PROGRAM DRIVES HOME DRUG DANGER

Drug Education For Youth Camp Teaches Responsibility

Nine-year-old Patara Foster of Wilmington stepped up to the line like a champ,
crawled onto a tricycle and put on Fatal Vision goggles that simulated a
blood-alcohol level of 0.17 to 0.20.

By her own admission, she pretty much freaked out from that point.

"It's scary. I want my mama," she screamed as she jumped off the cycle and ran
into the comforting arms of a counselor.

Some fellow participants at the seventh annual Drug Education for Youth camp,
which ended Friday, managed to zigzag the cycle through a slalom of four orange
cones. But with the discombobulation of seeming to be roughly twice as drunk as
state law allows adult drivers to be, none could speak later about how easy it
was. A blood-alcohol level of 0.10 is evidence of intoxication under Delaware
law.

"It was scary," said 11-year-old Lauren Morris of Wilmington. "It felt like I
was going really, really fast."

Organizers of the camp, mostly volunteers, hope that Patara, Lauren and 65
other 9- to 12-year-old campers remember that disconcerting feeling when they
begin driving.

"We also tell them that it's their responsibility not to get in the car with
relatives or friends who are drinking and driving," said Sgt. Joe DiDiego, who
was running the Fatal Vision station.

For the seventh straight year, the camp was staged in the buildings and on the
open spaces of the Delaware National Guard's 35-acre training site in Bethany
Beach.

The participants came from high-crime neighborhoods in Wilmington and Dover
targeted for extra police protection by the U.S. Department of Justice, as well
as from West Rehoboth and Coverdale, identified in 1993 by the state's Strong
Communities Initiative as needing special attention.

The five-day residential camp included activities intended to teach leadership,
conflict resolution, teamwork and dealing with peer pressure. Campers swam in
the Atlantic Ocean, visited the Coast Guard station at the Indian River Inlet
bridge and talked with police officers.

Maj. Rob Pankiw, the National Guard's drug demand reduction coordinator, said
the Weed and Seed programs in Wilmington and Dover chipped in $10,000 each
toward the program's $26,000 budget, which, in addition to the camp, pays for a
yearlong series of field trips and other activities. The budget also includes
$3,500 from the state Department of Education and $2,500 from the state Office
of Prevention.

Drug Education for Youth's goal is to latch onto children before they
experiment with liquor and drugs. The program emphasizes starter drugs with the
idea that, if the anti-drug messages catch on, the campers probably will never
be tempted to try cocaine, heroin or designer drugs.

Robert Russillo, head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force
in Dover, was chief lecturer at the camp's drug abuse station. He displayed a
passion honed from years of battling drugs and drug dealers on the streets and
schoolyards of New York City. More and more, he said, the DEA is targeting the
demand for drugs as well as the supply side.

"You don't want to touch this stuff unless you have no desire to ever succeed,"
Russillo told an attentive group of seven campers taking a turn at his station.

DiDiego said the drunken-driving station, where participants also attempt to
walk, toe to heel, along a plastic strip with the goggles on, is invariably the
camp's most popular offering. Anshea Wayman, 12, of Dover, agreed, saying it
"tells me never to drink and drive, and it was fun to try to walk the line."