Pubdate: Mon, 14 Oct 2002
Source: Hood River News (OR)
Copyright: Eagle Newspapers Inc., 2002
Contact: http://www.hoodrivernews.com/HRNToEditor.shtml
Website: http://www.hoodrivernews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1770
Author: Janet Cook

SHOCKING NUMBERS REVEALED DURING DRUG FORUM

Maija Yasui tossed candy to the crowd at Wednesday's community drug forum as
incentive for answering her questions correctly. But the Kit Kat Bars did
little to sweeten the ugly statistics she rattled off about drug use and
related behaviors among Hood River County's teens.

The forum, held at Hood River Valley High School's Bowe Theater, was
sponsored by Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital with support from the
Hood River County Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Prevention Coalition
(ATOD). It was aimed at parents, attracted a crowd of about 100, and
included panel presentations by counselors from Providence Gorge Counseling
and Treatment Services (PGCTS), law enforcement, and students from HRVHS.

Yasui, ATOD director, opened the forum with some sobering results of the
latest surveys of students in 8th and 11th grades in the county.

"Do you think alcohol use in Hood River County is up or down for students in
the 8th grade?" Yasui asked. The answer: it's up and down. Thirty-six
percent of both boys and girls at Hood River Middle School reported using
alcohol in the last 30 days (at the time of the survey last spring), which
was up from the same survey two years ago. At Wy'east Middle School, the
figure was 27 percent, down from the 2000 survey. (The surveys are conducted
each year, but results aren't officially registered as upward or downward
trends until the same data shows up two years in a row.)

Other statistics weren't so ambiguous. Ten percent of boys and 13 percent of
girls at Hood River Middle School reported using methamphetamine, cocaine or
heroin in the last 30 days. At Wy'east, there were no students who reported
using those drugs. At HRVHS, 22 percent of boys and 18 percent of girls
reported using those drugs in the last 30 days. Yasui called this "a huge
upward trend."

"We haven't had a significant problem with methamphetamine in the past,"
Yasui said. "But we've seen a trend in the last couple of years."

Alcohol use at HRVHS was down, according to the student surveys; 50 percent
of boys and 35 percent of girls reported using alcohol in the last 30 days.
Similarly, tobacco use was down at both middle schools and at HRVHS. Yasui
hailed the fact that tobacco use by Wy'east Middle School students was zero
percent at the time of the last survey. She attributed that in part to a
concentrated anti-tobacco education effort with 5th graders that seems to be
showing positive results with students three years later, when they're more
likely to start using tobacco.

Yasui shocked the audience with the latest statistics on sexual activity
among youth. In last spring's surveys, 88 percent of 8th graders reported
they were sexually active. That figure is averaged from Hood River and
Wy'east middle schools; at Wy'east, 96 percent of 8th grade girls and 87
percent of boys reported that they were sexually active. The figures were
slightly lower at Hood River Middle School, with 90 percent of girls and 76
percent of boys reporting being sexually active.

Yasui compared that number to 8th graders surveyed three years ago -- now in
the 11th grade -- of which 59 percent were sexually active.

"We're seeing something happening here," Yasui said. "This was a huge jump."

A student panel took the stage mid-way through the forum to talk candidly
about drug use at HRVHS. Yasui emphasized that the six students were not
necessarily speaking of "their own experience," but were presenting
cumulative information from focus groups held in various settings -- and
their views from daily life at the school.

The students talked about weekday and weekend parties held at homes --
usually that of a student whose parents were out of town -- or at various
places around the valley, like Kingsley Reservoir. They also talked about
how easy it is to get drugs. "You can get drugs -- meth, coke -- easy at
school," one student said.

"Cocaine is the new drug of choice for kids," said another, adding that it's
"as easy or easier to get (cocaine) as it is to get marijuana. You can come
to school tomorrow and get it." Someone from the audience asked the
students' opinion about what percentage of kids were making "unhealthy
choices" regarding drugs and alcohol.

The unanimous answer from the students was "about 30 percent."

After the student panel, Rich Lamm spoke. A parent of a HRVHS student, Lamm
himself graduated from HRVHS 20 years ago.

"I went to high school here," Lamm said. "I did drugs here. I sold drugs
here. It is so easy to get drugs here -- it has been for 20 years.

"You should be scared," he told the crowd. Lamm was a star athlete and "a
drug addict," he said. He started doing methamphetamine in the 10th grade
and progressed "to the point where I was an out and out IV drug user."

He offered a piece of advice to parents: "Look in your kid's eyes. Eyes are
the window to the soul, they cannot lie."

A panel of counselors spoke about adolescent drug use. All of them addressed
the issue of "dual diagnosis," when a teen is abusing drugs or alcohol but
also has underlying mental health problems.

"Mental illness will often precede the substance abuse problems," said Dr.
Elizabeth Chambers, a psychiatrist with PGCTS. "Adolescents (with mental
health problems) may begin to use drugs or alcohol as a way of
self-medicating these symptoms."

After the forum Yasui said that, while it wasn't focused on during the
evening, the schools are doing a lot to address drug and alcohol use among
students.

"It's not just getting washed away," she said. "The school policies are more
strict than they've ever been in the past.

"We're doing a lot more proactive things (in the schools) in drug
prevention." She added that, in comparison to 20 years ago, drug and alcohol
use is down, although at that time student surveys didn't include illicit
drugs, like methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine.
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