If parents spend 15 minutes per day talking to their children about what's important to them, it can reduce the likelihood a child ends up using drugs or alcohol.

That was the message from Erin Burke Cirelli, of the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, to a group of parents at a session Wednesday morning. The session is called "The 15 Minute Child Break," sponsored by M-MAC, and will be repeated tonight at 7 at the library.

If a child comes from a positive home environment, they are less likely to use drugs, she said.

"The family environment is so very important for many things, but especially what we're talking about today," she said.

By the time children in New Jersey finish eighth grade, 52 percent of them have tried alcohol, 25 percent have smoked a cigarette, 17 percent have tried an illicit drug, 9 percent have tried marijuana and 1 percent have tried ecstasy, Cirelli said.

"They didn't start with ecstasy," she said. "They worked up to that."

Nationally, 20 percent of children have been drunk once by the time they've finished eighth grade, she said, and the figure jumps to 42 percent by the time they have finished 10th grade.

Children who speak with their parents at least 15 minutes per day are 67 percent less likely to try marijuana, Cirelli said. The conversation needs to be more than "talking at" a child, she said. It needs to be asking how their day has been and showing an interest in their lives, she said.

Having five meals together as a family per week can also reduce the risk, she said, and it does not need to be a dinner. It can be breakfast or lunch too, she said.

Meals together create a relaxed environment, she said, and children may be more open to revealing information.

Parents also need to educate their children about drugs and alcohol and use alcohol in a responsible manner in front of them.

"Don't make a celebration specifically about the alcohol," she said. "My kids have never seen anyone intoxicated in our home."

When a child asks about drugs or alcohol and if a parent used them, she said, the parent should be honest within reason. Tell a child that they did but they were dumb and didn't have anyone to talk to about it, Cirelli said. Also, it is important to be up front with a child if there is a family history of addiction, she said.

"That way they can make their own informed decisions," she said.

Cirelli detailed the different types of drugs and alcohol and how children can hide their use of them from parents.

"Sadly there's everything in New Jersey," she said. "The worse thing you can think is that it's not in your town."

Parents in the room gasped when Cirelli displayed a lollipop that is flavored by marijuana and used by children to get used to the taste of marijuana before they smoke it. The lollipops, she said, are available in stores like Spencer Gifts.

One parent asked her once about why it is so dangerous for teens to use marijuana when she used it at that age, Cirelli said, but marijuana is more potent today than it was when the parent was a teenager. There are more risks, she said.

Persistent use of marijuana can lead to the use of other drugs, she said, because users can build a tolerance and need something more.

New Jersey is also home to the most potent heroin in the country, she said, and anyone risks the chance of overdosing on it the first time they use it. In 1970, the heroin in New Jersey was 4-7 percent potent, she said, and today it is 61.3 percent pure.

Heroin has a high risk of physical and psychological addiction, Cirelli said, which is why it is so hard to be unaddicted to it.