Him heavily for help. It was not easy to raise 3 kids alone, but God was with me. We may live in an upper-middleclass town, but we are way down at the end of the income spectrum. I live here because the schools are very good, and because I wanted my kids to remain in close proximity to their Dad. But I do not embrace the lifestyle, which IMHO contributes to the alienation of family members, and allows parents and children to become removed from each others lives.  Those huge houses, with the master suite far away from the kids, is not a good idea for that very reason. Kids can hide all kinds of things from parents, especially drugs. One girl managed to hide a man in her room for 2 weeks before Mom discovered him. I mean...TWO WEEKS? And they weren't just playing tiddly-winks for two weeks either....
I could go on and on about the reasons kids are addicted to some very powerful substances in record numbers, but I think the main reason is that parents are giving kids adult status in the family long before they are ready for it due to divorce, and parents are either uninvolved, or overinvolved in their childrens lives. There seems to be no middle ground anymore. I hear a lot of sad stories at work about these kids, and sometimes I just want to ask the parents what they were thinking when they made certain decisions.......
Quite often, drug abuse is rampant in a family, too. And in a few cases, parents do all they can, and a kid still takes a wrong turn. This what I see every day, and what the kids tell us.

I feel very bad for this kid's family. I'm sure they wish things had been different. It's just a terrible outcome for such a promising young man, and terrible suffering for his loved ones.