a
& Vol. 93, No. 9
25 Cents
Recent reports of drug use in the
Dallas Area junior high and inter-
mediate schools are most alarming.
However, the Dallas Post has
uncovered another potentially fatal
form of drug abuse indulged in by
local youngsters. Below Is a report
on “look alike” drugs, as told by a
parent who has experienced the
trauma of both the real thing and
“look alikes.”
“Look-A-Likes!
Back Mountain parents don’t
realize what they are, but if they
had to deal with ig proble ms they
Probably
would,” #4 Back Mountain parent
said recently to a Post reporter.
The mother, who asked that her
name be withheld due to personal
reasons, recently lost a child
through drug addiction. One can
imagine her concern when she
came across a small plastic bag
filled with bright blue capsules in a
second child's dresser drawer,
“I was beside myself,” said the
mother, “How could this happen to
me, not once but twice? Hadn't we
all learned a lesson through our
recent tragedy? At first, 1 was
going to discard the capsules but on
second thought, 1 decided to wait
until my son came home and con-
front him.”
The mother did just that. When
her son came in from school she
asked him about the capsules, He
told her not to worry-that they were
look-a-likes, not drugs. He ex-
plained that they were caffeine
capsules he had purchased at a
Back Mountain business place for
the sum of $20, approximately $1.00
per capsule, and that they were for
someone else,
“I wanted to believe him,” said
his mother. “But after my past
experience I didn’t Know whether to
or not. 1 decided to find out for
myself so I contacted a detective in
the Luzerne County office, I turned
over the capsules to him for
analyzing.”
After turning over the cpsules the
Back Mountain mother waited for
the results of the testing, She was
relieved when she was told the
capsules were caffeine. She knew
that her son was telling her the
truth but her concern didn’t end
there,
The fact is that although the
capsules were caffeine, they were
potent enough that if four or five of
them were taken while a person was
drinking beer or other alcohol, the
result could be fatal, Futhermore
the high users get from these
capsules soon wears off and more
and more of them are consumed at
one time. The next step is the real
drug, the beginning of addiction
which can result in a wide range of
physical and mental problems and,
in many cases, death,
“The sad part,” said the local
mother, “Is that the sale of these
look-a-likes is legal in Pennsyl-
vania. Any youth or adult can walk
in the Back Mountain store and pur-
chase them, They come in different
colors-blue, red, green, yellow-any
color ordinary medical capsules
come in according to the potency
and ingredients,
“T only hope that parents in the
Back Mountain will read this and
pay close attention to what their
children are doing,” said the
mother, “I hope that the fight
against these look-a-likes as well as
other drugs can become successful
in putting an end to these ‘hawks’
‘wo prey on our children. Those
who sell these items can be nothing
but the lowest of creatures.”
BY JANE C, BOLGER
In the wake of the tragic deaths of
the two children killed on Route 309,
concerned citizens and law officers
are once again questioning the
safety of area roads,
Some of the ideas people have
suggested are: a traffic light at the
intersection of Routes 309 and 415,
an overpass or underpass from one
Dallas shopping center to the other
and building the once proposed
Dallas Bypass to connect with the
@ Cross Valley (thereby diverting
through traffic from Hillside
around to Kunkle).
The major problem with most of
the above ideas would seem to be
both the prohibitive cost and the
difficulty in getting the necessary
approval from PennDOT, This was
the case recently in Kingston Twp.,
where an extensive traffic study
was made following the tragic
death of a young boy on the highway
in front of the Shavertown Shopping
Center, The township even con-
tracted for a private traffic study at
AND AWAY WE GO:
the cost of over $10,000, It resulted
in proposed traffic improvements
that would cost well over a million
dollars,
There is apparently no easy
solution, but it does seem that
maybe there could be some action
on one or more of the more prac-
tical ideas heard this week, One is
Dallas Township Police Chief Carl
Miers’ suggestion that “People
have to learn to drive with the road
conditions and drive at a safe speed,
In the area where the accident
occurred, the speed limit was
originally 55 miles per hour; after
the township petitioned the state, it
was posted at 45 in 1980 at our
request, I think it would cause more
accidents to lower the speed limit
anymore in that area,”
District Magistrate Leonard
Harvey, whose office windows
overlook almost the exact spot
where the accident took place
stated: “The road is very dark
there. I can’t believe the state won't
put in lighting, It could happen
"
again if something isn’t done.” His
secretaries agreed and also added
complaints about the lack of light-
ing all along the highway.
