Pubdate: Mon, 19 Jan 2015
Source: Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)
Copyright: 2015 News-Journal Corporation
Contact:  http://www.news-journalonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/700
Author: Lacey McLaughlin

SURVEY: DRUG AND ALCOHOL USE DOWN AMONG VOLUSIA, FLAGLER TEENS

Volusia and Flagler County teenagers are cutting back on alcohol and
drugs, according to a recent state survey.

The survey administered last year through the Florida Department of
Children & Families shows that 44 percent of students in Volusia
County reported using alcohol in their lifetime, compared with 49
percent in 2012. The trend is similar in Flagler County where 46.7
percent of students reported ever consuming alcohol, down from 53
percent in 2012.

In 2014, 13.3 percent of Flagler students reported using marijuana in
the past 30 days, down from 15.3 in 2012. The same was true in Volusia
County where 13.5 students used marijuana within the last 30 days,
compared with 14 percent in 2012.

"That really surprised me," said Julie Barrow, executive director at
One Voice for Volusia, a community initiative to improve health and
human services. "Because of the ballot measure to legalize medical
marijuana, we thought we'd see those numbers go up."

The percentage of Volusia and Flagler students using drugs, however,
is still higher than the state totals. In 2014, 42.6 percent of
Florida students reported ever drinking and 12.4 percent of all
students reported using marijuana in the last 30 days. Cigarette
smoking is also down among teenagers in the two counties and across
the state.

One Voice for Volusia recently received a grant to form a youth
substance abuse prevention initiative and is using the data from the
surveys to identify areas that still need improving.

"It's pretty exciting," Barrow said. "Usually these numbers bring a
lot of gloom and doom, but now the numbers are going down."

The surveys also reveal factors that put teens at higher risk for drug
use such as poor school attendance, lack of extracurricular activities
and parental support.

One of the recent initiatives called "Parents Who Host, Lose the Most"
targets parents to discourage underage drinking.

"To combat the fact that the majority of Volusia County youth are
drinking in homes, we have a program that helps parents in our
community protect youths by making sure their homes are safe zones,"
Barrow said.

Katrina Townsend, director of student services for Flagler County
schools, said that the district has improved its outreach efforts by
starting drug prevention programs with younger students. Peer-to-peer
mentoring and youth leadership programs have proven to be an effective
strategy for reaching students, she said.

"In one of our programs, high school students visit sixth-graders to
talk to them about drug prevention," she said.

Volusia County schools has taken a similar approach. Amy Hall,
district counseling and curriculum specialist with the Volusia County
School District, said that one challenges that remain is that students
are favoring marijuana over alcohol.

"It's easier for students to get access to marijuana than alcohol
because it's not regulated" Hall said. "It's also easier for them to
hide it."

Linda Parkin, a local coordinator for the Narcotics Overdose
Prevention and Education Task Force, hosts presentations in Flagler
and Volusia schools that feature parents who lost their teenagers to
drug-related deaths, medical professionals and law enforcement officers.

Parkin's 26-year-old daughter committed suicide in 2007 after battling
an addiction to prescription drugs. Parkin said her organization is
working to increase parental involvement to cut down on drug abuse.

"I thought addiction was a choice, but it's not, it's a disease," she
said. "If kids get hooked before their brains fully develop then they
have even more of a chance of becoming an addict."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt