STAYING ALIVE IN A DRUG-HAPPY SOCIETY

DA, Police, Educators Discuss Issues Pre-Prom

So many MHS students are being inducted into the National Honor
Society that the principal raised the bar to make it harder; SAT
scores here are the highest ever; 95 percent of seniors will attend
college; and yet, problems with drinking and drug abuse exist.

Timed to send a message to students just before the senior prom, a
panel of local experts told parents and students of easy access to
pure heroin on the streets of Essex County, the killer results of
binge drinking, effects of prescription drug abuse and intense
pressure on young people to be cool and take drugs.

Also on the panel was Robert Bradley, whose son, Robert P. Bradley,
died in October of what his father said was a drug overdose.

"Morphine in pill form is what took Robert's life," said Bradley. His
son was found in his car on a Malden street last October, only weeks
after the death of Christina Rondinelli, 19, who died when her car
slammed into a tree and overturned on West Shore Drive. She was
following her boyfriend in another car who was charged with being
intoxicated.

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett and a local panel
painted a disturbing picture of what today's youth is up against when
they leave their homes and even when school is dismissed at 2:30 in
the afternoon.

"We have a difficult time with a parent who hosts a party where there
is drinking," said Blodgett. Parents "will suffer the consequences,"
he said.

The state is filled with lawsuits where a young person left a home and
was either killed or caused the death of someone else, said Blodgett.

"That homeowner is sued for seven figures all because they didn't have
the ability to say no," he added.

On the topic of drugs, Blodgett noted, "We are in an epidemic of
Oxycontin and heroin. Heroin is selling for $4 a bag and it's often
given away in Essex County in bags with smiley faces to attract young
people."

He attended a wake of a young man from Peabody who had done heroin
only once. What is being sold is "cheaper and purer than ever," and
the effects of taking it are devastating, said the DA. When those $4
bags become $40 bags "you will see armed assault" and other violent
crimes committed by addicts to get the money to feed their habit, said
Blodgett.

"We are not the bad guys," said detective Sgt. Marion Keating of the
Marblehead Police Department. "I can be a mediator between parents and
kids." She said when school gets out, between the hours of 2:40 p.m.
and 7 p.m. "binge drinking starts," and it can happen in somebody's
car or at the post office parking lot.

A teenager goes home and closes himself in his bedroom. The parents
come home, find their child in bed and think everything is fine.
They're happy he or she is home safe.

"Parents, your child doesn't need a backpack when he goes out at
night! Trust me. I have never seen anything good in a backpack," said
Keating.

She urged parents to call each other.

"Call homes where your child is supposed to be, get to know the
parents of your children's friends. If a parent is concerned about a
child, call that parent or come to us and tell us. Make it your
problem when someone else's child is having a problem," said Keating.

To find things to do other than drinking and drug-taking, "pile the
food on the table, tons of it, after a football game" and invite
everyone to your house, said Keating. Watch a movie. "Ask your kids
what they want to do after the prom."

Asked where children get alcohol and drugs, Keating said they can take
it from home, they get older siblings to buy it for them, they use
phony licenses or go to liquor stores out of town. Both adults and
youngsters are selling marijuana.

Asked what the school is doing to keep drugs out, Principal Marilyn
Hurwitz answered from the audience.

"After we lost Robert, there was fear that this wasn't a safe school,"
she said. She and police ordered a lockdown, a raid with the use of
dogs sniffing corridors, classrooms and some lockers.

She said despite the school's efforts, "I think it's possible to sell
a joint here." The dialogue, she added, is important, but it's not
enough to keep youngsters straight.

Keating was told by students after the drug raid, which yielded two
marijuana cigarettes, that they don't bring drugs into the school,
they leave them in their car.

"Maybe your child doesn't need a car to go to school," she suggested.

Two MHS freshmen, Zach McGuire and Trip Crosby, liked the discussion,
although McGuire admitted his mother "bribed" him with Chinese food to
get him there.

"I knew Robert [Bradley]," said McGuire, whose older brother played
sports with Bradley.

He and Crosby acknowledged that students in school pressure others to
take drugs.

"I don't think there's a kid in the school who isn't faced with it,"
said McGuire.