If the average number of kids in a class is about 30, then two teenagers from every three Arizona high school classes is using heroin. A survey found that 2 percent of Arizona teens in Grades 8 through 12 have tried heroin, and it’s a very dangerous drug. There’s no going back after serious heroin abuse - the only recourse is drug rehab.

According to a National Survey of Drug Use and Health, 1.4 percent of 8th, 10th and 12th graders have used heroin in their lifetime. Arizona, at 2 percent, is in a higher category of needing more and better drug rehab programs for kids than some other states.

Another disturbing survey found a 12% drop in the numbers of Arizona parents talking to their kids about drugs. It’s a proven fact that kids are 50% less likely to try drugs and wind up needing drug rehab if they regularly discuss drugs and drug abuse with their parents.

Just in the past two months, there were at least five heroin deaths in Arizona, including two high-school students - both of whom might have been saved with a timely intervention and drug rehab. Is it possible that no one at school knew they were using heroin - or at least some kind of drug? Seems obvious that other kids had to know - and some of them may still be using it themselves. Almost any kid would agree that doing nothing to help an addicted friend into drug rehab is a pretty big ethical failure.

One of the dead youngsters, 17-year-old football star Danny Pasanella of Chandler, AZ, was already known to be a long-time addict by his friends and parents, who "thought he had it under control." He’d been through drug rehab in 2006, but obviously it didn’t work. There had to be some kind of communication failure surrounding Danny’s addiction. If his relapse was spotted by someone, they should have helped him return to drug rehab.

The trouble with kids using heroin these days, besides the obvious problems connected to drug addiction, is that they usually smoke it in a piece of aluminum foil. There are no needle marks on their bodies, and almost no smoking odor for parents or others to detect. But both the black tar and brown powder heroin widely available in the state can be lethal - it is often cut with other drugs that, in combination, cause serious and deadly side effects. Kids also often drink alcohol or take some other "downer" type drug with it, which is also a deadly mix. Many of the youngsters who arrive for drug rehab have experienced repeated close calls requiring medical attention.

Heroin is trafficked into the state from Mexico by ruthless, organized drug syndicate criminals. It is distributed and sold on the street by more street gang members and outlaw motorcycle gangs. These people are armed and dangerous, and couldn’t care less if they kill our kids with their poison or leave them needing drug rehab.

Are drug pushers who we want our kids spending any time with at all? Most parents would be very worried if they knew their kids were consorting with violent gangsters, setting themselves up for trouble at school, trouble with the law, visits to the ER, months in drug rehab, or even death by drug overdose or a bullet in some dark alley. Doesn’t it warrant some discussion with your kids about what’s really going on?

No one knows for sure if there’s a link between the 12% drop in parents talking to their kids about drugs and the rise in teenage drug abuse and drug-related deaths in the state. But it’s not unrealistic to suspect a connection. If you think about it happening to your own kids instead of to ‘those kids over there’, you’ll see that a discussion is not a bad idea. And if you find out your kid is on drugs, drug rehab program is a whole lot better than a trip to the morgue.