DRUG ABUSE CLASS A TRUE EDUCATION FOR PARENTS

Minutes into a class on teenage substance abuse, a Saddle Brook police
officer handed mother Maria Link a bottle of red wine and asked her to
drink.

She obliged, finishing the bottle in about 30 minutes.

The alcohol created a brief mood of general hilarity, with jokes about
slurred speech and the apple martinis one couple had shared the week
before.

But soon the lesson became quite clear.

Link, who had volunteered for the experiment, blew a few deep breaths
into a Breathalyzer.

Within minutes, the police measured her blood alcohol level at 0.11
percent - above the legal limit of 0.08 and enough to justify a
drunk-driving conviction.

"Anybody who drinks socially, they want to know how it affects them,"
Link said later.

"You go out and have a glass of wine with your friends, you think
you're OK, then you go to pick up your kids."

The demonstration was part of a series of hands-on lessons Saddle
Brook police are using to teach parents about the dangers facing their
children.

The classes are offered as part of a national Drug Abuse Resistance
Education, or D.A.R.E. program for parents.

The standard parent program, which supplements what children learn in
D.A.R.E. classes at school, consists of reading chapters from a book
published by the national organization.

Parents in the Saddle Brook class surf Internet sites created by local
children to learn how to protect their kids from Internet predators,
and they watch slide shows of school shootings to learn police
officers' biggest fears regarding school safety.

The lessons are often shocking, the police said. They're supposed to
be.

"If I wasn't brutally honest with them, they'd see right through me,
and I know they wouldn't show up," said Sgt. William Havison, who
designed the lessons.

This year, more than 90 parents have enrolled in the program, a number
Havison said was one of the biggest in the country.

In the session on drug abuse, the police passed around samples of
about a dozen different drugs that police have seized in town - from
heroin to prescription painkillers.

They also showed slides of an indoor marijuana farm discovered
recently on a Saddle Brook street. They even burned a sample of
marijuana in a coffee cup and passed it around so parents would
recognize the smell.

Havison and police Detective Capt. Vincent Laurentino told them about
a classmate of theirs who plummeted from track star to heroin addict
when he got hooked on painkillers for a sports injury. The man, in his
30s, recently died of a drug overdose.

Parents said they appreciated the gloss-free approach.

Ed Moreno, a father, said he agreed to attend the class to appease his
wife, who was with him. But he had changed his mind after just two
classes.

"It's an eye-opener," he said. "Now we know the signals, things that
you normally just ignore."

His wife, Sandra Moreno, said she had learned a lot.

"I'm telling all my friends, 'You definitely have to sign up next
year,' " she said.

"This should be mandatory for parents."