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Community Corner

Police, DEA Make It 'Real' for Participants at Red Ribbon Exposition

Officials beef up "Just say no to drugs" message with SWAT team equipment, a drug-sniffing K9 dog, simulated drinking goggles and a Drug Enforcement Agency helicopter landing.

They say you never forget the first time you get pulled over for drunk driving. Late Saturday morning, I squinted at Campton Hills Police Officer James Liepins, trying desperately to focus on the twin images of him leading me toward a line of tape on the pavement for a field sobriety test. The ground wobbled under my feet, and I couldn’t help stumbling as I tried to figure out which of the two wavering lines I should place my feet on.

Onlookers laughed as I staggered my way through the simple test. When Liepins informed me that I had failed, I couldn’t help but laugh with them as I thankfully removed the “Fatal Vision” goggles that had made my brain respond as if I really were drunk.

“The goggles mess with your equilibrium so that you become physically disoriented,” explained fellow Campton Hills Officer Dennis Harper, who also owns Drive Home Safe Driving School in Geneva. “They bring your coordination level down to where it would be if you had a blood alcohol level between .08 percent, which is legally intoxicated in Illinois, and .15 percent. When you were taking the test with the goggles on, you really did move like you’d been drinking.”

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 “Now try to imagine yourself driving a car wearing those goggles.”

Law enforcement officers from several agencies, including the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, converged on the first annual Red Ribbon Week Exposition Saturday at Geneva Middle School South. A hundred or so spectators oohed and aahed as a DEA agent and pilot landed an agency helicopter on the lawn between GMSS and GMSN.

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“I’m here to see the helicopter, the pilot and the SWAT team, too,” exclaimed 9-year-old Shane Charboneau of Geneva. I really want to see the helicopter land and take off.”

Meanwhile, 13-year-old Tim Hope of Geneva was having as much trouble walking while wearing the Fatal Vision goggles as I had. “I saw two of everything. It was really hard,” he told his mom, Stephanie Hope. “Mom, you should try it.”

Youngsters gleefully piled into the back of an armored, tank-like rescue vehicle brought by the Kane County Sheriff’s Office. Nearby, drug-sniffing K9 dog Drakar watched the proceedings with an eagle eye.

“We get called out maybe three or four times a week,” said Drakar’s partner, Deputy Terence Hoffman. “I’ve seen lots of suspects come out and give themselves up just because they know a K9 dog’s at the scene.”

Inside the GMSS gym, social service groups displayed information about how alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs damage users, as well as ways students and parents can avoid getting hooked on them. The groups represented include Hearts of Hope, Linden Oaks rehabilitation center, Gateway Foundation, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and To The Maximus Foundation, a grassroots campaign against synthetic marijuana and similar “legal” copycat drugs founded in August by North Aurora resident Karen Dobner, whose 19-year-old son Max died last June after smoking what users and sellers call “potpourri”.

“This is a great place to help our cause,” Dobner said. “There’s a lot of anti-drug use networking going on. We’re trying to get a team together to develop and educational program about synthetic drug abuse for first responders, medical workers and educators. We’re the only people in the country doing this, and requests come in every day from people around the country looking for information about these drugs.”

“They make this stuff in China or India, and they spray it on leaves or flowers with a spray bottle, so you never know what you’re getting,” Dobner told students and parents during a speech at the expo. “It could just get you a little high, or it could end your life. It all depends on how much of the drug got put on the leaves.”

The DEA agent, who was introduced only as “Henry”, spoke about the growing number of children who are swallowing prescription medicine looking for a “high”. “They’re not going to drug dealers on the street corner for this. They’re going through their families’ and friends’ medicine cabinets looking for old pills to try,” he warned. Residents who have old prescription or over-the-counter medications should turn them in to the police department for safe disposal, he advised.

Charboneau hung on every word of the speeches with as much attention as he gave the helicopter hovering over the school lawn. “They’re encouraging everyone to tell people not to do drugs. They’re saving lives,” he said with a grin.

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