A NEW TEAM IN THE DRUG WARS

Since a potent and deadly resurgence of heroin began in the northern
suburbs a few years ago, a wicked war has been waged by law enforcement to
stop the drug trafficking that has killed hundreds in Butler and Allegheny
counties. Still, the body count rises. Now, unlikely alliances are being
formed by rivals no longer willing to watch while a generation of young
people flirts with death.

Often, they're competitors on the playing field or in the classroom, but
when it comes to battling drug addiction among students, school districts
in the northern suburbs are cooperating rather than competing.

Ten districts from northern Allegheny County and two from Butler County
formed an alliance Oct. 17 when officials gathered at the Pine- Richland
stadium complex to hear the story of Ashley Korn, a 16-year- old North
Allegheny student who died of an apparent drug overdose only days before.

They also heard from addicts who are fighting for their lives.

The educators, joined by addiction counselors, police, medical
professionals and clergy, are pooling resources to protect students.

They're calling the effort the Ashley Initiative.

"We're using our best thinking collectively," said Pine-Richland
Superintendent James Manley, who came up with the idea of forming an
alliance of school districts. "We always try to do our own thing as school
districts, but we want to come together on this."

Called the Northern Area Alliance for Addictive Drugs, the group is made up
of Avonworth, Deer Lakes, Fox Chapel Area, Hampton, Mars Area, North
Allegheny, Northgate, North Hills, Pine-Richland, Quaker Valley, Seneca
Valley and Shaler Area school districts.

One of the major objectives of the alliance is to educate teachers,
administrators and parents about drugs and to break through the denial that
their children are confronted with illegal substances.

In Butler, another cooperative effort to combat drugs is under way in which
businesses are joining forces with the local schools.

Getting Ahead Of The Game

The group was formed at the invitation of Manley, who became increasingly
concerned after learning that other suburban school districts were losing a
growing number of students to heroin addiction.

Although Manley and Pine-Marshall-Bradford Woods police Chief Robert Amann
said Pine-Richland doesn't appear to have a serious drug problem, that
doesn't mean the district won't have one tomorrow.

Both realize that Pine-Richland students are as vulnerable as others.

Manley admitted to his board of directors in October that he didn't know as
much as he believed he should about heroin and other drugs.

"Are we going to sit on our hands and wait until we have a case? No,"
Manley said. "This young girl could have been any one of our daughters."

Korn's parents, Jack and Gail Korn of McCandless, told the story of their
daughter's addiction to heroin and other drugs. They told of trying to wake
her on a Sunday morning to go to church. Her heart had stopped, and despite
cardiopulmonary resuscitation that restored a heartbeat and efforts by
doctors at UPMC Passavant, she never woke from a coma and died Oct. 2, four
days later.

McCandless police Chief Gary Anderson said Korn's death is still being
investigated, but no charges have been filed.

Her parents said they learned their daughter was addicted to heroin about a
year before her death. She had been through both inpatient and outpatient
rehabilitation but relapsed. The final coroner's report hasn't been
completed, but Gail Korn believes her daughter died from a combination of
cocaine and methadone. She was not being treated for her heroin addiction
with methadone.

Dr. William Kristan, chairman of UPMC Passavant's department of emergency
medicine, said he has treated overdose victims from every school district
in northern Allegheny and southern Butler counties. None have been spared
the effects of heroin.

"Some people just drop patients off at the front door, basically lie them
down at the door for us to find and leave," Kristan said.

The police, he said, are trying their hardest, but often times without
help. Kids know who is dealing, he said, but they often won't share that
information with police.

"Parents have to be asking questions all the time -- who, what, where, why,
when ... know what your kids are doing. If things don't seem quite right,
then they need to kind of look around. Certainly, other things go along
with drug addiction," Kristan said. "Sleep patterns get disrupted, problems
with school, peers, not attending school, or having a job and losing a job."

Seneca Valley has been under a microscope of sorts since it began requiring
drug tests this school year of student athletes and those requesting
parking permits. In April, three students were arrested and charged with
possessing heroin in the school's parking lot.

Mark Draskovich, assistant principal at Seneca Valley Senior High School,
said the district's problems with drugs aren't any worse than elsewhere.
The drug testing so far has detected four students on drugs out of the
little more than 1,200 tested.

Jackson police Chief Len Keller said it's too early to say whether Seneca
Valley's efforts, which include a high-tech surveillance camera system and
periodic searches by drug dogs, are curbing drug use. But he noted that his
officers haven't been called to the school for a drug investigation since
April.

In December, Shaler Area's school board adopted a drug-testing policy, too.

Amann ordered Pine-Richland schools searched last year by a team of five
drug-sniffing dogs. This year, he's planning more searches, and students
who bought a parking permit this year also signed a waiver that allows for
impromptu searches of their cars.

While the districts are benefiting from shared experiences, Manley said the
alliance will meet tomorrow and talk of ways to involve the community as well.

"It has to be something beyond the schools. It's got to be a community
effort and a priority," Manley said.

Gail Korn agrees that the community as a whole needs more education about
heroin and other drugs. She acknowledged that she didn't know much about
drugs until her daughter was using them.

"It's so available out there. It's easier to get than a pack of
cigarettes," she warned, adding that she had believed her daughter was safe
from hard drugs. "You expect the pot thing to come up at some point --
maybe. But heroin! And cocaine and Ecstasy! I'm not drug- savvy. I had no
clue."

