Kane drug abuse forum will help parents be proactive
If there's one thing Karen Dobner wants to teach parents, it's that they should drop the denial and take preventive steps against their kids taking drugs.
The Aurora mom had the “not my kid” attitude with her son, Max, and learned she was wrong when the 19-year-old experimented with synthetic marijuana that he bought legally at a tobacco shop and died after crashing into a house in North Aurora on June 14, 2011.
“Max was a level-headed, conscientious young man. If you would have told me Max was going to die in this way, I would have said, ‘No chance, zero,' ” she said. “I don't want parents to say, ‘This is not for me. I don't have to worry about my kids.' That's what I thought about Max. What got into him, I don't know. He was the last one we would have expected (to die from drugs).”
Dobner has since started the “To The Maximus Foundation” to fight synthetic marijuana and numerous communities have banned it.
She will speak as part of the Kane County Juvenile Drug Court's “Substance Abuse Prevention Forum 2012” at 7 p.m. April 11 at the Norris Cultural Arts Center at St. Charles East High School, 1020 Dunham Road.
The panel also will include other parents who lost their kids to drugs and alcohol, along with Elizabeth Johnson, an assistant state's attorney in Will County, who will discuss her battle with substance abuse before she enrolled in a drug court program that helped change her life.
Diana Uchiyama, coordinator for Kane County's Juvenile Drug Court, said she hopes to hold a forum at least once a year to educate parents and show teens That just one slip, one poor decision can spell disaster.
As a former assistant public defender in Cook County, Uchiyama saw the drain drug users put on the justice system and society, and she wants to stop substance abuse before it starts.
“Prevention is critical to preventing recidivism. Adolescence is a perfect time to intervene,” Uchiyama said. “Just because your kid is a football player or your daughter's a dancer doesn't mean they can't become addicted. The single message is nobody is immune to substance abuse or dependence. A single use can lead to devastating consequences, whether it be addiction or death.”
Other speakers at the forum will include:
Ÿ Dr. Mann Spitler, whose 20-year-old daughter, Manda, died from a heroin overdose. Spitler found her body in a bathtub in his Valparaiso, Ind., home on March 30, 2002, with the syringe floating next to her.
“The students I speak to learn to face the fact that yes, I can die from drug use. Manda becomes very real to them and, after hearing her story, (they) are shocked into reality,” Spitler wrote on a website for “Manda's Story.”
Ÿ Doug Petit, whose 16-year-old son, Jonathan, was found dead in a detention pond near his Carol Stream home in June 2005. The Glenbard North High School sophomore and wrestler had attended an underage drinking party. Doug Petit and his wife, Yvonne, later started “Parents and Teens Together.”
Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon and Kane County Sheriff Pat Perez also will talk about the criminal penalties for drug use.
The forum is free and open to everyone. For more information, call (630) 406-7169.