A MAINSPRING IN FIGHTING DRUG ABUSE AMONG THE YOUNG

SOMETIMES in our valley, the star shines a little brighter. Such was the
case in the early 1970s when the community realized it had a drug problem.

Due to a combined community effort, borrowing executives, secretaries and
various other people from TAP, Community Services, Carilion, the Mental
Health Association, the city of Roanoke and Virginia Western Community
College, three task forces were formed.

In the first year of our existence, Rabbi Don Berlin was the president and
I, as a representative of the Academy of Medicine, was the vice president.

Soon after we started, Berlin was called to a temple in Pennsylvania, and I
became president. That was the beginning of the Roanoke Area Drug Abuse
Council, or RADAC.

Laddie Fisher was one of the mainsprings, gently probing and pushing the
lay volunteers in the right direction. We developed a methadone clinic and
eventually hired John Sabean as the executive director.

The staff developed an unusual program called The Student's Opportunity for
Developing Attitudes, because we found that fifth-grade students would
follow most any leader and were hesitant to make decisions about how they
felt about anything. We conducted a survey in the schools and found that
the most common drug abused was beer and that the students themselves
thought marijuana should not be legalized because users would go on to the
next illegal thing.

Fred Roselle was the first executive director of Mental Health Services and
eventually took over the drug program. He developed Hegira House and the
things that have followed.

None of that would have happened without Laddie Fisher's help in the beginning.

Of course, there were many other people involved but, in the beginning,
Laddie was the coordinator. With her genuine, thoughtful intelligence, she
helped us develop a community program that was badly needed at that time.

She was a significant author in her own right, a staunch member of Raleigh
Court Presbyterian Church and a good friend. It brings to mind a line from
the movie "A Bridge Too Far": "How do we find such people?"

A lot of the above would never have happened if it hadn't been for Laddie,
who died Nov. 19 at age 82. Her family must be proud to have had such a
mother and grandmother.