A NEW WAY TO CHANNEL ANTIDRUG MESSAGE

At Council Rock, Parents And Teachers Turned To Videos Showing On Cable

NORTHAMPTON - Parents and teachers of the Council Rock School
District have turned to cable television in their efforts to stop drug
and alcohol abuse by students.

This month, a video on how to prevent and spot substance abuse began
running on municipal cable television in the district and will be on
several times a week.

The first video focuses on "huffing" -- sniffing inhalants, such as
glue, spray paint and air freshener, to get high. Inhalant abuse,
authorities say, played a role in the Jan. 29 car accident in Delaware
County that killed five Penncrest High School students.

Council Rock has long provided education and drug-prevention
counseling for students, said Charlie Lange, director of special
services. Along with Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) and
the Rent-a-Cop program, which pairs a Northampton police officer with
each Council Rock school, teachers present antidrug curriculum
throughout the year. In addition, school nurses offer one-on-one
counseling.But school officials decided that was not enough. Hence the
videos, which are produced by a White House drug-control agency.

Administrators were surprised and troubled, Lange said, by the results
of a February 1997 student survey in which nearly half the juniors and
almost 20 percent of the freshmen said they used drugs at least
occasionally.

The results of a parent's survey that followed several months later
were equally dismaying, said Bernadette Heenan, head of the Council
Rock Drug-Free School Partnership. Parents tended to underestimate the
dangers of drugs and overestimate their teens' resistance, she
said.The parental education nights they sponsored drew sparse crowds,
Heenan said. "So we thought we would bring the show to them."

Now, parents and students can watch a different video each month to
get information about everything from drinking and driving to
marijuana and heroin use. The videos are available and free to anyone
- -- schools, community groups, parents -- who wants them from the
Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington.

The 15-minute video for March, narrated by Michael Jordan's mother,
Dolores Jordan, includes interviews with doctors and substance-abuse
counselors -- and frightening statistics. For example, 800,000 young
people used inhalants for the first time in 1995, compared with
380,000 in 1991.

In the video, a father tearfully tells of finding his 11-year-old son,
Wade, lying limp and blue-lipped on the patio. The father desperately
performed CPR -- with no success.

A 16-year-old former "huffer" named Bruce tells of being discovered by
his mother in the garage with a ring of spray paint around his mouth
and pacifying her with a story about a mishap while painting his bike.

The video will be played on Channel 23 in Northampton at the following days
and times throughout March: Sunday and Monday at 6:43 p.m.; Tuesday and
Wednesday at 5:30 and 7 p.m.; Thursday at 5:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at
6:43 p.m. On Channel 23 in Newtown, tune in Monday at 7:42 p.m.; Tuesday
and Friday at 2:42 p.m.; and Saturday at 2:42 and 7:42 p.m.

For More Information To ask about the videos, contact the Office of
National Drug Control Policy at 800-666-3332 or through its Web site,
www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov