6 April 27–MAy 3, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents locally, he said, adding that the most recent seizure he’d been part of was in a garage, where the pills were made to look like bars of the sedative Xanax or oxycodone, a potent opioid. “The entire garage of this residence, if you looked at it, was completely full of pow- der,” Baker said. “There’s no control that’s taking place in this particular facility. … They’ve got the pill-press in place, they’ve got the dyes to make it look like a legitimate pill, and there’s no quality control there at all.” Fentanyl is highly addictive and cheap to produce, and Baker noted that there’s no as- surance dealers are using the right amount. “So possibly their intent is not to kill the per- son,” he said. “Their intent is to make money, and that’s why they’re pushing these pills into our communities.” Laura Zimmer, director of counseling services with Plano ISD, advised parents in the audience to monitor or restrict their kids from using social media, which has essen- tially become the go-to marketplace for il- licit drugs. It’s OK to be nosy when it comes to one’s children, she said, adding to watch out for changes in behavior or dips in grades. It may not be substance abuse at the moment, but depression and anxiety can po- tentially lead to that. Horton told Plano community members that Jessie was tricked into taking the drug; she knew how dangerous fentanyl was and promised to never use it. Horton also im- plored parents to tell their kids that they can’t trust anyone when it comes to pills. “Probably the biggest point I want to make is letting your children know that that one choice could be forever,” she said. “You can’t come back from forever.” T his isn’t the first time that drugs have fueled a community crisis in Plano. In August 1998, then-student Kris- tin Holt from Plano Senior High School helped put together a candlelight vigil hon- oring teens who’d fallen victim to heroin. “I’m glad we’re ending our senior year with no more deaths, and we’re coming to a close,” 17-year-old Holt told The Dallas Morning News at the time. A string of her- oin-related fatalities that had rocked the wealthy Dallas suburb for years was finally starting to wane. More than a dozen local high-school and college students, described by the news me- dia as “clean-cut teenagers’’ with promising futures, had died from the drug in the late 1990s, according to a 2015 article in the Journal of American History. Heroin, once thought to afflict mostly urban areas, had begun to encroach on an affluent North Texas enclave with gated communities. Collin County’s medical examiner logged at least eight deaths from heroin overdoses between 1987 and the last month of 1995, the Dallas Observer reported in May 1999. Most of the casualties had been hardcore drug us- ers in their late 30s. But the victims’ ages be- gan to drop: from 27 to 21, and then to an average of 18. Outlets like MTV and News- week reported splashy stories about the teen junkies of suburbia. Undocumented immigrants and Mexi- can cartels bore the brunt of the blame for the heroin, called “chiva,” making its way to suburban kids, the Journal of American His- tory reported. But 16 of the 29 so-called drug pushers indicted in connection with the fa- tal overdoses were white teens themselves who had hawked heroin to their peers. (The Observer wrote at the time that chiva is “a blend of heroin and antihistamines,” either injected or snorted.) From 1995 to 1999, at least 19 young peo- ple succumbed to heroin in Plano, the Ob- server reported last year. Some North Texas residents have drawn comparisons between the Plano heroin epidemic of the mid- and late-’90s and today’s fentanyl scourge. The untimely — and seemingly unending — deaths have put entire communities on edge. Retired detective Billy Meeks recalled his time as commander of the Plano heroin task force. Asked his thoughts on today’s rash of fentanyl deaths, he was quick to say, “It’s the same way.” A small amount of the high-oc- tane drug “was overdosing everybody,” he said, and it came into Texas from Mexico. “We had a lot of kids dying that didn’t even know what chiva was,” he said. The Collin County Substance Abuse Pro- gram, established in 1990, has recently seen an “alarming” increase in the number of fen- tanyl-related deaths, from 29% of all drug overdose deaths in 2020 to 55% last year, program administrator John-Mark Meul- man said during the March forum. “For those of you that were here [in the 1990s] and remember that, heroin was the drug problem back then,” he said. “It was a perva- sive problem, and there were forums like this about that back then.” Ryan has heard people cite parallels be- tween the two North Texas drug eras. It makes sense to draw analogies, said Vaughn, who was a high school student in Richardson at the time of the heroin epidemic. He remembers seeing the crisis plastered on the national news. Upset parents filled gyms then, too. “To that degree, there’s similarities: The community’s scared, people are very fearful,” Vaughn said. But when it comes to the heroin users, “They were intentionally making a de- cision to do something that was dangerous.” The language surrounding fentanyl deaths is important to people like Sienna Vaughn’s family. They’ll refer to their loved one as having been “poisoned” instead of calling it an “overdose.” One advocate ex- plained that the latter term implies that someone has taken more of a drug than they’re supposed to. Yet some have lost their lives to fentanyl after taking only half a pill. It’s possible that some students today may also realize that they’re taking a risk by experimenting with prescription meds, Ryan said. “But most of them, I think, like Si- enna, did not know what she was [taking] and was tricked, and she was poisoned,” he continued. “That’s the difference.” A glittering black box tinged lightly with pink and bearing Sienna’s name rested on the Vaughns’ dining room table in their home on a Plano cul-de-sac. It’s an apt representation of Sienna, whose multifaceted personality didn’t fit into just one category. Yes, she liked heavy music and was proud of her piercings, but she’d also been a Girl Scout and was a “closet Swiftie,” her mom said, referring to fans of Taylor Swift. Sienna loved driving her little blue Kia, which her parents had gotten because of its impressive safety features. It was parked outside the Vaughns’ home one Wednesday afternoon in early April. Stephanie now thinks that she was “wor- ried about the wrong things. “I was worried about her getting in a car accident,” she said. “I even told her, ‘I know you’re not to the age yet, but don’t accept any drinks, you know, because of roofies.’ Women have a lot to be warned about. But, I wish I would have known to say, ‘Hey, Si- enna, all that other stuff is important too, but this can kill you the first time.’” The Vaughns’ younger daughter, Summer, crafted the box to hold cherished memories that mourners could write down during Si- enna’s funeral. The service was packed, Stephanie said, and some teens have since told her that Sienna had lifted them up dur- ing difficult days at school. Like many of her friends, Sienna had also struggled with men- tal health. She wanted to become a counselor. Today, Sienna’s ashes rest in an elegant dark blue urn in the Vaughns’ living room. As Stephanie sat at the long dining table, she stroked a fluffy black lapdog named Coco Chanel. She recalled that Sienna was a good writer who loved animals, particularly the kittens the family fostered during the coronavirus pandemic. Sienna likely would have been “really upset” at the recent acqui- sition of Coco, her mother joked. “I know she’s probably pissed at that. ‘You got a dog for Summer? I would’ve been asking for a dog forever.’” Sienna’s mother is devastated by the loss of her daughter. She’s also furious — angry at society for getting to this point, mad at Sien- na’s school for not doing enough. Plano has a reputation to uphold as having the best schools, she noted, but kids are purchasing pills on campus from other students. The administration doesn’t want to admit that there’s an issue with drugs like fentanyl, she said. Since Sienna’s death, the Vaughns have spoken to several media outlets, hoping to raise awareness about the crisis that Alicia Claytor Sienna’s family: mother Stephanie, father Ryan, sister Summer in their Plano home. Simone Carter Sienna’s friends and family gathered to remember her on April 16 in Plano. >> p8 Unfair Park from p3
