The choices high school students make can stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Students in Dorothy Hartney’s wellness class at Lehighton Area High School got firsthand knowledge this week of how those choices can impact them and the consequences of going down the wrong path during presentations by Carbon County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Matika and Franklin Township Police Chief Jason Doll.

“Hopefully we opened their eyes to the impact drugs and alcohol can have on their lives going forward and how they don’t want to interact with the police or myself in anyway because of their conduct,” Matika said.

The pair fielded questions from students including the prevalence of drug-related arrests in the area. Doll said while conversations about heroin 20 years ago may have taken place once every couple of months, it is now a daily occurrence and only getting worse.

“The fentanyl is getting really bad as well,” Doll said. “It looks like candy or Percocet or other things. You see it on the news and think oh yeah that’s happening in New York or New Jersey. No, it’s here.”

Students, Doll said, can make the decision to not get involved with drugs.

“We can get overmatched,” Doll told the class. “There is only one of me, but there are 25 or 30 of you. If you all choose not to go buy this stuff and there is no audience to purchase it, it makes my job easier because the people selling it don’t come.”

Matika discussed Carbon County’s specialty treatment court programs, one for veterans started in 2017 and another for drug and alcohol addicts in 2019. Drug courts were designed to help people who get involved in the criminal justice system get treatment for the addiction and avoid recidivism.

“Between 25 and 30 people have graduated from the programs since we started them in 2017 and only one has gone on, as far as we know, to commit a new crime,” Matika said. “It is working. If you took 25 or 30 people who got involved in the criminal justice system and put them on probation or in jail, they will commit more crimes because they didn’t get the intense programs we have to help them fight addiction.”

While Hartney discusses many of the issues that came up Wednesday with her students, hearing it from a judge and police chief carries more weight.

“It’s much more impactful coming from them,” she said. “It’s amazing that they come and talk to us. When you have community resources like this who you can reach out to, it really resonates with the students.”

Doll shared with students the story of a heroin addict he transported to prison. The woman, he said, got involved with the drug through her boyfriend.

“As we were driving to the jail, I asked her why it has such a grip on her,” Doll said. “She explained it to me by telling me that her mother is her best friend in this world and she loves her more than anything else, but if her dealer shot her mother, she would step over her body to get her next hit. That was intense to me. That’s the power of addiction.”

The visit, Doll said, helps students humanize police officers.

“They realize we are people they can talk to,” he said. “We don’t want them to see us as these big bad scary people. The dialogue is so important and we’re happy to have had this opportunity.”