Cop reaches out to educate kids on drugs

As the use of illegal narcotics and the abuse of prescription medicines rises on Long Island, Nassau police have ramped up their drug awareness and education program for students, teachers and parents.

The face of the program is Det. Pamela Stark, who two years ago had to push school districts to allow her to visit, but now fields almost daily requests from schools and community groups.

Over the past 18 months, she has given a two-day drug awareness and prevention course to nearly 200 school employees from 54 districts and the Diocese of Rockville Centre. She is now reaching out to yeshivas and other private schools to offer the training. "Every day shows the need for this program is increasing," Stark said.

Stark, 52, a community affairs officer who has been on the force since 1997, is the department's point person to reach out to elementary and secondary school students.

Susan Kelly, director of curriculum and instruction for Island Trees schools, said the district has invited her several times. Stark has spoken to middle- and high-school health classes, and in October she addressed a parents group and "filled the room," Kelly said. "People were interested and wanted to know" about the issue, she said. "The thing is, she has been able to reach all of these audiences."

In her lectures, Stark offers straight talk about the dangers of illegal drugs. But she also banters and exchanges ideas with students who challenge her views, and shares her personal story as the daughter of an alcoholic.

Last month, at an alternative high school at MercyFirst, a Syosset-based nonprofit for troubled youth, Stark faced a group of about 60 students, some of them skeptical. Newsday agreed not to use the students' names or photographs. "If you use somebody else's medicines, that is both illegal and dangerous," Stark said.

"What's wrong with weed?" one girl asked.

Besides being illegal and a "gateway to other drug use," Stark said, marijuana can include "roach spray or embalming fluid or even drugs like angel dust."

Stark also got personal, recalling that her mother, an alcoholic, left her when she was 6 and returned when she was 17. "So I know about feeling confusion, betrayal and being unsure what to do."

Suffolk police use the 18 officers in the Community Response Bureau to reach out to middle schools and high schools. "It's an effort to reduce the likelihood of children going from prescription drugs to heroin," said Det. Lt. Bob Donohue, of the Chief of Patrol office.