Nov. 30--The growing wave of illegal drug experimentation in the late 1960s first impacted Joe Mosso's Latrobe pharmacy by way of questions from many concerned parents.

"My customers, many of whom were personal friends, started telling me about finding marijuana in their children's bedrooms," said Mosso, 77. "I said, 'Sit down and talk with them about it; don't jump on them.' You have to reason with them about what drugs mean and what they can do."

It was then that Mosso began educating local parents and youths about the dangers of illegal drug use. He eventually became nationally recognized and recently was honored for his work over the past four decades.

He was awarded the 2009 John W. Dargavel Medal by the National Community Pharmacists Association Foundation in part for his work in teaching the country's youths about the dangers of illegal drug and alcohol abuse.

Knowing the threats of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and LSD were real and close to home, Mosso created an information center for drug-related problems affecting parents and children.

Ang Caruso, Latrobe's mayor in the late 1970s, helped Mosso form the Committee on Drug Education with city police and other community leaders.

"In my early years as mayor, we did have a drug problem here in downtown," Caruso said. "It took a while before we got rid of it, but we did. Joe was very instrumental in setting up the committee with city leaders; he did an excellent job."

While working as president of Mosso's Pharmacy Inc., Mosso traveled the nation's high school circuit as a public speaker.

"The peer pressure out there today is so much more intense and the drugs are so much stronger; I worry about it with my own grandkids," Mosso said.

Mosso worked with Robert Teeter to help found St. Vincent College Prevention Projects, a wellness and substance abuse education program in its 31st year of operation. He still sits on the program's advisory board executive committee.

"Joe envisioned a more comprehensive program of this kind in Westmoreland County," said Donna Kean, the program's executive director since 2002.

In 1981, Mosso testified before Congress in favor of a bill proposed to upgrade robbery of a pharmacy from a misdemeanor to a felony. The bill was passed into law in 1984.

He eventually took his mission overseas, speaking before the International Congress in Switzerland and the International Congress on Alcohol and Drug Addiction in Copenhagen.

"It was amazing to discover how the youth in so many other countries have similar problems," Mosso said.

Mosso retired as a pharmacist and sold his company in 1996.

He accepted his recent honor with humility but did issue a call to others in his field.

"Pharmacists tend to want to hide in the back room all the time; if they go to work each day ready to help people, they really can make a difference," he said.

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