Pubdate: Mon, 28 Mar 2005
Source: Sentinel And Enterprise, The (MA)
Copyright: 2005 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Mid-States Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://sentinelandenterprise.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2498
Authors:  Crystal C. Bozek, and Caitlyn Kelleher
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)

GENERATION 'HIGH'

Dora Arnhold has seen students come to school high and drunk. She's also 
offered rides home to teens she knows shouldn't be getting in a car after a 
night of partying.

As an 18-year-old high-school senior, she's on the front lines when it 
comes to teenagers and drugs.

She said, sadly, that many parents don't know what's going on. "Parents. 
They have no idea," the Gardner High student said. "Their kids would never 
do something like that. ... Their kids are perfect." Cocaine, marijuana, 
mushrooms, acid, LSD, ecstasy, painkillers, OxyContin (OC's) and heroin 
have always infiltrated the schools, but it seems to be getting worse, area 
teens and administrators say.

While they may not see drugs as much in school, it's around once the bell 
rings. "With kids, it's how far over the boundaries can we go? They keep 
seeing how far, and eventually they do go too far," Arnhold said. "I almost 
wish they'd legalize this stuff. Then it wouldn't be such a big deal." 
Dealing in middle school?

And the trend is growing younger and younger, to the point where 
middle-schoolers are dealing marijuana, one student said. "Parents don't 
know this because who's gonna go home and tell them that?" Fitchburg 
resident Yadira Gonzalez, 17, said. "My mom doesn't know. She'd die hearing 
that."

Arnhold said teenagers just don't have as much responsibility anymore -- 
they're bored and many times their parents don't bother talking to them. 
"They aren't living in a reality," she said. "They are so irresponsible 
these days. ... They never think how something might affect their future." 
What can happen Donald Flagg, now 28, bought his first joint in middle 
school. As he got older, he'd raid the liquor cabinet, pouring water in 
half-empty bottles to make them look untouched.

Then he drove to the liquor store with buddies and scored a case of Coronas 
by passing some money to a guy standing outside.

"You set up connections like the businessmen in the world," the Fitchburg 
resident said. "You drive down to the store and you pay the guy $20 for a 
case." Enjoying the party He looked at drinking, smoking weed, popping 
ecstasy and snorting cocaine as just casual ways to "really enjoy the 
party. ... It was all in fun." But he carried some of the habits with him 
as he got older -- he was 22 or 23, a "functioning" alcoholic who drank a 
six-pack of beer on his way home from work, and popped pain killers.

Flagg was just having fun, and looking for a way out of a bad environment, 
and he ended up trapped.

He overdosed at age 24. "All I heard was the doctor say, 'There's nothing 
we can do for him. We don't know what he took. All we can do is monitor 
him,'" Flagg said. "At that point, I knew I was going to kill myself if I 
didn't stop, and if I couldn't change, I felt I did want to die."

Parents and teenagers might hear that story and say, "Oh, he's just a 
Fitchburg kid from a bad environment," but Flagg said it happens to teens 
from all neighborhoods and backgrounds.

Rich and poor kids alike "Drugs have no face," he said. "My rich friends 
were doing it too. It happens to doctors' and lawyers' sons."

Arnhold said drug use in high school is no longer confined to one group, 
like hippies, goths or "ghetto" kids.

"The skaters. The football players. They're all together now," she said. 
"Wherever there's a party, everyone is there."

Erin McDonald, a senior at Oakmont Regional High School, entered high 
school a little naive, assuming drugs were only in the large schools. She 
now knows students at Oakmont, which straddles the Ashburnham-Westminster 
boarder, are using the same type of drugs as students in Fitchburg, 
Leominster and Gardner.

"I think the reality is that it is everywhere," said the 18-year-old. In 
2002, Substance abuse treatment programs saw 64 Leominster residents under 
21, 70 from Fitchburg and 59 from Gardner, according to the 2003 Community 
health Assessment.

The Big "IT" Drug Teenagers say marijuana, which sells for between $40 and 
$60 for an eighth of an ounce, is the most popular drug at high schools, 
along with alcohol. It's also easy to get caught with in school, since the 
odor gives it away. "Marijuana is the big thing people are using," said 
Chelsea LeBlanc, 15, a sophomore at Fitchburg High School. "It's not 
usually the thing people are using in school, because you'll get caught."

Tammi Clarkson, 18, of Leominster, estimated roughly 75 percent of teens in 
her city have tried it.

"It was very, very easy (for dealers) to sell it at Leominster (High 
School). A lot of people bought it in school," said Clarkson, a former 
student. Among the 20 to 30 teens interviewed by the Sentinel & Enterprise, 
most said 75 percent of teens have tried a drug.

They say about 35 percent of middle-schoolers have experimented with drugs. 
But a 2004 study says overall illicit drug use is down among American high 
school students nationally, according the 2004 annual Monitoring the Future 
survey, conducted by the University of Michigan and overseen by the 
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The survey measures drug, alcohol and cigarette use among students in 
grades eight, 10 and 12 in the United States.

The 2004 survey included 49,474 students in 406 public and private schools. 
The survey, released in December, showed a decrease in marijuana use by 
seven percent nationwide.

But the study also noted a growing trend of teen use of inhalants and 
painkillers.

More than nine percent of seniors in high school reported to using Vicodin 
in the past year, along with 6.2 percent of all sophomores and 3.5 percent 
of eighth graders nationwide.

Use of OxyContin increased significantly from 2002 to 2004, according to 
the survey, with five percent of seniors, 3.5 percent of sophomores and 1.7 
percent of eighth graders admitting to using the drug last year. Inhalant 
use among eighth graders also increased in 2004, with common products 
including glue, shoe polish and gasoline.

Danny Ramos, 19, of Fitchburg, said he's seen friends start using marijuana 
from the age of 12.

Heroin has also become a drug to party with, some kids say. "I've seen kids 
snort this stuff now," Ramos said. "Before when you had to shoot up, these 
guys wouldn't have even thought about it. They didn't want the needle." 
"People I never expected are doing it," Clarkson said of heroin. "People 
are like: oh, he's shooting up heroin."

As the price of heroin has dropped to $5 to $10 a hit, the drug not only 
became attainable to prostitutes and addicts, but also to teens. "Heroin is 
the cheapest thing to get," Arnhold said. "But it's still more cocaine and 
weed."

A drug on the way back? LSD, or acid as it is known, is making a big 
comeback at Arnhold's high school. "Everyone does acid all of a sudden," 
she said. "Then three weeks later they're talking about how they're still 
flash-backing. ... I just look at them like, 'You're weird.'"

Amy Tran, 17, of Fitchburg, talked of watching kids get nose bleeds in the 
mall. "Obviously, they're on something. Probably cocaine," she said. "They 
don't even touch the nose and it starts dripping."

Most teens interviewed said ecstasy isn't as common due to the price, 
sometimes around $20 to $30 for a pill.

"They take ecstasy when they can get to a club or if there's a big party," 
Ramos said. "You hear all that stuff about how you want to touch everything 
and well, with the girls..."

Matt Barrett, an 18-year-old senior at Fitchburg High School, said he's 
watched drug deals on school grounds, and heard of other kids using 
ridalin, marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine.

"It doesn't bother me much, it's not new anymore," said Barrett, adding he 
first saw drugs in school as a sixth-grader at Memorial Intermediate 
School. Most teens are smoking cigarettes too.

"It's huge ... I don't know anybody who doesn't," Arnhold said. Easy access 
Officer Steven Creamer, Leominster's School Resource Officer, said drugs 
aren't hard to come by anymore.

"It's who you know," said Creamer. "It could be an older brother, it could 
be the guy down the street, it could be someone here."

Arnhold said teenagers get money for drugs from part-time jobs or 
allowances. "Their parents are paying the car insurance bills. They don't 
pay their own bills," Arnhold said. "They have all this extra money in 
their pockets and nothing to do."

Creamer says some kids don't even try to hide their drug use. "A lot of 
kids are open about their drug use. It's almost like it's a badge of honor 
for some kids," Creamer said. "Other kids are straight edge and wear that 
as a badge of honor."

Many students are proud to say they don't touch drugs. "I don't do drugs 
and I don't hang around kids that do drugs," said Michelle Shaughnessy, 15, 
a sophomore at Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School. Arnhold 
said she knows just about everyone at school and hangs out with people much 
older than her, and people are fine with the fact she doesn't smoke or pop 
pills. "Nobody forces you to do anything," she said. "It's really no big 
deal. Some people might say no but they'll call the person up and say 'Can 
I meet you somewhere?' the next day. ... Maybe it's attention they want. Or 
it's out of boredom. A lot of people lack self esteem. If somebody's 
popular, you do what they do now." But everyone knows who the drug dealers 
are at school. "If you want something, you know where to go," Fitchburg 
resident Joe Graham, 19, said. "You know which kids are hooked up."

A larger variety of drugs Administrators and School Resource Officers agree 
that students are using a larger variety of drugs now.

"Back in the 70s, it was primarily marijuana. Now we have cocaine, pills. 
We never had ecstasy back then," said Gardner High School Principal Robert 
Gillis. Administrators are also more aggressive trying to stop drug use in 
the schools. Interim Fitchburg High School Principal Richard Masciarelli 
says administrators have a no-tolerance drug policy, with students 
receiving an automatic 10-day suspension if caught with drugs.

He said school resource officers and drug-prevention programs have helped 
keep many of his students off drugs.

"Students devote six hours of their day to school, and the other 18 hours 
they are somewhere else," he said. "We have 1,400 students show up five 
days a week, and it is a stage for a captive audience (to educate about 
drugs), but there is only so much time."

Drug searches also work to keep weed and other drugs out of school. 
Fitchburg Schools Superintendent Thomas Lamey said he is considering using 
drug-sniffing dogs to sweep the school, like officials at Leominster High 
School did last year.

"Today it's about security, prevention, being proactive," Lamey said. "You 
don't want to wait till something happens.

But Lamey said there needs to be a community effort against drug use. "The 
thing is, what adults do, students tend to mimic," he said. "Not just their 
own parents, but adults."

Officials said parents should watch for some tell-tale signs of drug use: * 
Grades dropping *Change in friends * Borrowing or stealing money * Violent 
outbursts * Reckless behavior * Use of eye drops * Curfew violations * 
Glassy eyes * Lying * Valuables missing and * Secretive behavior "Open your 
eyes," Arnhold said. "They're doing it right now as we speak." Staff 
reporter Rebecca Deusser contributed to this report. Coming tomorrow: A New 
Day?
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom