TAKING PREVENTIVE MEASURES

Workshop Focuses On Informing Parents Of Today's Drug Scene

Robin Amberger, student assistance coordinator at Naperville Central High
School, pulled no punches.

Her low voice was sober, at times feeling, always purposeful. She didn't
mince words.

At a workshop Thursday, Amberger and school resource officer Tim Erdman
gave 90 parents and a handful of students an update on today's drug scene.

It's a parent's job to find out enough to become a "credible resource" for
their children, Amberger said. Adults should educate their children about
drugs — not the reverse.

There's a lot to know.

While some new drugs may be unknown, one of the key messages of the
workshop was that many familiar drugs have changed from when adults were in
high school.

New substances that have not yet been researched, such as the drug ecstasy,
are "making guinea pigs of our children," Amberger said. Older drugs, such
as marijuana, heroin and LSD, have been altered in ways that make them more
insidious than ever.

Teens' increased use of pipe-like paraphernalia called bowls, bongs and
blunts means they experience a much heavier dosage than the joints, or
rolled marijuana cigarettes, of the 1970s.

"Kids become zombified pot smokers," Amberger said. "If you have two joints
a week over six months, your system becomes saturated - even if you are not
smoking."

As a result, she said, students can become apathetic, drop out of
extracurricular activities or give up lifelong dreams.

"Kids feel, 'I'm fine.' But it's sneaky," Amberger said. "You don't feel it
happening."

Some parents may be unaware their child has a problem.

Certain drugs clear the system within hours, Amberger said. A teen may take
drugs at a party or the start of a school day and return home appearing
normal. Other drugs, such as LSD, can cause terrifying hallucinations. Even
though LSD is less potent than it was in the past, its "profound impact on
the brain" can still cause flashbacks for years.

As for heroin, "It's back. There's been a generational forgetting,"
Amberger said.

The competitive price, sometimes only $10 a hit, and new method of use,
snorting, not injecting, may cause teens to think heroin isn't so bad. And
yet the "purity," or potency, has increased.

Amberger said she battles the teen perception that adults are
overstretching reality.

"They look at what adults are saying and what their friends are doing and
saying, 'My friends are OK.' They're not telling the truth. But bad things
can happen."

Amberger told the story of a District 203 student who was half-carried,
half-dragged by friends to a football game. Fearful the girl might get
caught being drunk, they took her to the cemetery near Naperville Central
High School with the intent of picking her up later.

The girl was found - with a blood alcohol content of .43.

"Her breathing was so erratic, she was hardly breathing at all," Amberger
said. "I told the students that if she hadn't been found, they might as
well have left her there permanently."

Beyond the legal definition of intoxication, a blood-alcohol content
greater than .08, and the point at which a person is obviously drunk, a
blood-alcohol level of .2, come signs the body is overloaded with alcohol.

"At .3 percent, you vomit, and that's a wake-up call," Amberger said. "At
.4 percent, the body passes out so you won't consume any more. At .5
percent, you die of an overdose."

Parents shouldn't be naive, Amberger said.

"Kids don't drink socially. They drink to get drunk. Let's be honest here.
They're not just sitting around with a nice little cocktail and umbrella."

"I kind of feel ignorant about drugs in Naperville. I wanted to know what
was out there," said parent Joanne Louis about why she attended the seminar.

While Louis said she doesn't think her son, a sophomore at Central, uses
drugs, "I don't want to be so ignorant I would say this couldn't ever be my
child," she said. "We think it's always in somebody else's neighborhood."

Students Evan Bassett, a junior, and Gretchen Auten, a sophomore, heard the
presentation while working that night in Central's theater.

"I think it's important, but to some extent, it might exaggerate what the
risk is," Bassett said.

Auten said she knows teens who abuse alcohol and marijuana. She also said
she was surprised Amberger mentioned drugs like steroids and wild mushrooms
because she had never heard of them being used in Naperville.

"No one is really pressing me to try," Auten said. "Even if they did, I
won't. I think they're bad. They're wrong."