Cops Warn Parents: Drug Epidemic 'Hitting Our Children and Our Area'

Over 200 parents gathered at the Indian Hills High School auditorium Tuesday night for a special multi-town presentation on teenage drug use.

For the first time ever, the police departments from Wyckoff, Franklin Lakes, and Oakland teamed up - with help from the Ramapo Indian Hills school district and the municipal alliances from the three towns - to present an informative program for parents.

“And, we were inspired to do so by the dramatic increase in heroin and prescription drugs that we are all seeing."

The program featured guest speaker Donnie Ingrasselino, a detective with the Bergen County Police Department assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Ingrasselino presented parents with facts and anecdotes about local drug use among teens.

“It’s here and it’s big,” he said of a trending increase in heroin and prescription drug abuse.

“This is what’s hitting our children and our area.”

Ingrasselino shared with parents some of his experiences as an undercover cop working both in Bergen County and in Paterson, which he said supplies the majority of the illegal drugs found in the FLOW area. He also told parents about warning signs they can look for to detect drug use in their kids, and the effects of these and other “popular” drugs, like “Molly,” a pure form of Ecstasy, and synthetic drugs like “K2” and “Spice.”

The program ended with a question and answer session between the parents in the audience, Ingrasselino, and members of the police department of each town.

Parents encouraged the departments to continue to work together to promote drug education in the community.

“I think it’s a real necessity that you get in front of the kids with this stuff,” one parent commented.

“It’s unbelievable that this is happening to such a tremendous extent in our towns,” another added. “I thank the police departments and the public schools for educating us, and I definitely think they should do more of it.”

PD and school district representatives say they are planning a second installment of the parent presentation for later this school year, and are working toward creating similar programming for kids in the district.

“We devote as much time as possible to working with kids,” Seltenrich said. “We definitely want to do more events like this, really dictated by the turnout we got tonight. A lot of people came, which we are very thankful for.”