POLICE: PARENTS NEED TO HELP IN BATTLE AGAINST HEROIN, METH

PLAISTOW - The message from yesterday's forum on drug abuse in Southern New
Hampshire was simple, keeping kids from abusing drugs starts at home. But
those who gathered to talk about the issue agreed that carrying out that
message was anything but simple.

Police officers and substance abuse counselors gathered at the Sad
Cafe to hear Rockingham County District Attorney James Reams talk
about the growing threat of crystal methamphetamine as the new drug of
choice among young people. Crystal meth is made of highly toxic,
volatile substances, including battery acid, mixed with ephedrine, a
stimulant.

Participants also used the session to express their frustration with
convincing parents that drug abuse, particularly of heroin, is a
problem in Southern New Hampshire and with the difficulty of helping kids
whose parents are part of the problem.

"How am I going to say to the family, who is the problem, 'you need
counseling'?" Derry Detective Lt. Steven Inserra said. "We're not
going to change a kid's mind if they don't want to be helped."

Raymond Detective Richard Labell agreed. "Parents have to come on
board, and most of the time, the parents who need to hear this message
are not (attending information sessions)," Labell said. They also
cited the lack of places in the state where substance abusers, or
parents of substance abusers, can go for treatment, as well as lenient
sentences given to those who are arrested for drugs as obstacles in
the battle to curtail drug abuse.

Getting parents to pay attention to just how easy, and inexpensive, it
is for their children to buy heroin will be the focus of a new
coalition of police officers Labell said he plans to start. Officers
said yesterday that children can buy heroin for between $3 and $10 a
bag, and an ounce of heroin contains thousands of doses.

Labell would like the coalition to include officers from Newton,
Plaistow, Kingston, Sandown, Danville and Atkinson, as well as East
Kingston, South Hampton and Brentwood.

But getting local police departments to participate in yesterday's
forum proved difficult for the organizers, Richard Gerrish, vice
chairman of the Sad Cafe, and Andrea Bonner, executive director. They
said they sent invitations to the 32 police departments in Rockingham
County. Only members from two New Hampshire departments, Derry and
Raymond, as well as Deputy Chief Donald Thompson from Haverhill,
Mass., showed up.

Participation may have been hindered by a meeting of the New Hampshire
Association of Chiefs of Police, which took place in Manchester
yesterday morning. Reams told the officers and counselors that his
office has seen a significant increase in indictments related to drugs
over the past four years, up from 16 percent of all indictments in
2001 to 24 percent last year. He talked about ways other states were
dealing with drug abuse, including mandatory random drug testing in
schools in Louisiana. He also showed a graphic video called "Meth is
Death" that law enforcement officials in Tennessee produced to show
the horrors of methamphetamine abuse. Users can stay awake for days
and hallucinate, and their physical appearance quickly deteriorates.
Reams recommended showing the video in local schools. But officers
know educating parents and students about the dangers won't be easy.
Inserra cited a recent forum they tried to host at Pinkerton Academy
in Derry about Internet safety. He said the school sent 2,000
pamphlets to students' homes.

"Know how many people showed up? Two," Inserra said.