A deadly mixture of heroin and cold medication, called "cheese," has become a scourge among youth in the Dallas area, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 21 people, Newsweek reports in its May 21 issue.

The new drug is made by grinding up cold medication with black-tar heroin, which is typically smuggled from Mexico. The mixture is deadly, addictive, and inexpensive, with a $30 purchase of heroin yielding 40 to 50 cheese hits. The amount of heroin in cheese is sometimes as little as 3 percent, but the quantity can be inconsistent.

"Kids will be scoring 3 percent and all of a sudden, they get 9 or 10 percent, and you are dead," says James Capra, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas field division.

Cheese arrests among students in the Dallas Independent School District increased from 90 in the 2005-2006 academic year to 145 and counting in the 2006-2007 academic year. One of the disturbing facets of the cheese scourge is the young age of the users -- some as young as 12, and in one case 11 years of age.

"Put yourself in that kid's mind," says Capra. "It's got a funny name, and it's only a couple of bucks."

The young age of the users also makes treatment more difficult. "Cognitively, they don't understand consequences," says Michelle Hemm, director of the Phoenix Academy of Dallas, a residential treatment facility for teens that is seeing a growing number of cheese admissions. "This age group is developmentally hard to deal with."