Pubdate: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 Source: Cibola County Beacon (NM) Copyright: 2006 Cibola County Beacon Contact: http://www.cibolabeacon.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3568 Author: Ilene Haluska Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) METH MADNESS: PREVENTION THROUGH EDUCATION CIBOLA COUNTY - At the August methamphetamine awareness discussion one focus was educating our youth and citizens about the drug. DWI Coordinator Rhetta King and Nicola Martinez, a certified preventionist from the Cibola County Teen Court are finding prevention strategies and ways to address the problems here. Grants City Manager Robert Horacek said both are needed in Grants. "We have an excellent police force," he noted, but added prevention is important, too. King said she and Martinez want to work with the Grants/Cibola County School District and find out what the parents want to know. They want to learn which anti-drug curriculums serve Cibola County, but first they need to gather demographics, institute current anti-drug abuse curriculums and then evaluate them. Other meeting attendees agreed that education was important, and suggested programming begin at young ages and not end until youths are seniors in high school. Grants/Cibola County School District Superintent Kilino Marquez thanked Congressman Steve Pearce, R-Dist. 2 for coming to Grants. Marquez also thanked the local law enforcement agencies for their help in the schools. He agreed with Grants Police Chief Marty Vigil that school resource officers are necessary in preventing illegal drug use. Chief Vigil requested that Congressman Pearce help the city with funding a school resource officer. Grants Councilors Martin Hicks, Dist. 2. and Walter Jaramillo, Dist. 4, said they have been coaches in local youth sports and have watched children slowly deteriorate. "I agree that it's not a one-agency problem," said Councilor Hicks. "I think the key to this is education." He said he has been talking to his children about drugs since they were seven years old. He suggested showing them what drain cleaners do to the commode, and then asking them to think of what it does to their bodies. "Show them the real truth to protect the kids." The congressman confirmed that by middle school, children have made the decision whether or not participate in sports. He said it could take 15 years to educate a child from age two to 15 but added that is really not a very long time. "You spend half of your life at school with friends and the other half with family," Nichola Martinez said. She plans to achieve heart-felt, anti-drug awareness through teen court and positive reinforcement. She also plans to provide prevention tactics, even for kindergarten students, calling them "intelligent." Her main focus now is elementary school students. Then she will teach at the middle and high schools, asking different aged students to tell each other not to use drugs. NMSP Lt. Frank Musitano suggested teaching or training plumbers, electricians and other people who access homes where meth labs operate, and then add the court system to include judges. But Lt. Musitano contends the schools have to shock students' consciousnesses. "It's the middle school where the peer pressure comes in." he said. (Editor's note: This is the third of a series of articles about a methamphetamine awareness discussion conducted in Grants in early August.)