Your Child...Your Responsibility!

Stop, Talk & Listen is a public awareness campaign developed by Putting Youth First, an education subcommittee of the Centralia Area Drug Task Force in Centralia, IL.
 
Stop Talk & Listen is to raise the awareness of 6th, 7th & 8th grade parents about the harmful effects of underage drinking.

The following article was published in the
Centralia Sentinel on Sunday, March 4th, 2007.
reprinted by permission of the Centralia Sentinel

PARENTS OF DEPARTED MEN SPEAK OUT
by Joan K. Uhlean
Marion County Editor

  Since the deaths of their two sons on Sept. 5, bereaved parents Tom and Chris Marler have been searching for an answer to one question: How did this happen to our family?
Drew Marler, 23, and Dustin Marler, 21, died due to a combination of legal and illegal drugs – not one drug was lethal enough to have killed them, according to Marion County Coroner Tom Nicolay. These were healthy young men, but they had heroin in their systems. Heroin is an addictive, dangerous and underestimated drug.
  What the Marler parents have been fighting to understand is why and how the system seemingly failed their family, they said
  “We have so many questions that haven’t been answered. As parents, we did everything in our power to get help, but we were shut down. No one would help us.” Chris Marler said.
  Drew Marler had never been arrested on any violation. He had served three years in the U.S. Air Force and was living on his own. Tom and Chris Marler confirmed that he had experimented with drugs while attending Centralia High School. The parents suspected that their younger son, Dustin Marler, started experimenting with drugs his junior year of high school. Armed with their younger son’s cell phone records, they pled with the Centralia Police Department to do something. “They told the officers how they had removed Dustin Marler from a drug dealer’s home and how tom Marler took surveillance on a home the young man frequented – all to no avail.
  “We understand no one made the boys take the drugs.” said Tom Marler. “But, the availability . . . heroin is incredibly accessible. I went to the Centralia police chief [Larry Evans] three times with vital information on drug dealers, and nothing was done,” he said. Tom Marler said he also contacted the Illinois State Police and no one ever returned his call. “Everyone has failed in a very very large way.”
[When asked for an interview, Evans said he did not think it appropriate to comment on the case.]
  “We had no one to turn to. We contacted the authorities for help, including the Marion County Probation Office. This has and can happen to any family in our community. You can’t trust anyone, and you can’t get a sense of security when your kid is in the judicial system,” Chris Marler said.
Dustin Marler was in the judicial system. He was ordered by the Marion County court to serve 18 months’ court supervision for driving under the influence charge resulting from a 2004 incident. His sentence included random drug testing, 40 hours of community service and attendance at recovery meetings. According to Chris Marler, his sentence was never enforced.
  “He went to one meeting and never completed the 40 hours of community service. He also tested positive for drugs twice at the probation office, and they just let him get in his car and drive away. Where is the zero tolerance for drug use? Would the probation service let him get behind the wheel if he were under the influence of alcohol?” she said.
  In May 2006, Dustin Marler violated his court supervision and was arrested for another DUI, possession of heroin and possession of a hypodermic needle. The case was never tried because the court dates were postponed.
  “The first court date was postponed, the second was postponed because the court didn’t have a report, and didn’t make his third court date. . . . He had passed away.” Chris Marler said.
Between May 2006 and September 2006, Dustin Marler was never tested.
  “[Probation director] Mendy Shoemaker personally told me it wasn’t her job to drug test him, even though it was his second offence. I have a hard time understanding how such a dangerous drug and a second offense was not an alert to the probation officer,” she added.
  Shoemaker agreed to an interview after explaining that she could not speak to the specifics of Dustin Marler’s case because of issues of legality. She did, however, explain how the probation office works in drug cases.
  Essentially, what Shoemaker explained is that when probation or court supervision is violated, as was the case with Dustin Marler, the offender’s probation officer determines the best course of action for that particular individual. whether the offender is verbally reprimanded, required to attend additional counseling hours ofor their probation is recommended to be revoked is determined by their probation officer.
  “If life were black and white, life would be great, wouldn’t it? There is no hard and fast rule about when a case goes back to court. Every person is different, and we come up with an individual plan for each offender. if a person tested positive, it is likely that an administrative sanction occurred,” Shoemaker said.
