Pubdate: 12 Jan 2011
Source: Times, The (Fairfax County, VA)
Contact: http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/submissions/editor.php
Copyright: 2011 Times Community Newspapers
Website: http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4354
Author: DeForest Rathbone

FAIRFAX COUNTY YOUTH SURVEY DELIVERS BAD NEWS FOR PARENTS

The new 2009 Fairfax County Youth Survey released in late October 
revealed a serious increase in teen marijuana use from the baseline 
low rates reported in the 2005 survey.

Overall "recent-use" (past 30-day) rates for all students rose from 
9.2 percent in 2005 to 11.6 percent in 2009, meaning a 26 percent 
increase. Especially alarming was the rate for boys, which increased 
36 percent.

Page 54 of the survey reads, "Usage ... increased from 2005 to 2009, 
for all grades, genders and race/ethnicities." This increase is 
consistent with national teen marijuana use trends. Experts say it is 
mainly attributable to two primary influences: Massive publicity 
about "medical marijuana" initiatives, which persuade teens that 
marijuana must be harmless if it's OK for medicine, and the 
proliferation of high-tech cell phones among students, giving local 
pushers direct access to students in the market for drugs and alcohol.

However, some good news confirmed in the survey is that about half of 
all students have never used alcohol or drugs, thus increasing their 
chances of leading healthy and successful lives. Unfortunately, the 
vast majority of parents believe their own child to be among the 
non-users and thus have little interest in school drug-prevention 
activities. Although the survey shows that all students are 
endangered by drug- and alcohol-related destructive behaviors, 
relatively few parents ever attend school drug-prevention assemblies. 
Most believe the problem just doesn't apply to them -- although some 
learn otherwise, often too late.

Under minimum inhibition from toothless juvenile crime rules, many of 
the drug-using and drug-pushing students work overtime trying to 
entice their non-using schoolmates to get involved. This uncontrolled 
and undetected influence has been compared to the spread of 
contagious diseases, which the disease of addiction essentially is. 
It is the main reason teen drug use increases once a student has 
started doing it, as affirmed on page 55 of the survey: "Reported use 
of marijuana increases dramatically with age."

Drug education by itself has proven more than four decades of use to 
be insufficient to protect the most-at-risk kids from the school drug 
pushers and from destructive behaviors such as those identified in 
the surveys. Drug education is essential, but it must be reinforced 
with additional action in order to effectively reach all students and 
leave no student behind on drugs.

To accomplish this goal and virtually eliminate student drug use, 
thousands of schools throughout the nation today utilize health 
screening of kids for exposure to drugs by use of non-punitive Random 
Student Drug Testing (RSDT). This is the strong recommendation of 
former U.S. Drug Czar John Walters as presented in his TV interview 
about the massive 2008 Fairfax County heroin bust and drug overdose 
death tragedy that claimed so many teen lives.

Therefore, in order to help fulfill their joint responsibility to 
protect the health and safety of Fairfax County schoolchildren, both 
the Board of Supervisors and the School Board should soon authorize 
an official inquiry into the possible use of RSDT in Fairfax County 
schools as a means to reverse the current tragic trends identified in 
recent Youth Surveys.

DeForest Rathbone, chairman, National Institute of Citizen Anti-Drug 
Policy, Great Falls
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom