Abusive Drug Use Continues to Plague Nutley
• Problems Outlined Last Night by Schools, Police, Ex-Users
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Enlarge This Photo | Photo by NJHometown |
Public Safety Commissioner Alphonse Petracco and Police Chief John Holland (back row) were among the 90 persons turning out last night for a close-up review of illegal drug use in Nutley. The session bought together former drug users, parents, detectives, school officials and other experts. Additional sessions are planned.
Mar 16, 2010 – Community leaders, including members of the police department, joined with school officials and a large number of parents last night in seeking both information and help in dealing with children and young adult abusers of drugs.
"We have a significant number of drug users in town. We're not here to deny this fact or to place blame," Lisa Cassilli, student assistant coordinator at Nutley High School said as she opened an often emotional 90-minute program sponsored by HOPE (Helping Our Parents Endure) and the town's Public Safety Dept.
Nutley High School students, past and present, explained in detail how they had succumbed to drugs and destroyed not only their own lives but those of their parents and friends. Most of the former addicts who told their stories last night have recovered.
"Please don't give up on your kid." a former Nutley High student told the group. "No one gave up on me."
"John" told his riveting story to the audience of 90 men and women who crowed into the library's Stockton Room for a "Wake Up Parents" community discussion.
"I grew up in Nutley, went to Spring Garden School and to the middle school. I started drinking and having fun in Yantacaw Park when I was 12 years old," John began. "I was stealing cases of beer, taking vodka from bottles in my parents home (and refilling the bottles with water). I thought this was normal because everyone, my friends, were doing it."
He remembers losing consciousness at the age of 16 during a drinking and pot party in a Nutley home. Before he was graduated at Nutley High, he survived a 90-day suspension. But his drinking and drug abuse continued despite his spending seven months in a drug rehab facility.
"Eventually, my mom legally relinquished control. It all happens so quick. I can't emphasize how quick the progression is . With alcohol being acceptable as it now, it was just a little drinking and then bang! Drinking just a little, I thought. But physically, you can't stop because you just don't want to stop using drugs…"
"John" recalled a day at Nutley High School when he was called to a meeting.
"The whole staff was there. That was the day I became the property of the State New Jersey. The brought me to a long term facility…I spent seven months up there...
Nutley High's Lisa Cassilli last night explained that random drug testing procedures currently involve students are taking part in extra curricular activities and athletics. For other students to be included in the random drug testing, individual parental consent is required.
Police Chief John Holland and members of the Nutley detective bureau also spoke last night, explaining how activities of known or suspected drug users are monitored, and how the department is dedicated to the hope that drug users, both men and women, can be directed toward rehab programs and returned to a normal life with their family and friends.
Many of the parents, and relatives, of young drug users last night spoke freely of their frustration and despair in dealing with their sons and daughters. NJHometown had agreed in advance not to photograph or identify the participants.)
Even after the formal program had ended last night, family members continued to share their desperation with one another and with school and police officers.
"What they're saying is true. I watch families crumble every day," Cassilli said.
Schools Supt. Joseph Zarra also addressed the meeting and emphasized the school's supportive policies.
"On our watch, we don't want to lose even one child," Zarra said. But today's movies, videos and underground music seem at times to make the drug culture acceptable, even fashionable. We have to combat the media, and more often then not, when we deal with a parent, we are the challengers, confronted with disparaging remarks like "you'll hear from my lawyer."
Zarra said then when a child is suspended from school, "whether it's the result of a random drug test or mere suspicion, we're always taking that action to help your child."
Public Safety Director Alphonse Petracco, sponsor of last night's HOPE program, called the session "a big first step. We should give everyone one this room a very big round of applause for being here and speaking out.
"The most important thing in being a commissioner and most gratifying for me is trying to help the youngsters of this town." Petracco said. He told stories of his encounters with families with addicted members.
"The organization we have before you tonight has been a dream of mine because I don't want to see the parents of today make the same mistakes of parents in the past. Drugs do not discriminate; they affect the wealthy and the poor. There are no boundaries," Petracco said.
Nutley Detective Bob McDermott said there have been several deaths attributed to overdoses in Nutley – two already this year. Since 2006, the detective bureau alone has dealt with 888 incidents involving marijuana. Other popular drugs encountered by police: cocaine (20 cases), heroin (23 cases) and prescription drugs.
"Heroin is the new weed of today," McDermott said, likening the drug's popularity to marijuana just four years ago. He told of one youngster who began stealing prescription drugs in small amounts from a family's medicine cabinet. That youngster ended up selling the drugs and when arrested had $650 in his pocket.
"With all that money, that person now has the money to go to Paterson or Newark where heroin can be easily gotten," the detective said.
"One of the biggest problems I have are the parents who lets their kids drink at home," Detective McDermott said." "We don't have the right to go into the house and do something about it." The problem exacerbates when several youngsters congregate at drinking parties in private homes.
Additional meetings of the group and its supporting organizations are planned, Petracco said.