  Shoemaker did note that a person can test positive for drugs three times before the court services office will recommend their probation be revoked.
  “We don’t have the perfect answers. We have determined the best way to work with the most amount of people. There are 1,000 people on probation in Marion County, and we are not making every parent happy. But we feel extremely bad. We are people, and we feel when our clients died. We feel extremely bad for that family’s pain, suffering and loss. I can’t respond to parents, because people over the age of 17 are considered adults, and I understand the may still live under your roof, but the law says they are adults,” said Shoemaker. “We’re hoping for the best outcome, but we are limited by what the court allows us to do,” she added.
  Chris Marler said that with close to 30 deaths in five years attributed to the heroin epidemic in Marion County, someone needs to do something move.
  “Why aren’t the procedures in black and white?” she asked. “If you have two driving violations, you lose your license for six months to one year. Why doesn’t the probation office have more structure? They had my son Dustin’s life in their hands and did nothing to help him,” she said. “But I guess it was their call,” she added. “I admit, I did underestimate what addiction means and how dangerous any drug is, but the probation officers should not have.”
  Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Rose has a sense of the frustration the Marlers are dealing with, he said. Rose was the officer who responded to the Marlers’ home on Sept. 5 and testified at the young men’s coroner’s inquest on Nov. 1.
  “I don’t think this mom and dad could have done anything more for their children. they looked very well-loved and taken care of. I understand the desire to get something done, and I wish I could do more for them,’ Rose said. “I’ll do whatever I can for them.”
  “The heartbreak is unbelievable.” said Sheriff Brad Wolenhaupt. “Unfortunately, with the heroin problem – with any drug case actually – it depends on the evidence. Kids don’t want to rat out their friends, and with heroin, once drugs are used, there is no evidence of their use,” he said.
  An investigation regarding the heroin purchased by the Marler brothers is ongoing, according to the sheriff.
  Chris and Tom Marler are not satisfied with the court system, law enforcement or the treatment options out there. Since the tragedy in their own family occurred, the Marlers have more ideas on how the drug problem should be addressed.
  “First of all, there needs to be enforced drug testing in the high schools,” Tom Marler said. “Drug problems start in high school, and it’s the perfect place to drug test every kid.”
The Marlers agree that drugs, like alcohol in the state of Illinois, should be enforced with a zero tolerance policy. If a person tests positive for drugs, immediate action should be taken, they said.
  “Parents need to be aware of the problem early. Kids need help – they have no idea what they are doing and what the results are,” Chris Marler said.
  “The probation services charge $15 to have a drug test done to the offender, but they are not made accountable for their actions,” Tom Marler said.
  “Each community should have a treatment facility to rehabilitate these kids, not just put them in jail. The judicial system needs to make stiffer punishment for the dealers and the second and third time offenders,” Chris Marler said.
  “Our lives have forever changed. We have received a thousand words of sympathy, but we should have received one hundred thousand words of outrage as a community,” Tom Marler said.
  “I am trying to save the next Drew and Dustin, because, there are kids out there that think this would never happen to them – but it can,” said Chris Marler.

EPILOGUE

By Chris Marler
Mother of Drew and Dustin Marler

  The above article was published in the Centralia Sentinel, March 4, 2007. This was only the beginning of our fight. It will be three years since the boys have passed. The toll it has taken on our family is indescribable. You never lose the feeling of sadness or loneliness. You deal with the holidays and birthdays the best you can. You feel guilty when you smile or have a moment of happiness. When you see their car go by you get excited thinking they are coming home. Then it hits you they aren’t. When you pass someone that looks like them and your heart stops for a moment. You have friends and family members tell you time heals or tell you you’re going to have to get over it.

  Parents listen to me! YOU NEVER GET OVER IT!!!!! Every night I relive that horrible day. Performing CPR on them and the realization of what has happened. Now my holidays and birthdays are spent at Hillcrest where I go to visit them three times a week.

If I could give parents advise I would tell them:
1. No one cares about your child more than you.
2. Talk to your kids early and don’t stop because they are in high school.
3. Understand ADDICTION – It is a cancer that can be treated but also reoccurs.
4. Get Help. You can not battle this alone. Seek out resources for help.
5. Never give up fighting for your child not matter what.
6. Don’t think this can’t happen to you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.