DRUG ACTIVITY IS UP, BUT WHAT SHOULD PARENTS DO ABOUT IT?

MENDHAM - Although most authorities agree there's been a spike in teen
substance abuse in the area this year, there is controversy over what
parents should be doing to keep their children safe.

Police Chief Patricia Cameron said Thursday that police have
definitely seen an increase in drug activity, especially among younger
high school students, and charges have been brought in some cases.

Types of drugs being found include everything from alcohol and
marijuana to cocaine and heroine, Cameron said.

Police in Mendham Township are seeing a similar picture, according to
Chief Thomas Costanza.

"We definitely started noticing a spike, starting last summer,"
Costanza said.

In an increasing number of motor vehicle stops and car searches,
Costanza said, police are finding various substances, such as cocaine,
LSD, marijuana and alcohol, in the possession of teens ranging in age
from 14 to 19.

He said that because students from Chester borough and township as
well as Mendham borough and township attend the regional high school
in Mendham, township police have been making arrests of teens from all
four towns.

Same In Township

Those trends are echoed in Chester Township. Sgt. Russ Beasty said
township police noticed the spike in drug activity beginning in the
summer of 2002. He said most of the drug arrests occur during motor
vehicle stops because it is a productive way to catch drug offenders.

"The houses in this area tend to be big and the lots are so large that
if there's a party going on in the basement, nobody even knows it," he
said. "We don't get a lot of party complaints."

Beasty said most teen drug arrests in Chester Township are for
possession or for being under the influence of an illegal substance.
But Costanza said some Mendham Township arrests have involved local
teens dealing drugs locally, although he would not elaborate because
of ongoing investigations.

"But if your kid is coming home with an expensive car or has money you
haven't given him, or more than he could earn at his part time job,
you need to ask how he paid for that car or where that money came
from," Costanza said.

The recent drug trends seem to have caught area parents by surprise. A
group called Concerned Parents Resources (CPR) circulated a letter to
parents in early February bearing the headline: "Is your child leading
a secret life? To your surprise, your young teen might be
experimenting with drugs and alcohol."

Large Turnouts

On the heels of that letter, large -crowds turned out at drug
awareness presentations at West Morris Mendham High School, co-hosted
by the high school and the Municipal Alliance, to learn how to
identify and prevent teen substance abuse.

CPR also started a web site providing drug information along with an
Internet forum for area parents to exchange information and ideas
about the drug problem. The forum was heavily used during February and
March, but controversy over what measures parents should take to
safeguard their teens has consumed much of the interactive dialogue on
the web forum.

For example, the CPR letter advised parents to rifle through backpacks
or purses, and to "check out all the compartments and zippered areas
at night when your child is asleep."

Another section of the letter warned that young teens, who often spend
unsupervised time at the Chester Mall or the Kings Shopping Center or
who sleep over at friends' homes, could be experimenting with drugs.

The letter advised parents to share the information with other
parents, but to "use discretion in sharing this parenting information
with your student for obvious reasons."

Nonetheless, people identifying themselves as teens quickly started
using the web forum as a platform to criticize CPR's advice to parents.

"I am a girl from Chester who spends many weekends and summer nights
at the shopping center. I don't do drugs and neither do my friends,"
wrote one teen who signed herself "cmtr2" on Feb. 13.

Regarding the suggestion to search backpacks and purses, "student 9"
wrote on March 24, "Telling parents to search our things is an evasion
(sic) of our rights and privacy."

A post signed by "YourFuture" said, "Going through your child's things
while they are sleeping? What is wrong with you people? Seriously, do
you think they are just going to forget that? These are your children,
the ones who will be looking after you when you get old and can't wipe
yourself anymore."

A parent signed "gtm889' wrote, "I am a parent and I too believe that
they went a little too far with this; sending a letter telling all of
the parents to search their children's backpacks and rooms is
despicable."

A student named "orang55" wrote, "Studies have shown that kids whose
parents talk to them about drugs are something like 75 percent less
likely to do them. Nowhere in the letter does it mention talking to
your kids about drugs. Why are you overlooking the simplest solution?"

In the presentation at West Morris Mendham High School on Monday,
March 29, Kieran Ayre, a licensed clinical social worker and lecturer
who operates a substance abuse rehabilitation facility in Lafayette,
said clinicians are seeing troubling trends in teen drug use,
including a rising incidence of heroine abuse and younger first use of
drugs by teens.

His advice to parents was to keep their eyes open, and he said they
shouldn't be afraid to go into their child's room and watch for
obvious signs of alcohol or drug use. He also said that while
sleepovers were a normal way for 11- and 12-year olds to socialize,
sleepovers at the age of 17 or 18 often masked activity teens didn't
want parents to know about.

But Ayre said his most important advice to parents was to maintain an
open dialogue with their teens in order to be more aware of what's
going on in their lives.

Brett Holeman, formerly the interim school psychologist at the Mendham
high school, agreed that "the key thing is the parents' relationship
with the kids," which is something that needs to start when the child
is very young.

"You can't make up for it when the child is 16," he said. "You have to
start in elementary school. Even though there's DARE (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education) and health education in school, it's crucial for
kids to see their parents' values too. It's everybody's
responsibility."

Holeman said once the child is already a teen, parents should sit down
and talk with them directly about concerns, explaining what the
parents have been hearing about drugs in the community and asking for
their input.

For example, he suggested that parents might say something like, "I
love you very much and I want to make sure you're safe. What can I do
to help you make sure that you're safe?"

"At some point, you have to trust that kids will make the right
decision," Holeman said. "Eventually they are going to graduate and
leave and you'll have to trust them to wake up and go to their class
every day."

But while they're at home, parents should create a culture where
topics like drugs are talked about, he said.

"It's important to have direct communication," he said.

Holeman said he did not advocate searching backpacks.

Chief Cameron agreed that communication with kids is
paramount.

"Talk to the kids about drugs, and keep track of who their friends are
and where they're going," she said.

Cameron advised parents to create a climate where teens feel they can
talk about any problems they have.

"But I think if parents suspect that their kids may be having
problems, they may want to look through their things," Cameron said.
"Kids are not renters in your home. You have a right to inspect your
house. But don't ignore the problem."

Costanza said parents need to ask questions.

"It doesn't necessarily mean you doubt your kids," he
said.

But after asking questions if they have doubts, that's the time to act
by checking rooms and backpacks or using drug tests, he said.

"But you don't want to turn them off to any respect they may have for
you," said Costanza.

Cameron said that for the past three years, police departments in the
four towns have routinely conducted surprise inspections at the high
school with drug sniffing dogs. She said the dogs found some drugs on
the premises during the most recent search earlier this year.

Mendham Sgt. John Taylor said Friday that although teens congregate at
the Kings shopping center, it has not been a trouble spot for drug use
or trafficking, and police have not made drug arrests there.

Chester Borough Police Chief Neil Logan said young people congregate
in the Chester Springs Shopping Center after being dropped off by
parents to see movies, but officers have seen virtually no drug
activity there.

"That doesn't mean there aren't any drugs there, but we haven't been
seeing it," Logan said.

He said when police officers see youths congregating at the shopping
center they try to get them to disperse. Skateboarders are also asked
to move along when they are spotted by police at the mall.