With LEAD Week approaching, Levittown parents, teachers, and all community members must consider exactly what this week means for the children of the community.

Levittown Educators Against Drugs is a wonderful idea, but is it only a week-long process? Should educators be the only ones involved in this process? What role do parents have in this process? What can other community members do?

Teenage substance abuse is a large problem in America. It affects parts of the population that may not even recognize the problem. It causes physical and emotional damage to the substance abusers and everyone who comes in contact with those abusers.

Substance abuse is not just about drugs and alcohol. It includes tobacco and it affects everybody. It affects everyone from the people who are in the line of their smoke to the people who care about the substance abuser and have to watch them hurt themselves.

Many people do not believe that they are affected by this problem. Whether they want to believe it or not, Levittowners are among those affected which is why it is so important for the entire community to get involved in the schools' effort to discourage substance abuse.

Are the beer bottles, cigarette cartons and other miscellaneous items found on the empty lot on the corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Wantagh Avenue from adults? The belief around town is that much of the trash on that property is from the kids who hang out there at night. What about the broken beer bottles in the parking lots? Those are also believed to be from kids who hang out there. Can anyone honestly say that kids in Levittown don't abuse various substances?

It is for these reasons that everyone needs to get involved in any way they can to help curb this problem. Go out on Sunday for the L.E.A.D. Walk and Fair. Ask your children about what they are doing for L.E.A.D. Week. Get involved. Whether you believe it or not substance abuse may one day affect you or your family.