Dallas Borough Police Chief Ed
Lyons said: “There should only be
one ingress and one egress and one
entrance and exit from all the
shopping centers, instead of 16
different ways in and out, In my
personal opinion, if our shopping
center traffic was controlled like it
is at the Narrows, it would cutdown
on an awful lot of accidents.”
Dallas Twp. zoning officer
Leonard Kozick had a similar
thought, pointing out that, “The
Wyoming Valley Mall has only two
places to enter and exit and they
handle thousands of cars a day. 1
don’t think left hand turns should be
allowed coming out of the shopping
centers either and there should
probably be a third lane to pull off
the highway like they have on Route
22.
Kingston Twp. Police Chief Paul
Sabol said: “We have lowered the
speed limit and no longer allow
parking on the berm in the shopping
center area, We can make more and
more rules, but if there is a lack of
concern by the operators there will
be accidents, In the month of
February our department made 86
arrests for traffic offenses,”
Apparently many motorists were
concerned immediately after the
accident; many slowed down,
others said they were wiping the
mud off their headlights daily and,
hopefully, others weren't taking
that extra drink or two. For at least
one motorist it was more costly; he
paid a fine for a speeding ticket he
had planned to protest. In a letter to
District Magistrate Earl Gregory,
the alleged speeder wrote in part:
“Hearing of the recent hit-and-run
deaths of two children on the same
stretch of road convinced me that if
there was any chance that I was in
violation of the speed limit, the fine
is justified.”
It is a lesson none of us who travel
these highways should forget.
Meet the
Candidates
The Joint Taxpayers’ Association
of Lake-Lehman School District will
sponsor a “Meet the Candidates’
night on Thursday, March 17 at 7:30
p.m. at the Lehman-Jackson
Elementary School, All aspiring
candidates are welcome,
The association has contacted
approximately 15 candidates for the
six open school director seats, and
most have indicated a desire to
attend. Candidates will present a
brief resume, complete with
qualifications for the position and a
summary of goals. They will enter-
tain questions on a one-to-one basis
during a secial hour, which will
follow the formal presentations.
Candidates from Lehman,
Jackson, Ross, Lake and Noxen
Townships and Harveys Lake
Borough will be present. The public
is urged to attend.
( ALOL ( OSPAH
BY JANE C, BOLGER
Plans call for a new housing
development consisting of 16 town-
houses to be built in Dallas Twp. in
the area abounded by Church
Street, Center Hill Road and Claude
Street,
An option ou the two acre triangle
site known as the Samuels
property - has been taken by the
contracting firm of Sobeck and
Lindquist, 595 Bennett Street,
Luzerne.
Access to the deveolopment - to be
called “The Park Town Houses at
Dallas’ - would he from Carden
Road, an existing right-of-way that
branches off Center Hill Rgad three
or four houses up from Midland
Drive, When constructed, the road
will be a dead end, with a turn
around within the presently un-
developed plot. This is not readily
visible, except from the back yards
of homes on Center Hill Road,
Church and Claude Streets,
The two-story, three-bedroom
townhouses will be built of brick
and siding and will be priced “in the
low forties” according to Sobeck
and Lindquist, who are also the
developers of Sherwood Forest and
Sutton Hills. They will be built in
three attached units, two composed
of five dwellings and the other of
six.
The area planned for the develop
ment is zoned R-3 which allows for
the construction of multiple
dwellings even though the entire
surrounding area is zoned only for
single homes, It is the only area in
Dallas Twp. so zoned, with the
exception of the land occupied by
College Misericordia. For this
reason, an advertised public
hearing before the Township Zoning
Board is not required,
Full plans for the development
were due to he submitted to the
township Planning Board last night
(after press time) for their ap-
proval. The board consists of Daniel
Meeker, Jay May, Kathie Law-
rence, Robert Bayer and John
Tinner, Also expected to be in at-
tendance were zoning board
members James Aikman and Carl
Goeringer, as well as Mr. May, who
serves on both hoards and Super-
visors Frank Wagner, Phillip
Walter and Glenn Howell, and
zoning officer Leonard Kozick.
Indications prior to the meeting
were that the fact that public water
and sewers are available in that
area would be a plus for the builders
seeking approval, as would be the
fact ‘that most neighboring
residents who might object were
totally unaware of the project. A
possible minus could be current
drainage problems on Center Hill
Road as well as concerns for traffic
congestion in the immediate area,
story inside)
(See
Chatterbox
Cookbook
Just Around
the Corner
p. 4
p. 5
School News
Social p. 6,7
Sports Salute
p. 14, 15, 16, 17
West Side p. 8,9
What’s Cookin’ p. 5