STUDENTS GET AN UP-CLOSE AND UGLY LOOK AT DRUG ABUSE

A bereaved mother, bearing her daughter's ashes, was part of a police
program at Cardinal Dougherty High.

Photographs of addicts, their bodies pocked by needle marks, drew solemn
stares yesterday from students at Cardinal Dougherty High School.

They heard about the dangers of the latest drug that could knock them and
their friends down - OxyContin, a powerful painkiller.

The students felt and saw the heartbreak of Kathy Berry, 42, of Port
Richmond, who lost her daughter, Karen Lynn, to a heroin overdose in 1998.

"This is my daughter - her ashes in a marble urn. So, you guys need to be
alert, be aware and be educated. This is not a joke," Berry warned after she
lifted the container.

Berry spoke as photographs of Karen Lynn, from a little girl in a First
Communion outfit to a pretty preteen in a cheerleader's uniform, flashed on
a screen behind her.

"Today, I hold Karen in my heart and in my memories, but I'll never again
hold her in my arms," Berry said.

The images were presented to more than 1,100 students as the Philadelphia
Police Department opened its no-holds-barred program, "Heads Up." The
project, taught by narcotics officers, recovering addicts and victims'
families, lasted more than an hour at the school at 6301 N. Second St. in
Oak Lane. Police plan to take it to other city and area schools.

It was initiated after Deputy Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and
Raymond Rooney, chief inspector of narcotics, viewed a New Castle County,
Del., police outreach program on the dangers of drugs and decided the heroin
problem in the Philadelphia region was serious enough to warrant a similar
program.

Philadelphia police in recent years have been increasingly concerned about
hundreds of suburbanites who drive to North Philadelphia to buy illegal
drugs every day. Younger and younger addicts, drawn by the purity and
relatively low cost of heroin in the city, have popularized the drug even
more.

The rate of treatment for heroin addiction in the seven-county Philadelphia
suburbs jumped from 77 to 84 per 100,000 people between 1995 and 1998.

"The biggest myth with heroin is: You won't get hooked if you snort it
through your nose," Officer John Callahan, an eight-year police veteran,
told the students. "That's a . . . lie."

Callahan discussed the dangers of marijuana, PCP (angel dust), ecstasy,
OxyContin, cocaine and heroin.

Next up was Officer Shawn Carey, whose presentation was called "Welcome
Home." Instead of the happiness those words imply, the students saw blowups
of scenes from grotesque drug dens: a jar filled with cockroaches used for
play by addicts' children; a filthy toy rocking horse that kept children
occupied while their mother or father shot up.

Then a loud pop echoed through the auditorium, shifting the students'
attention. The sound was made by an officer who was shaking a blue body bag
as he hustled it up and down the aisles. The bag is used for trips to the
morgue, said Carey, a 12-year veteran.

"After we stuff your body in it, we will drag you out," he said.

Officer George Burgess told the students the story of Eric Soderland, 20, of
Aldan, Delaware County, who was fatally shot in February by a gunman at
Ninth and Huntingdon Streets in North Philadelphia. A man with Soderland
told police that they had approached someone to buy drugs but that the man
pointed a gun and demanded money.

They gave him money and tried to flee, but the robber fired, shooting
Soderland in the head.

Burgess told the students he had stopped Soderland for a traffic violation
minutes before he was shot and figured, correctly, that he was in the area
to buy drugs.

"[I] talked to him. I thought about calling his mom," Burgess said.

Later, Burgess said, he saw Soderland's companion crying.

"I told you to go home," Burgess recalled saying.

When the presentation was over, the students sat quietly, as though they had
just viewed a riveting movie in a theater.

"Everybody was paying attention," said Eliezer Garcia, a junior, 16. "They
seemed like they got across to us."