She said she wished that North Allegheny had a drug-testing policy and
applauded Seneca Valley. If she had known about her daughter's drug use
before it became an addiction, she said, she believes her child may have
had a better chance of overcoming it.

Involving The Community

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said heroin is a
huge problem in the suburbs.

"In my opinion, the No. 1 threat we have facing our communities is heroin.
It has replaced cocaine," Zappala said recently. He heads a drug task force
that is 560 police officers strong, and he has been visiting schools to
educate teachers and administrators on how to spot the signs of drug use.

Zappala enthusiastically endorsed the districts' alliance.

"It's a social issue as well as a law enforcement issue. If there's a
battle to be won, it's the schoolteachers, parents and kids who want to
keep their schools safe who are going to win it," Zappala said. "We can
win. That's putting it in overly simple forms, but we truly can create a
safe environment with zero tolerance."

In 2002, Zappala filed 600 drug-trafficking charges against juveniles in
Allegheny County.

"I think it's essential for all the teachers to be brought into the loop. I
don't expect them to be police officers but, frankly, I need this dialogue
between law enforcement and the education community," Zappala said.

Manley said that although the Ashley Initiative is still in the planning
stages, those involved want to make sure their efforts are long-lasting.

"What I'm hearing from superintendents is that there's a level of
commitment. The challenge for the superintendents would be to sustain a
high level of commitment," he said. "We've got to keep that intensity level
up."

In Butler, it is businesses that are no longer willing to watch helplessly
while the community crumbles to heroin.

Citizens National Bank and sister radio stations WBUT and WLER formed a
union that has drawn other businesses into action. They're working with the
Butler Area School District to bring drug tests and awareness programs to
the area.

At 7 p.m. next Wednesday, the school district will host "Sex, Drugs and
Rock 'n' Roll," a program developed by the state attorney general's office
to inform parents about what their children are encountering in society.
The meeting is for parents only, and Butler Area Superintendent Edward Fink
said rehabilitation and medical personnel will be on hand to answer questions.

Parents will be told at the session that, if they suspect their children
may be taking drugs, they'll be able to buy drug-testing kits at a Feb. 12
meeting in the senior high school. The kits will cost $15 and also will be
available after that date through the school for $26.

The relationship between the business group and the school district was
formed when Fink was asked to be a member of Butler County Against Heroin.

"At one of the first meetings, I offered the idea of making ... drug test
kits available through our school and other programs in the community as
well," Fink said. "Most parents are at a loss if they're suspicious their
children are involved in drug abuse."

Nationwide Drug Testing Services, a Pittsburgh company, is supplying the
kits to the district at a discount rate, said company representative Doug
Mazzotti. The kits test saliva, rather than urine, for drugs. Mazzotti said
the saliva test is better in some cases than a urine test because urine
tests can be distorted in a number of ways.

Some substances, which are readily available in health food stores, may
mask drugs in urine. In addition, Fink said, a person can try to alter a
drug test result by using a product called a "Whizzinator," a urine-filled
device that a drug user wears under his clothes. Urine is supplied with the
device, which keeps the urine at body temperature.

Fink said he learned about the device while reading a copy of "High Times,"
a magazine that advocates marijuana use and keeps readers up to date on the
latest ways to avoid drug detection.

The saliva test will detect THC, which is in marijuana and hashish;
amphetamines; cocaine; PCP; and opiates such as those found in heroin and
the prescription drugs Oxycontin and Vicodin, Mazzotti said.

An instructional disc on how to administer the test is supplied with it.
Once the saliva has been collected, it must be mailed to a testing
laboratory for results. If a test result is positive, a doctor will call
the parents of the student to determine whether the youngster is taking a
prescribed medication that might have altered the results.

If the test comes back negative, or "clean," Mazzotti said, the parents
should know within a day or so.

Butler County Against Heroin is helping to fund the programs and test kits,
and businesses in the group are printing advertisements, brochures and
educational materials. Friedman's Supermarkets has bought 100 drug test
kits to sell. The cost will be higher than the price offered at the school.

John Walchesky, advertising consultant for WBUT and WLER, is vice president
of Butler County Against Heroin. He said the group was formed after WLER-FM
ran a weeklong talk-radio series in May about the heroin problem in the
county. Station executives were astounded by the number of calls they
received from parents who were looking for help for their addicted children
but didn't know where to go. Others asked for more information about the drug.

Shortly after that, Walchesky learned that Citizens National Bank had begun
to offer drug-awareness programs to the community. He called Jennifer
Roxbury of Citizens and asked if they could team up. Now the organization,
which began meeting in October, has about 15 active members.

"You know, if people don't know where to turn, let's give them a place to
turn," Walchesky said. "We really want to try to form a clearing house of
information. The ultimate goal is that if someone has a problem or knows
someone with a problem, give us a call and we'll steer you in the right
direction. We're not clinicians or anything like that. We're just
businesses in the community trying to help."

He also wants to help the police educate students and he would like to
coordinate volunteers who can be trained to present drug-awareness programs
in the schools.

"Everyone wants to sit back and say, 'There's nothing I can do about it,' "
Walchesky said. "Well, there is something you can do about it."