Almost without exception, those involved in the treatment of addiction echo the mantra that early intervention is critical to turning around the epidemic that is sweeping Utah and the rest of the country. Experts say if they can just deter teenagers and young adults, the chances of addiction drop dramatically as they mature.

But Utah officials lack good information on what drugs today's young people are taking, how much they are taking, how they got started.

In fact, very little comprehensive statistical data has been gleaned on the drug habits of those under age 18 since 1997 when a new law went into effect that according to state officials, handcuffs their ability to target prevention programs to Utah teenagers most at risk.

Designed to protect privacy and parental rights, state law now requires parents to give written approval before any survey is conducted in public schools — something unlikely to happen with parents of at-risk children, who in many cases are also drug abusers themselves.

Another hindrance is that new requirements raised the cost of conducting the survey from $1 per student to about $4. "We just couldn't afford it," said Pat Fleming, director of the Utah Division of Substance Abuse, which compiles data on the drug and alcohol habits of all Utahns. "So we don't survey in the schools anymore."

Gayle Ruzicka, director of the Utah Eagle Forum and architect of the privacy law, said the state's need to know should never supercede a parent's right to decide whether to participate in such surveys.

"It's none of the school's business to ask them personal questions," she said. "They were (survey) questions about their sex life, what they dream about, what they think about. Even the drug and alcohol tests have a lot of questions that have nothing to do with drugs and alcohol."

Angela Smart, a programs administrator with the state Division of Substance Abuse, believes it is hopelessly naive to think kids will answer the survey honestly if their parents are looking over their shoulder.

"The key to the whole problem is prevention, and that is something we focus on in the public schools," she said. "But we have no good information on what will meet the needs of kids."

Children who spiral into addiction eventually pay the price, often dropping out of school.

According to survey data compiled on adult addicts, 38 percent never graduated from high school, and another 38 percent graduated from high school but never continued on to college.

Clairann remembers the 1960s as a time of flowers, free love and drugs. Drugs everywhere.

"I tried heroin in San Francisco and spent the next 27 years looking for that same high," she said.

She never found it. What she found was a career as a drug dealer, something that supported her heroin habit and helped her escape the reality of an abusive drug-dealing husband.