Pubdate: Sat, 12 Feb 2005
Source: Patriot Ledger, The  (MA)
Section: Speak Out
Copyright: 2005 The Patriot Ledger
Contact:  http://ledger.southofboston.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1619
Author: Joanne Peterson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

BAD THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO GOOD PARENTS

In response to Michael Kryzanek's column on drug use on the South Shore, I 
am speaking for all of us, and trust me, there are more of us than he can 
imagine. Opinions like his are why the stigma of the old days stays with 
people living in 2005. This is why good parents, parents who have done 
everything they could do as a parent to bring their children up in a safe 
and drug-free world, are judged and accused of being neglectful to their 
children.

I have a room full of parents every Wednesday evening whose children 
graduated from DARE, had nightly curfews, were grounded when they disobeyed 
rules, who faced consequences in their homes.

We are not pill-popping, cigarette-smoking drinkers, as Kryzanek implied.

We did our jobs as parents, and some of us sent our kids to colleges like 
Northeastern, Bridgewater State, Dartmouth, Boston College and UMass, only 
to have to take them out and send them to rehab, if they could find one or 
afford one. Many have to leave this state to get treatment.

We are heartbroken parents struggling to help our children regain control 
of their lives because of a drug that is widely available and at rock 
bottom prices. We spend astronomical amounts of money on detox and rehab.

We have to ride out the addiction with our children and hope and pray they 
live through it. Many have not, and many will not.

There are pharmaceutical companies making huge profits and knowing at the 
same time that their drug is prescribed to dental patients and chiropractic 
patients when it should only be for cancer patients, and rightly so. It too 
often falls into the wrong hands.

How does a parent watch a young person when they are away at college?

Most parents try their best to know where their kids are and are highly 
involved in their lives and activities. When it happened to my son I was 
shocked.

He was taught values, sports were a huge part of his life for a long time, 
and he was warned about club drugs, alcohol abuse and marijuana, but never 
heroin or OxyContin, because I had no idea of its availability and that it 
was in my area. I, as many parents did, thought that he was past all that 
because he had graduated high school and was on his way to a successful 
life, until that one night occurred.

We were an everyday suburban family.

Kids are using this drug as young as 13 years old and the parents need to 
be warned it's out there, and the kids need to see what it does to a 
person's and a family's life. I never thought that bad things didn't happen 
in the suburbs, but I was not prepared or warned about the current 
situation, so that is why I am out there warning the public, and that is 
why I started a parents' support group.

It is not the parents' fault. We are good people and our kids made a 
terribly wrong choice in a split second that changed their entire future 
and ours. Kids make bad decisions at times. Just like someone who makes the 
decision to get in their car after drinking, or has unsafe sex and ends up 
pregnant, they think it's not going to happen.

Do you think these kids say to themselves, "I want to be an addict"? They 
need to know that an opiate cannot be experimented with, ever. We are 
afraid of the judging public.

Yes, we all know there are parents out there who neglect or abuse drugs 
themselves, but this is not who we are, and our kids are not bad kids.

We are not bad parents.

The drug companies and their greed for money and the countries that are 
getting the powdered 80 percent pure heroin over our borders and 
terrorizing our kids are the first to blame.

But yet, we get it in the end. How many college professors, 
superintendents, police officers, social workers, bankers, lawyers and 
doctors have children who abuse this? More than you will ever know about.

Joanne Peterson lives in Raynham.
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