Pubdate: Tue, 10 Feb 2004
Source: Salisbury Post (NC)
Copyright: 2004 Post Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.salisburypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/380
Author: Steve Huffman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)

SURVEY: MANY STUDENTS EXPERIMENT WITH DRUGS

Ray Shuler, head of the local Alcoholic Beverage Control enforcement office,
brought chilling news to the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education Monday
night.

According to Shuler, among local middle school students:

32 percent have ridden in a car with someone drinking
alcohol.

19 percent have consumed alcohol before the age of
11.

18 percent feel drugs are a problem at school.

Among local high school students, the information was even more
frightening. According to a survey:

66 percent say drugs are a problem at school.

39 percent have used marijuana.

34 percent have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days.

32 percent have been offered or sold drugs on school
property.

"These numbers are unbelievable," Shuler told school board members.
The numbers came as part of a Youth Risk Behavior Survey conducted by
Allies for Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP). The survey, developed by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was conducted locally
by ASAP in cooperation with the Rowan-Salisbury School System.

Local sixth-, eighth- and tenth-graders filled out the surveys in a
random, anonymous, representative sampling.

As frightening as the survey numbers were, the results were more the
norm than the exception, Shuler said.

"It's a national epidemic," he said of the problem with alcohol and
illegal drugs. "These statistics are right in line with everybody else."

School board members said they are equally alarmed by the
results.

"I think everybody went through these numbers and just shook their
heads," said David Aycoth, school board chairman.

"Do you have any idea how to drop these numbers?" board member Jim
Shuping asked.

The only way, said Linda Freeze, the school system's director of
health education, who presented the survey results with Shuler, is to
raise the public's awareness of drugs and to convince parents to pay
more attention to their children's activities.

Freeze said anti-drug education programs such as DARE also help,
though she said several schools have cut back on those programs in
tight budgetary times.

Board member Sharon Deal said she feels programs like DARE and others
in area schools help.

"I think we have a lot of good programs out there. I think we're doing
a lot" to combat drug abuse, Deal said. "We also have to have help
from the home and society as a whole. We're fighting a societal dragon
here."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin