Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jul 2006
Source: Times, The  (Munster IN)
Copyright: 2006 The Munster Times
Contact:  http://www.nwitimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/832
Author: Bill Dolan
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?224 (Cannabis and Driving)

MORGUE BECOMES CLASSROOM FOR YOUNG SUBSTANCE ABUSERS

CROWN POINT -- Fourteen young men and women stood on the floor of the 
Lake County Coroner's morgue around the pale, mangled corpse of a 
Saturday morning accident victim.

"It stops here," investigator George Deliopoulos said after unzipping 
the body bag and giving his audience a view of everything, but the 
victim's face, which was covered with a towel. "No one close their 
eyes," barked Robert Moore, a Crown Point police patrolman.

The captive audience is taking part in Preventing Addictive Toxic 
Habits (PATH), a grim effort by Crown Point City Court Judge Kent 
Jeffirs and Coroner David Pastrick to educate young alcohol and drug 
probationers about the fatal consequences they face.

Before that viewing, some in the audience sounded cocky as they 
recounted their arrests.

One young woman said she had a blood-alcohol concentration of .14, 
well over the legal limit of .08, but insisted to Moore, "No, I 
wasn't (drunk), I really wasn't."

Moore shot back, "I was there."

To all of the probationers, he said, "You thought you were all right, 
but the field sobriety test showed different."

A young man said he was caught smoking a marijuana pipe while 
driving. A girl said her friends got her into trouble buying shots 
for her at a bar to celebrate her birthday. Another girl had been 
drinking at a friend's house and was arrested going the wrong way 
down a one-way street. She had a .14 blood-alcohol concentration.

Moore said a recent study shows that a person with a blood alcohol 
level of .15 is 380 times more likely to be in an accident. But, he 
told the young people, "You guys think you are invincible."

Deliopoulos showed more pictures of accident victims, including a man 
cut in half when he struck the back of a garbage truck as he was racing a car.

He said impaired drivers often have their chests crushed by the 
steering wheel, or the force of the impact sends the brain bouncing 
around inside the skull.

"The decisions you are making determine whether you end up alive or 
here," he told his audience.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman