Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 21, 1990 TAG: 9004210294
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: GALAX LENGTH: Medium
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said educational programs in the community and work places are key ingredients being considered at the congressional level.
Del. Thomas M. Jackson Jr., D-Hillsville, said new state legislation will require teachers to get training in recognizing and dealing with drug and alcohol problems.
Boucher serves on the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on crime, which is working on a coordinated way to handle abuse problems.
Jackson was appointed last year to a two-year drug task force studying the problem at the state level. They spoke to about 125 people at an alcohol and drug abuse awareness program sponsored by the Life Center of Galax and Tri-Area Office on Youth.
Nationally, Boucher said, illegal drug problems are straining law enforcement and health care systems and even threaten international stability in foreign relations. Drug-related hospital admissions shot up 121 percent between 1985 and 1988, he said.
About 100,000 babies are born in this country each year to mothers who are on drugs, he said. Another 36,000 are born with fetal alcoholic syndrome - the leading cause of mental retardation - due to alcoholic consumption by the mothers, he said.
Besides education, he said, strategies being considered by the subcommittee on crime include providing more resources to the criminal justice system to make sure drug offenders get punished; working to break international drug cartels and increasing border guards to stop drugs coming into this country; increasing research on the causes of addiction; beefing up intelligence in combating drugs, and investing in treatment for those addicted.
"But all we can really do in the Congress is create a framework and supply dollars," Boucher said. It will be up to communities to carry out the programs.
Jackson said serving on the drug task force `has been an eye-opening experience for me . . . I'm here tonight to tell you that the problem is here, it's real and it's alarming."
He said the recommendation for getting teachers better trained in drug awareness is because "we're learning on the Drug Task Force that young people are starting to get into drugs in the third and fourth grades . . . It's going to take a concerted effort from a very early age."
by CNB