Students, parents join in talk on drugs

About a dozen Northport High School students and parents gathered recently in the children's section of the East Northport Public Library to discuss a book that went far beyond child's play.

The group was part of the Northport Community Book Club, which brings students, teachers, parents and community members together for frank talk about drug and alcohol abuse.

That night's discussion centered on "Tweak," a raw, first-person account of years of teen drug abuse by a boy from a well-off California family.

"The image we have of a drug user has changed by reading this book," 18-year-old senior Jared Ross said to the group.

Gabrielle Gatto, 17, also a senior, agreed.

"Kids you would never think -- kids at the top of the class -- are looking for Adderall so they can stay up and study and get 100 on that test," she said. Adderall is an amphetamine-based drug used to treat ADHD.

Northport High math teacher Tammy Walsh said she started the group in March after discussing drug and alcohol abuse with her students, and realizing that kids and parents needed an outlet to talk about the issue together.

"I'm around hundreds of kids every day for years and years and years. And I know what's out there," said Walsh, a Northport High teacher for 15 years. "We're being proactive rather than reactive."

Next month she plans to connect the book club students with the Red Watch Band program out of Stony Brook, which teaches people what to do when they encounter someone who has overdosed on alcohol. It becomes especially important, she said, as graduating seniors go on to college.

Parent Katherine Pauley said she got involved with the book club through the Northport-East Northport Drug and Alcohol Task Force, which she joined two years ago after finding that her son, now a senior, had been experimenting with drugs.

Pauley said she understood why parents might waver on whether the book, with its graphic descriptions of drug highs, would be glamorous or a warning to impressionable teens.

"I was like, 'Wow -- I don't know if I want my 18-year-old reading this,' " she said. "But I think it's better to educate them than keep things from them, because if they want to find it, they are going to find it."

Gatto, who had helped develop the book club, said she's found that it has helped her to discuss drugs and alcohol abuse more freely with her parents.

"Sometimes it's difficult to just start a conversation with your parents of the dangers of drugs and alcohol," Gatto said. "With the book club, it's so much easier."