THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 16, 1995 TAG: 9509160276
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: COMMUNITY CONVERSATION
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 251 lines
Samantha Olive is a pretty 16-year-old with ash-blonde hair, muscled forearms and golden-hued skin. She attends school at Green Run High School in Virginia Beach. Makes good grades. Loves her parents and two brothers. And has a message for parents of adolescents and pre-adolescents: Your kids are using illegal drugs, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes.
Samantha should know. She smoked marijuana and drank when she was in the ninth and 10th grades. She did it to fit in.
But unlike a lot of kids, she stopped. She stopped because she realized the risks just weren't worth the fun anymore. Her epiphany came one night when the police detained the car in which she and three friends were riding. Her friends had been drinking. It took a breath test to convince the officers that Samantha hadn't.
Her friends lost their licenses, and Samantha came to a realization. ``There are great consequences to doing drugs and alcohol. I was just, like, it's not worth it. You know? It's not worth it at all.''
But according to a study by the New York City-based Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Samantha is the exception.
The CASA study, which the agency calls the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken on the attitudes of American adults and adolescents toward cigarettes, alcohol and illegal drugs, showed that 62 percent of 12th graders have a friend who uses marijuana. Fifty-eight percent have been offered marijuana. And 65 percent of high-school seniors say every kid is forced to choose whether or not to use illegal drugs.
The results, released in July, surprised the experts.
``Our children are crying out for help,'' said CASA President Joseph A. Califano Jr. in his introduction to the survey results.
``They're telling us that drugs are by far the most important problem they face growing up, that drugs are easily available to them. That kids who smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol and smoke pot are more likely to move on to hard drugs. That American television, movies, magazines and music encourage illicit drug use, and that all kids are forced to choose whether to use drugs before they graduate from high school.''
The risk of drug use knows no demographic definition - except age. . . Make no mistake about it, if our kids can get through the adolescent years, ages 10 to 20, without using drugs, without smoking, without abusing alcohol, they are virtually certain never to do so.
- CASA study
Samantha started using marijuana in the eighth grade. Colleen Charlton's daughter was in the fourth grade when someone tried to sell her LSD. Joyce Saxon's 36-year-old son died last year from complications of alcohol abuse - he'd been a heavy drinker since early adolescence.
We learned about these Hampton Roads residents' experiences during a discussion one evening in late August in the studio of public radio station WHRV. Four parents, two adolescents, one drug counselor, a CASA representative and three Virginian-Pilot employees gathered to talk about the frightening statistics the CASA report uncovered, and about their relevance to our children.
The central question: What can parents do to protect their children? To ensure that their kids - who the CASA study showed have an 80 percent chance of trying drugs before they graduate high school - stay straight?
CASA offered some information from the study. Communications director Alyse Booth, who came from New York to attend our discussion, said researchers learned it didn't matter if the child came from the inner city or the suburbs, a rural or an urban community. It didn't matter if he or she came from a one- or two-parent home; had divorced parents or step-parents; rich or poor parents.
Four other things seemed to make the greatest difference, Booth said:
Optimism about the future. ``How did this child feel about his future opportunities? Did he or she feel that they would have a future as good or better than their parents?''
Involvement in religious activity. Kids who participated in some kind of religious activity seemed to be safer than others from using drugs.
Doing well in school. ``The kids who are achieving are the ones that are less likely to use drugs,'' Booth said.
Their perceptions about marijuana. ``The kids that really thought marijuana was dangerous, who said they wouldn't go near it, were the ones that we say are then much safer from using marijuana and other illegal drugs.''
Said Jason Lewis, a 15-year-old who attends I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, ``The reason that some kids do drugs is they don't have anything to look forward to and they don't care if they waste their body away because they think, `I'm going to die anyway, might as well die having fun.' ''
Parents had their own thoughts. They looked beneath the surface problem of the prevalence of drugs and alcohol to the underlying issues - parental attitudes, friends and societal messages.
``I think parents today are afraid to tell their kids how they're seriously feeling about something, because they are afraid that (the kids) are going to jolt, leave, run away, go live with their friends,'' said Charlton, a social worker from Virginia Beach who has three children.
``It's like, I feel sometimes I want to shake parents and say, get a grip!''
Ann Olive, Samantha's mother and a credit union employee from Virginia Beach, said that until her son began having problems with drugs she was naive about the world in which her children lived.
``Kids that I thought were the straightest kids on the block were carrying bongs to school in their backpacks, sniffing air conditioners for Freon, lying to their parents about what was going on at parties and such. I would like to say, `Please, get educated, find out what's going on. If you don't know your kids, get to know them a little better and talk to them and make them realize how dangerous it is because I think that as parents it is part of our job.'''
Cynthia Lewis, an administrator at Norfolk State University who attended the discussion with Jason, her son, warned parents about their children's friends. ``Some of the peer pressure can really cause the kids you never would expect to fall prey to drugs,'' she said. She's seen children of some of the most church-going people she knows getting into trouble.
``It's so unpredictable. In the best of families, in the best of situations, it happens. It's really scary for a parent.''
Saxon, a Suffolk woman whose children are grown, nodded knowingly throughout Lewis' remarks. She remembered as a single parent coming home after working two jobs only to find her 14-year-old son still out with his friends.
``When my kids were growing up I knew some of the parents and the kids were great . . . except for when they all met and hid on the bridge near the school. That's when they let their hair down.''
Her advice to parents today: Put your kids on a short leash. Talk to them. ``Tell them what can happen to them because ultimately, if they drink and take drugs, they're going to end up dead.''
But don't blame the parents totally, said Susan Boone, a social worker with the Norfolk Community Services Board. Or even the kids.
``The truth of the matter is, it's the availability of drugs right now. Because they are so available, we need to keep our kids busy. We need parents to not just talk to their children, but to have an ongoing conversation with the friends when their children bring their friends around. There needs to be family rules that the children clearly understand. And stick to what you talk about with your children.
``It's normal to experiment, but to abuse like Samantha's friends, continually drinking, continually using drugs, it does turn into dependence and that's where the danger lies. And that's why we have to keep them busy and volunteer in the community.''
Only 9 percent of students felt that school prevention programs ``help very much,'' and fully 19 percent think such education does not help at all. But 41 percent said anti-drug programs help ``a fair amount.'' The lesson seems to be that while education alone will not allay the nation's drug-induced ills, it can nevertheless play a substantial role in the so-called war on drugs.
- CASA study
The group at WHRV agreed the schools have a role to play in fighting drugs, but several said current efforts were ineffective.
Samantha, for instance, is part of a group called the Reach Club, her mother said. It's supposed to carry out an anti-substance-abuse message. Volunteer students go to elementary schools and talk with the younger children about substance abuse - which she said was good, as far as it goes. She said the club would be more effective if the students did more one-on-one counseling with their own peers.
Boone was concerned about funding cuts for such educational programs both in the schools and in the community. ``We're doing more with less than we've ever done before,'' she said.
Lewis echoed those concerns. ``Just when you've gotten the interest of community groups taking back their neighborhoods and reclaiming the playgrounds and that type of thing, funds are being cut. To have the interest is one thing, but you still need that financial support to get things moving.''
Even when information is provided in the schools, Jason said, it isn't enough. ``There's really no discussion,'' he said of the substance-abuse material covered in his health classes. ``It's just facts in a book, and it's just like science. I think they should go into more detail about it and discuss it.''
Seventy-six percent of kids said popular culture - television, movies, magazines and/or pop music - encourages drug use.
- CASA study
This summer Jason asked his mom if he and a friend could go to a movie. She said they could. It wasn't until later that she realized the movie, ``Dangerous Minds,'' was rated R. And yet, both underage boys were allowed into the theater.
``Even though I should have been more attentive to the rating of the movie the fact that we as a society are too lenient.''
Then there is the ubiquitous television. Shows popular with teenagers, like ``Melrose Place'' and ``Beverly Hills 90210,'' frequently depict unwholesome lives.
Such programming does make an impact, Jason said. Some characters use marijuana ``mostly like it's something for fun. It's just like cigarettes. That's what you see from some of the movies and even from some of the television shows.''
Both adults and adolescents view marijuana as less dangerous to one's health than cigarettes and less addictive than either cigarettes or alcohol.
- CASA study
It's cheap and plentiful. Hence, Jason and Samantha said, marijuana is the drug of choice among their peers.
A government survey released Tuesday echoed their observations. It showed that marijuana use among American teenagers has nearly doubled since 1992, even as adults' use of all illegal drugs has leveled off.
The survey also said that the use of marijuana is on the rise among young people after 13 years of decline.
The scary part about marijuana statistics, said CASA's Booth, is that teenagers who use marijuana are overwhelmingly more likely to go on and use harder drugs, like cocaine or heroin, than those who don't.
And it's more than just the higher risk of using other drugs, Califano noted in his introduction to the CASA report. ``Kids who smoke pot are much more likely to have sex and to have it without a condom, putting them at risk of pregnancy - the surest way to spend a life in poverty - and sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS. Pot impairs short-term memory, judgment and motor skills just as our kids need to learn, make tough decisions and drive a car safely.''
Ninety-three percent of the kids polled said they plan to graduate from a four-year college.
By the end of the discussion, for all the depressing stories, our participants did leave with some sense of hope. Mainly because we spent part of the evening talking about prevention and solutions.
``Kids live for the future,'' Olive said. ``And if we can just grab something from our kids, one or two goals that we know they have for themselves and help them focus on it and try to steer them in that direction, then there is potential.''
Parents also talked about the need for more discussions like this one. It is helpful, they said, to hear from others who are grappling with the same problems, instead of trying to deal with it alone.
But more than just parents must get involved in the battle against drugs, Boone said. ``We have to have everybody in the community rallying around these kids because the crime, the drugs - it's everyone's responsibility.
``It reminds me of the African proverb, `It takes an entire village to raise a child.' And it does. It's everyone's responsibility.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Research by DEBRA GORDON, graphic by ROBERT D. VOROS/Staff
SOURCES: Columbia's University's Center on Addiction and Substance
abuse; The Luntz Research Companies
SOME SOLUTIONS
Some solutions from participants in the conversation:
Know your children's friends and their friends' parents. See what
kind of home the kids come from.
Keep your children active in after-school activities, sports and
religious groups.
Limit the amount of money your child carries; make sure you know
what he spends his money on. Encourage savings.
Set rigid rules in your home regarding such things as smoking,
drinking and drugs, and have appropriate penalties in place when
those rules are broken.
Stay involved with your child through his school, peer group and
other community activities.
Become involved on a community and school level with substance
abuse education. Become an advocate for the funding and quality of
such programs.
Don't be afraid to search your child's room, if necessary, for
signs of drugs and other substances.
Learn to spot the early signs of drug abuse and offer kids help.
KEYWORDS: PUBLIC JOURNALISM DRUGS by CNB