Valley Stream parents warned of drug epidemic

Drug addiction infects every community and now, heroin is the new drug of choice for kids in Nassau County. It’s cheap, easy to find and easy to do — it can be snorted rather than injected — which is why the Valley Stream Central High School District hosted its second annual community forum on substance abuse March 18.

More than 100 parents were in attendance at South High School to listen to members of the Nassau County District Attorney’s office discuss the heroin epidemic in Nassau Country, the warning signs of drug use and ways to keep their kids safe.

“The consequences of drug addiction are close to home,” said Dr. Marc Bernstein, superintendent of schools, who spoke about reading the obituary of a 27-year-old Lynbrook resident who overdosed on heroin.

Terri Corrigan, bureau chief of street gangs and narcotics for the D.A., led off the forum by noting that most teens start by abusing alcohol first, then move on to other drugs. “It starts with the beers and blunts,” Corrigan said. “When we were growing up, it led to LSD, but that was too scary. Our kids are faced with not so scary choices.”

The “not-so-scary” options Corrigan spoke about are prescription pain killers. Parents often keep their leftover prescriptions in the medicine cabinet, Corrigan said, and kids can easily access them. “They are no less deadly than a gun,” she said. “If you had a gun, you would store it away to keep your kids safe.”

She added that once teens can’t afford to buy prescription pills — some can cost up to $90 a pill — they turn to another form of opiate — heroin. “It’s dirt cheap,” she said. “Some can get a bag of heroin for as cheap as $4. It’s much easier for kids to get a hand on $5.”

Corrigan noted that unlike other drugs, like crystal meth, heroin use does not affect the appearance of the user. For Natalie Ciappa’s mother — the Plainedge senior who overdosed on heroin at a party in 2008 — she couldn’t tell her daughter was an addict before it was too late. “She didn’t look like a heroin addict,” her mother Doreen said in a televised statement with D.A. Kathleen Rice in 2008 that was showed to the audience. “She was an honors student, a great singer. She wasn’t that kind of kid. Heroin tricks parents.”

Nora Ammirati, a coordinator for the drug treatment alternatives to prison program, works with recovering addicts, but nothing could have prepared her when she found out her son, Philip, was a heroin addict. He stole her checkbook and forged her signature to buy heroin, she said, so she had him arrested. Ammirati wrote a letter to her son, who served his sentence at the Nassau County Correctional Facility, about how his addiction has impacted their family. “I have cried for three years,” she wrote in her letter to Philip. “This is not just your disease. I considered selling the house, but I cannot run away from this. I have lost my son.”

Ammirati said it was the hardest letter she ever wrote. Philip spent a year in jail, went into a drug rehabilitation program and was released last summer. Two days before Christmas, he relapsed and is currently in another treatment center.

Corrigan said some signs of possible drug abuse that parents should look for are missing money or prescription pills, extreme emotional outbursts, poor hygiene and odd sleep patterns. She told parents that they should get to know their kids’ friends, insist that friends come to the front door before letting their child leave for the night, learn their lingo, and create an environment in the home that kids want to hang out in.

Angela, a parent of North student who asked that her last name not be used, said she thought the forum was very helpful and it opened her eyes. “I definitely found out some things that I didn’t know,” she said. “I’m going to go home and lock up my prescription pills.”

She added that Ammirati’s presentation hit home. “I just realized how easy it is to miss it,” Angela said. “That struck me the most. It’s scary.”