drug abuse prevention

NEW JERSEY—Sexually molested at 5 years old, abused by her husband, and entangled by drug abuse, Rosalie Buthea, 49, spent years in and out of jail, living on the defensive. Now she wants to start anew.

When in 1982 then first lady Nancy Reagan famously advised Americans to “Just say no” to drugs, 50-year-old Tom Cilmi, the three-term Suffolk County Republican legislator of the 10th District, which covers a major portion of the town of Islip and a small section of the town of Brookhaven, was still a teenager. “I remember going from store to store with my mother, putting up the ‘Just say no’ signs,” he told me when I interviewed him in his Suffolk County legislative office recently.

A dozen young people in their sweats lined up on a track field in Queens a drizzly Thursday afternoon.