When you find a joint in a stapler, a water bottle with a secret compartment, a flashlight that turns into a pipe, and dozens of other objects that hide alcohol and other drugs, it’s hard to believe that substance abuse-related accidents and deaths happen only to other people’s children.

That’s what Dot Butler wanted to impress on parents: how easy it is to miss clues of abuse, hidden in plain sight in a teenager’s room.

“The world has changed,’’ said Butler, a 35-year Winchester resident who raised two kids in town, holds a degree in psychology, and has volunteered on almost every committee in town. “Risky behavior starts earlier. The experimenting they used to do in high school, they’re now doing in middle school.’’

As the volunteer manager of the Winchester Coalition for a Safer Community, Butler helped organize a five-day exhibition, “Hidden in Plain Sight,’’ at Town Hall earlier this month. The exhibit is an interactive display that depended on the viewer to complete the conceptual loop; those who attend can ask questions as they pick up objects around the room.

This was the second year that the coalition arranged the exhibit. Since 1997, alcohol and other drugs have killed 15 of the town’s young people.

The message hasn’t changed since the Winchester Substance Abuse Coalition — formed in 1999 — changed its name to the Winchester Coalition for a Safer Community 10 years ago in response to those in town who didn’t like the reference to drugs, Butler said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey for Massachusetts, which asked questions of anonymous high school students:

■ Nearly 20 percent of ninth-graders and 51 percent of 12th-graders said they had drunk alcohol in the previous 30 days; 13 percent tried it before they were 13 years old.

■ Nearly 14 percent of ninth-graders and 33 percent of 12th-graders said they had used marijuana in the previous 30 days.

■ More than 20 percent of high school students say they were offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property during the 12 months prior to the survey.

The coalition’s concerns have escalated as an epidemic of opiate use continues to spread.

Coalition member and school resource officer Dan Perenick, a sergeant in the town’s Police Department, said experimentation with alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco has trickled down to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders, while more high schoolers are getting high on prescription drugs, pot, and alcohol. At the same time, 18-to-24-year-olds are using opiates and other prescription drugs, he says.

It’s not that most of the town’s roughly 2,600 schoolchildren are using. But coalition members say the temptations are everywhere — on the Internet, in the family medicine cabinet, and on the street. And the stigma of the words “substance abuse’’ in town hasn’t lessened, Butler said.

Not everyone is queasy about facing the facts, however. The visitors who trickled into Town Hall on a recent icy morning weren’t shy about inspecting the model bedroom, arranged with a twin bed, an area rug, a nightstand, a dresser, a desk, a wastebasket, a laundry basket, and an over-sized lounge chair.

There was a hairbrush on the dresser with a pullout end, made to put a hidden stash inside. Plastic containers of moisturizing lotion stood on the night stand, manufactured and sold as surreptitious flasks for alcohol. On the desk, a miniature flashlight opened up into a pipe.

A jar resembling a peanut butter container that was really an empty storage compartment lay on the bed, next to an opened package of crackers. A contact lens case was stuffed with blue pills. On the wall over the bed, a highway sign — decorated with a drawing of a cannabis plant — touted Route 4-20 (the date of International “Weed Day’’).

“I have several friends who have lost children — one lost two,’’ said Linda Bohan, who works next door at the town’s public library. “I was interested because it hits so close to home. I wanted to see it.’’

Bohan, a mother and grandmother, said she came of age in the ’70s when “drugs were prevalent — pot, pills — but nothing like today.’’

“This is a horrible, horrible disease,’’ she said. “It hits everyone. Are parents today so involved that they miss something? I don’t know. But for a lot of kids, it’s not the only issue, and they try to self-medicate.’’

Suzanne Rabe, 46, the mother of two young teenagers, brought a friend to the exhibit, who also has a teenage child. Afterward, the women planned to go out for lunch and talk about what they saw. Later in the day, they said, they would discuss the exhibit — and why they went — with their kids.

“I grew up in this town and what I’m seeing now, I never saw when I was in high school,’’ said Rabe, a health and wellness coach.

As a parent, she said, she wants to learn as much as she can about the world her kids are living in, including recognizing clues that signal risky behavior. But she’s also determined to listen with respect and let her kids know she cares.

“The more you can learn, the better you’ll get at speaking your kids’ language,’’ Rabe said.

Other possible places for alcohol and other drugs, plus paraphernalia, that can be hidden in a teen’s room:

ª Stapler: Open and find a joint stored where the staples should be.

ª Contact lens container: Open each side and find pills under the plastic cap that should hold a lens.

ª Highlighter pen: Converts into a pipe that can be used to smoke pot.

ª Toiletry bottles: Purchased empty at novelty shops, with generic shampoo or lotion labels, and used as flasks.

ª Hairbrush: Designed with a compartment on the end that opens up and can be used to store drugs.

SOURCE: Winchester Coalition

for a Safer Community

Hattie Bernstein can be reached at hbernstein04@icloud.com.