Morris cops find teens running drug rings

Students more comfortable buying from peers

By Margaret McHugh
STARLEDGER STAFF

Morris County's escalating teenage drug problem has taken an alarming twist
in areas like suburban Mount Olive, where youths are setting up shop as
dealers and are drumming up business from area high schools.

There's been a big boom since the beginning of the year," said Lt. Mark
Spitzer, who heads Mount Olive's narcotics unit.

In the past six weeks, police broke up two organized teenage drug rings and
are investigating four similar cases in which youths are selling cocaine,
heroin, marijuana and "club" drugs such as Ecstasy and "Special K" to
other children.

Two drug operations headed by teenagers in neighboring Roxbury and
Washington Township were infiltrated in January by undercover detectives, who
arrested 11 people and seized $3,000 in LSD, marijuana and heroin and $2,200
in cash.

"This is new for us. It's never been this organized," said Mount Olive
Officer Joseph Kluska, department spokesman.

The problem is countywide, Morris Country Prosecutor John Dangler said.
"We're seeing more and more cases" in which teenagers "are the ones doing the
major distributions," rather than just working for adult drug dealers, Dangler
said.

"The common denominator is the age group: The extremely young, brazen
crowd," Mount Olive narcotics Detective Michael Patchunka said.

Lt. Thomas Polio, who heads the prosecutor's narcotics task force, said more
teenagers are going to New York and other cities for "raves," allnight dance
parties where drugs are sold openly.

"It's the openair market coming to suburbia," Polio said. "They think, `If
they can do that there, we can do that here.'"

'Teenagers are playing the middle man," buying drugs in New York City,
Paterson, Newark and East Orange and reselling them in Morris County,
Spitzer said.

A 18 yearold recovering drug addict named Jason, who also dabbled in
dealing, said there is a comfort level in buying from peers.

"I felt I could trust them a little more, said Jason who twice bought
marijuana from teenagers in Mount Olive and often bought cocaine from both
teenagers and adults in his hometown of Morristown.

Jason, who has been in a residential drug treatment program at Daytop
Village Inc. in Mendham for 10 months, said he used to buy drugs in restrooms
in Morristown High and even in classrooms. While in class, he would place
money in a textbook, pass it to a classmate, and the book would come back to
him with cocaine in it, he said.

More than 50 Mount Olive teenagers were counted among the customers of the
two raided teenage drug operations in Mount Olive, and those in Roxbury and
Washington Township.

Police arrested six Mount Olive teens and a 14yearold Parsippany boy Feb.
28 on charges of running a smallscale drug operation out of a Brewster Place
home in the Flanders section.

Detectives bought drugs during a twomonth investigation and then seized a
1985 Dodge Daytona which police say was used to transport some of the
suspects to and from suppliers in New York.

Police raided the Brewster Place home and seized five bags of crack cocaine
and two bags of marijuana, as well as drug paraphernalia.

Three weeks later, two Mount Olive High students and an 18yearold man who
had attended the school were arrested in a drugdealing operation.

Police raided the home of Mark J. Jaskulski, who lives with his
grandparents, on March 22, and arrested Jaskulski and a 16yearold girl on
charges of cocaine possession and possession with intent to distribute. A
17yearold boy was arrested two days later at the high school.

The Washington Township teenager believed to be selling heroin from his home
had once bragged to police that "there's nothing you can do to me," Detective
Patchunka said.

Punishments for juveniles are much less severe than those for adults, said
Prosecutor Dangler, who feels that must be changed to stop the teenage drug
trade. But he's not sure how that can be accomplished, he said.

Getting caught selling drugs has got to be made "an unpleasant experience,
(so) they don't want to revisit the juvenile justice system," Dangler said.

All types of juvenile crimes in Morris County are on the rise climbing from
800 juvenile prosecutions in 1995 to 1,100 last year and 75 percent of them
are linked to drugs, the prosecutor said.