PEABODY LIBRARY CONTEST AIMS TO WARN KIDS OF DRUG DANGEr

PEABODY - The Peabody Institute Library has launched a competition among
the city's teenagers to produce a poster warning of the dangers of
OxyContin and heroin abuse. A cash prize will go to the winners.

It's just a first step, organizers say, in response to recent revelations
about addiction in Peabody and across the North Shore, revelations
highlighted in a Salem News series last week.

"It kind of sent a shudder through everyone," says young-adult librarian
Melissa Rauseo.

Her own children have been reading the stories, adds library director
Martha Holden, which include accounts of young people from every social
background drifting into an addiction that warps their lives, shatters
their families and, in some cases, kills the users.

"We're trying to do something," says Holden. "If we can make kids pay
attention to the dangers, it would be good."

The rules for the posters are loose, but each must feature educational and
accurate information on the perils of OxyContin and heroin. They should
also be visually appealing. Young people from ages 11 to 18 are eligible to
participate and the library staff is hoping that Peabody teachers assign
the posters as part of their classwork.

Entry forms are available at the young adult room in the main library,
downtown Peabody. Those interested must enter before Thursday, Feb. 10.
Rauseo, 21, was herself a student at Bishop Fenwick not so long ago. "I
knew which kids were taking drugs," she says.

But it's a measure of how difficult it is to deal with the problem that
even students like Rauseo had only a vague idea about the details, like
what kind of drugs her peers were using.

The young people she sees now at the library have complained about the
Salem News story.

"I had a few kids say they didn't like to see Peabody in the news in such a
negative way." On the other hand, she says, none denied the truth of the
stories. But both Rauseo and Holden agree that it's important to confront
the problem, bringing it out into the open. The contest, meanwhile,
requires research on the topic, forcing the kids to learn about the
dangers created when young people sample OxyContin, a prescription drug
that mimics the effects of heroin and, taken improperly, is highly addictive.

It's also expensive, which leads many addicts to turn to its cheaper twin,
heroin, now used without needles, in powder form.

A ceremony is planned to award prizes for the best posters, though the
judging date and the prize amount are yet to be determined. Both Mayor
Michael Bonfanti and District Attorney Jon Blodgett have agreed to attend.
The Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the contest.

Eventually, says Holden, she wants to see arrays of posters in all three of
the city's libraries, reminders of a deadly danger facing the city's
children. "We're hoping we can open their eyes early."