Pubdate: Tue, 03 Jan 2017
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2017 Times Colonist
Contact:  http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Geoff Johnson (Geoff Johnson is retired superintendent of schools.)
Page: A10

SCHOOL DRUG ISSUES START IN COMMUNITY

Teaching in a large urban secondary school of 3,000 grade 8-12s in the
early 1970s, I knew we had several students with a serious drug problem.
We knew who they were and the school did what it could, but it was a
losing proposition.

Later, as an administrator in that same school and still later as a
superintendent in a different school district, I knew some students had
serious drug problems.

Right up to retirement, when I was asked: "So the schools have a drug
problem?" my answer was always: "No, but a few students have serious
problems, and students have these problems only if there are drug problems
in the community - schools don't exist in a vacuum."

My answer today would be the same: If there are hard drugs in the
community and the attitude of the community was: "That's not good, but
what can you do?" there will be drugs in the community's schools -
seriously bad, life-threatening drugs.

If there are people in the community who are importing or manufacturing
cocaine or heroin derivatives, there will be people looking to school-age
kids as a potential market.

Those predators know that few heroin users begin by injecting. Far more
common is snorting it like cocaine, or smoking it in glass pipes.

When you're young and inexperienced, you wonder: "How dangerous can that
be? It's not like I inject it like an addict."

Kids don't start off as hard-core users, they do it because they are
curious about experiences they see represented in movies and on TV. The
consideration of long-term consequences has not yet become part of their
psychological makeup. That's called forethought, and for a lot of kids, it
hasn't happened yet.

That's also why some kids drive too fast or jump off high cliffs into
shallow pools.

Kids know that, for all its health drawbacks, marijuana will soon be legal
and with all that "wink wink, nudge nudge" stuff that adults carry on
about "weed," other drugs probably shouldn't be taken that seriously,
either.

After all, wasn't there a wildly successful TV series about a science
teacher who was cooking and selling methamphetamine to save his family?
Won two Golden Globes.

C'mon adults, stop pretending illegal drugs are all that bad.

Nurse Jackie, another TV series had its central character try Vicodin,
Aderall, Percocet and Oxycontin, but just for stress relief, y'know. Seems
fair if you're stressed to relax a bit, doesn't it? And what could be more
stressful than high school?

C'mon, adults, if that stuff was so bad, why would it be such a big part
of a successful TV drama?

So now, back here in the real world, there's fentanyl, the newest thing.

According to a coroner's report, in August 2016, 433 people in B.C. died
from fentanyl-related drug overdoses from January to July. That averages
about two deaths per day and is a 74 per cent increase from 2015.

Six were in the 10- to 18-year-old age range and 103 were in the 19-to-29
range, up from three in 2012.

In the first seven months this year, 34 people in Victoria alone died from
illicit-drug overdoses. There were 17 such deaths in all of 2015.

How serious a problem is this? That concrete block wall and metal fence at
Central Baptist Church on Pandora Avenue might be only about safety and
security for a church that does more than its fair share to help the
needy, but it is the symbolism of the wall that jars.

A wall, according to Rev. Alan Tysick, Victoria's vigilant shepherd for
the lost, doesn't help at all. There is too much more to be done. Tysick
said he wished the church had reached out to the community for real
solutions.

For teachers and principals, the most vulnerable members in our community
are not those living on the street. The most vulnerable have always been
kids in school. Educational and community leaders will have to find those
real solutions soon.
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