Pubdate: Tue, 26 Dec 2006
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2006 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246
Author: Judy O'Rourke, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

DRUGS, ALCOHOL ABUSERS GETTING YOUNGER

SANTA CLARITA -- Specialists who work with local kids in therapeutic 
programs and in the schools say drug and alcohol use among teens and 
adolescents is skewing younger and younger.

Statistics are hard to come by, but workers in the trenches say more 
13- and 14-year-olds are paying a price for tangling with off-limits 
substances.

"We're getting called more and more by the middle schools to do drug 
tests for kids and we're coming in and doing early interventions on 
kids a lot," said Cary Quashen, founder of the nonprofit ACTION 
parent and teen support program. "We're finding pot, alcohol, and 
over-the-counter drugs like (cough medicine) seem to be real big with 
young people."

The group conducts programs in local high schools, and the for-profit 
Action Family Counseling program operates nine intensive outpatient 
programs and two residential treatment centers.

Quashen said teen girls who opt for methamphetamine to help them lose 
weight underestimate its pull.

"They start with diet," he said. "But the euphoria becomes 
emotionally addictive, and it only takes one time to be addicted by 
crystal meth emotionally."

The drug is easy to come by and it's cheap. In contrast to imported 
drugs like cocaine, meth can be formulated in a van or an apartment 
down the street.  Quashen said some batches are tainted with battery 
acid, rat poison or arsenic.

Getting caught with drugs or alcohol or selling them on junior or 
senior high school campuses results in suspension, intra-district 
transfers or expulsion. The man who oversees suspensions and 
expulsions in the 22,000-student William S. Hart Union High School 
District said the number of violators has been creeping up 
districtwide though figures are not yet available for the current school year.

"It appears, though I can't say to what extent yet, drug and alcohol 
violations are higher this year," said Richard Freifeld, director of 
student services for the district. "It's a definite issue out there."

In 2003-04, 16 students were expelled; in 2004-05 it dropped to 12; 
but in 2005-06, 25 students were ejected.

All students caught with banned substances are suspended for at least 
five days. In 2003-04, 118 students were suspended; in 2004-05 the 
number climbed to 145; and in 2005-06, 200 students were suspended.

District officials take into account a student's record, whether it's 
a first or second offense and other extenuating circumstances before 
levying consequences. High schoolers are not the only ones being 
dismissed or lobbed outside their comfort zones to different schools.

Of the 200 drug or alcohol-related suspensions this past year, 154 
students were high schoolers, but 46 attended junior highs. That is 
up substantially from past years: in 2003-04, 14 were junior 
highschoolers and in 2004-05, 19 attended junior highs.

Some of the increase may be attributed to the school district's 
growth in the past few years. While marijuana and alcohol are most 
commonly confiscated, Freifeld said, they are being joined by a 
growing number of other substances.

"Prescription drugs that don't belong to the students (are popular) 
and a number of kids are using Coricidin as an intoxicant," he said.

Freifeld said the district is attuned to solving underlying problems 
and students are often referred to ACTION or the Santa Clarita Valley 
Child and Family Center's Drug and Alcohol Prevention Education 
Curriculum program for help.

A former drug dealer who attended local high schools and sold drugs 
on the premises -- and is now clean -- said many of his customers 
were seventh and eighth graders referred by their friends or older 
siblings.  They would rendezvous in secluded wash areas or public restrooms.

"If the older sibling is doing it it's more likely the younger one 
will do it too," he said. He sold pot for $15 a gram, which filled 
about one-forth of a sandwich bag, and a $20 bag of meth would yield 
eight to 10 hits.

Quashen said a recipe for problems is sometimes concocted by working 
families whose offspring have a lot of time on their hands and lots 
of disposable income. Jamie Wilder, a marriage and family therapist, 
said young friends with money often share drugs with friends who 
can't afford them.

Ari Levy, a clinical psychologist and executive program director at 
the Child and Family Center, said some parents may minimize the 
teen's drug use by labeling it experimentation.

"When you have someone who's under the age of 15, 16, who is involved 
with using substances, that's not experimentation," he said. "(In 
year's past) experimentation occurred in college, maybe late high 
school. When you're talking about those who are younger, that's not 
experimentation, that's a problem."

He said if developing youngsters use drugs it may color how they deal 
with their lives as adults and how they handle stress and emotions.

"When they're adults, they may lean back on the substances," he said.

On Thursday, the National Institute on Drug Abuse on released an 
annual survey that monitors substance use trends among eighth through 
twelfth graders. It showed past-month use of illegal drugs had dipped 
23 percent since 2001, but misuse of presription drugs and 
non-medical use of over-the-counter drugs is a big concern.

In the first national survey of non-medical use of cold or cough 
medicine, the survey found 4.2 percent of eights graders reported 
using cold or cough medicines during the past year to get high, the 
group reported.  The Monitoring the Future survey, where students 
self-report use, has helped the government meausre drug and alcohol 
use and attitudes among adolescents and teens since 1975.

Wilder said parents often don't understand the unwitting role they 
play in their kids under the radar use of over-the-counter drugs.

"That's what kids can get easily at home and from other kids -- 
Coricidin, Benadryl, Vicodin," she said. "A lot of studies show 
parents speaking to their kids about drugs, parents monitoring their 
kids, these are the kids who will have less problems with substance abuse." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake