FORUM EDUCATES RESIDENTS ON SUBURBAN DRUG PROBLEM

There was a house in Barrington, where police said they discovered
marijuana being grown in every single room.

Or the 5,000 Ecstasy pills that undercover drug officers purchased in
Deerfield. Or the 15-year-old Lake County girl who police found with
four empty vodka bottles, cocaine and explosives in her bedroom.

These were among the eye-opening and disturbing stories police shared
with a standing-room-only crowd during a drug forum at Lake Zurich
High School Thursday night.

The forum was organized after three Lake Zurich High School alumni
died of heroin overdoses in the past 14 months, and Lake County
recorded nearly 30 heroin overdose deaths in 2009.

"It's not just Lake Zurich, it's everywhere. It's in every community
in Lake County, Cook County, DuPage County ... everywhere," said Lake
County Metropolitan Enforcement Group agent Pat Gara, one of the speakers.

The forum educated people on the drugs that are growing in popularity
in the suburbs: heroin, Ecstasy and prescription drugs like OxyContin
and Vicodin.

But it also offered practical advice for parents, such as how to
dispose of unused prescription medicine (the Solid Waste Agency of
Lake County can assist); the importance of talking to your children
early and often about drugs; and the benefit of regularly drug-testing
kids with kits purchased at drugstores.

"Then, if they're at a party and they're offered something, they can
say, 'Oh, I'd love to, but my parents drug test me," said Hearts of
Hope founder Lea Minalga, whose son is a former heroin addict.
"Silence is permission ... it's time to talk. And it's time to act."