By calling the conference "Connecting the Dots," Doron is describing what he wished he would have done when he saw pieces of aluminum foil disappear from the kitchen or unexplained black marks on his son's fingers. Joey would ask his father to pick up specific brands of pens for him so he could use the hollow tubes. Michael Doron would find out after that the items were drug paraphernalia and the marks on his son's fingers were residue from drug use.

By the time Doron did connect the dots, it was too late. His son was battling a drug addiction that would eventually kill him. Michael Doron said the next time he saw his son after their late-night talk, he noticed a white foam coming from his mouth as he lay in bed.

"I screamed. His brother cried hysterically," Doron said. "I tried to do CPR even though I knew he was gone."

Raising awareness

Doron isn't the only one who wants to raise awareness of heroin use among teens.

Since the heroin-related deaths of Amelia Sorich and Zachary Martinez, both 18, earlier this year, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson launched a billboard campaign that encourages young people to call 911 when their friends overdose rather than do nothing.

The bodies of both Martinez and Sorich were dumped in mountainous locations by friends who panicked after they died.

It's those same "friends" that generally introduce heroin to others.

"There's not going to be some mean and ugly drug dealer that's going to walk up to your children and force heroin down their throats," said filmmaker Curtis Elliot. "The key is one of their friends, someone they love and respect. They're going to say, 'Try this, it's going to be fun. You can handle it. It won't kill you, you can control the drug.' "

Elliot recently made an award-winning documentary called "Hairkutt," which follows a group trying to help one of their friends kick his heroin habit. Because of the recent media attention to heroin in Salt Lake City, Elliot picked Utah as one of the places to premiere his film.

"The person who is going to give them the heroin is not going to be a stranger. It's not going to be someone who is out to hurt them, but in their own mind they're being nice to them by turning them on to this drug," he said. "Kids have such bad information (about heroin). Kids are not told what's going to happen to them."

Also in an effort to better inform teens and parents, Smith's Food and Drug pharmacies has produced a DVD. It features Brock, 17, a former drug addict who shares the methods and mind-sets of teen drug users.

Brock, who does not want his last name used, was 14 when he started doing drugs. From what he observed in high school there were "many kids" using heroin, he said.

Brock said he started smoking marijuana and then progressed to prescription drugs, including OxyContin.

"It was no big deal. It was just a prescription," he said.