Pubdate: Sat, 22 Jan 2005
Source: Lowell Sun (MA)
Copyright: 2005 MediaNews Group, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.lowellsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/852
Author: David Perry, Sun Staff

SUPERINTENDENT'S SON RECOUNTING ORDEAL IN HOPES OF SAVING OTHERS

Joel Levine first smoked marijuana at 14 and worked his way to pills
to get higher.

Levine, 19, had his first snort of OxyContin, the powerful narcotic
pain reliever similar to morphine, in his junior year of high school.

OxyContin capsules are designed to release the pain reliever oxycodone
over time, but abusers like Joel and his friends opened capsules and
snorted them, causing a rush of the drug all at once. Abused,
OxyContin is potentially deadly and highly addictive.

"I'd done Vicodin, Percocet and Valium before and my friends said it
was 100 times better than Vicodin," Joel says by phone from his home
in Peabody. "The first time, me and two friends shared an 80-milligram
capsule."

He ended up doing it "my junior year, my senior year, 2 1/2 years in
all."

The doses escalated. "We'd share one, then 40 milligrams on my own,
then 60 and 80. Then two pills a day ..."

"It was the biggest mistake of his life," says his father, Herb
Levine, Salem's school superintendent. "When you're high, ironically,
that's when you think rationally. 'I should stop doing this.' When
you're not high, all you care about is getting high."

Then came rehab. Joel has been clean for seven months.

Since his father proposed drug testing in the Salem schools, Joel has
found the spotlight in newspapers and on TV. Had he not wanted it, his
dad says, he would have never made his son's addiction public.

There was "a letter today from Beverly, thanking me," says Joel. "I've
been hearing from a lot of people and everybody's very supportive,
thanking me for educating them about drug addiction. They say, 'Keep
up the good work.' I'm doing great now."

He supports his father's proposal for drug testing.

"I know if I was in high school as a freshman or a sophomore, where
you're usually not out with hard drugs at a lot of parties, if I was
that age, I think (testing) would make me think about it.

"But if I was a senior, with an active addiction, it wouldn't have
stopped me. Even if I would have been kicked off the baseball team."

He was a baseball star at Peabody High School, a three-year varsity
second-baseman.

He and his father are speaking about drugs and their family "pretty
much whenever anybody asks."

Joel is studying sports fitness and leisure at Salem State College and
plans to be a physical education teacher.

He may play baseball next year but will concentrate on his studies for
now.

"I hurt my knee in rehab playing Wiffleball," he says.
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