Smithtown school program fights pressure to use drugs

In the wake of a rising heroin epidemic across Long Island, the Smithtown School District Thursday unveiled a program that uses self-esteem lessons and practical advice on how to stand up to peer pressure to use drugs.

"Too Good for Drugs" was chosen from two dozen programs by the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence for its track record, director Jeffrey Reynolds said.

At a recent class held at Accompsett school gym, LICADD instructor Patricia Rykert had students role-play a situation where a friend asks to try a drug. After the short skit, Rykert asked the rest of the students a number of questions.

"Was he standing tall? Did he speak up? Did he look him in the eye?" she asked the crowd.

"These things don't happen in a dark alley," Rykert said. "We see it in our schools, our malls and sometimes from our friends."

Students seemed enthused about the program. Most said there was a strong emphasis on how drugs interfere with reaching important life goals, and how to deflect peer pressure.

The 10-week program for sixth-graders is at two of the three Smithtown middle schools, Accompsett and Nesaquake, and plans are under way to start it next year at its third middle school, Great Hollow. The program is in its fifth week.

District officials hope to get funding to widen the program, including into the higher grades.

Legislators joined school officials at a news conference Thursday, and spoke directly to a small group of children sitting in the front row, reminding them that they join parents and school officials to support their good decision-making.

The program is one of many that Smithtown is using to stem the tide of heroin use that has hit its community as well as others across Long Island.

Reynolds, who called the current heroin epidemic a "tidal wave," said there is a 400 percent increase in calls in just one year to its two centers - in Williston Park and Ronkonkoma - now up to 400 a month for heroin addiction, and a waiting list for interventions.

"All the schools are scrambling now to put something more current in place," Reynolds said. "We've gotten calls from a ton of districts."