Pubdate: Sat, 24 Jun 2006
Source: Reno Gazette-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Reno Gazette-Journal
Contact: http://www.rgj.com/helpdesk/news/letter-to-editor.php
Website: http://www.rgj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/363
Author:  Jaclyn O'Malley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that 
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

CAMPUS APPEARANCE

Earlier this year a Spanish Springs High School senior and her father 
met with her counselor to withdraw from school.

She was one semester shy of graduation.

The girl had privately told counselor Lara Dreelan she was a 
methamphetamine addict. She was skipping school and didn't care anymore.

"I tried to talk to her dad and said she needed drug rehab because 
she couldn't fight it on her own," Dreelan said. "He said, 'Whew, I 
thought you were going to tell me she was pregnant.'"

School officials say that methamphetamine is becoming a visible 
issue, contributing to truancy, poor grades, criminal activities and 
bad health. Many parents and teachers, officials say, aren't familiar 
with meth and its devastating effects, enabling students to slip 
undetected into addiction.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control found that 12.5 percent of 
Nevada high school students had tried methamphetamine at least once 
- -- the highest rate in the nation in 2003. While just under 9 percent 
of high school males had tried meth, more than 16 percent of high 
school girls in Nevada had experimented with the drug -- by far the 
highest rate in the nation. Among Washoe County high school students, 
12.4 percent had tried meth at least once that year, a state survey found.

While state officials say the percentage for girls using meth 
declined in 2005 to 7.7 percent (federal reports have not been 
released yet for 2005), the percentage of high school boys taking the 
drug continues to climb.

And those increases are coming at time when federal funds for 
longstanding substance-abuse prevention programs are declining. And 
Nevada, unlike other states, spends nothing on anti-drug programs in schools.

Federal Safe and Drug Free Schools grants will likely be reduced 21 
percent nationwide, said Michael Fitzgerald, coordinator of the Safe 
and Drug Free School program in Nevada. The state Department of 
Education said federal funding for the program dropped 32 percent 
from 2002, when it was $2.5 million, to 2005, when it was $1.7 
million. Nevada's population has grown 14 percent during that time.

Funding has shrunk

Fitzgerald said Nevada gets minimum funding roughly equal to 
Wyoming's, which has one quarter of Nevada's 2.4 million residents. 
Federal funds nationally have shrunk from $600 million 10 years ago 
to about half that amount. In 2005, the federal government budgeted 
$437 million nationally for schools' anti-drug programs, but 
President Bush has budgeted nothing for 2006 and 2007, although 
Congress approved $346 million for the current fiscal year. Bush's 
2007 recommendations have not yet gone through Congress.

"We've been on and off the chopping block for years," Fitzgerald 
said. "In Nevada, we've gone from $4.25 per student to $1.15. 
Programs are going to be cut back or eliminated, and there won't be 
an incentive to create new programs or add staff when we know the 
money is soft.

"Nevada has zero state funds for the program," he added. "It's always 
been that way since the program started (in the 1980s). We are one of 
the few states that has no education funding for this from the state level."

Changing their behavior

Fitzgerald said state programs in Oregon and Washington can survive 
because they receive state funding.

Katherine Loudon, Washoe County School District's substance-abuse 
coordinator, said the district knows that meth is a serious and 
dangerous issue.

"What's going on outside in the community comes into the schools," 
Loudon said. "My department is not about punishing kids but helping 
kids change their behavior and move forward. It all starts in 
kindergarten with general (prevention) messages through high school."

Loudon said if federal funds are eliminated, the school district will 
have to find other sources of funding. "(The cuts) will be felt and 
it will hurt," she said.

Fitzgerald said that Clark and Washoe counties will receive the 
majority of whatever federal funding is available but the state's 
smaller districts will likely get $5,000 or less.

"You can't have this program with that much money," he said. "For 
several years, the General Accounting Office did evaluations of these 
programs and said the primary reason they were not successful is for 
lack of funding. Then the government turns around and cuts funding."

State officials say there is a correlation between prevention 
programs and adolescent substance abuse. A 2005 report from the 
state's Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse said prevention programs 
that identify substance-abusing individuals at the local level before 
they become addicted is essential to reducing chronic alcohol and drug abuse.

"Many of these individuals could benefit from early identification 
and intervention, which can reduce tremendous psychological and 
financial burdens on the individual, family and community," the 
report said. Identifying substance-abusers early would ease the 
fiscal strain on criminal-justice, health-care and drug-abuse 
treatment systems.

How the money is spent

In addition to substance-abuse programs, Loudon's department provides 
education and after-school programs aimed at preventing violence, 
suicide, sexually transmitted diseases and bullying.

The program uses student surveys to determine such problems as age of 
first drug use, and then uses prevention methods to target those who 
need help. Workbooks titled "Too Good For Drugs" are given to 
elementary, middle and high school students.

Loudon said helping children improve self esteem, decision making, 
respect and problem solving also helps them turn down the lure of drugs.

"It's not just about drugs, but about decisions," she said.

In March, the district hosted community meetings to address meth and 
its impact on children, the community and the environment. The 
meetings were a collaboration with the newly formed Meth Community 
Response Alliance.

Loudon said the Safe and Drug Free Schools program would survive by 
merging with other school programs funded through different avenues and grants.

Fitzgerald said research shows these anti-drug messages work, often 
pushing back the age at which students first experiment with drugs and alcohol.

"I've got two teenage boys and this hits me as a parent because I 
know they are not going to get the resources they need," he said.

Is meth 'left behind'?

Fitzgerald surmised that emphasis on the No Child Left Behind Act and 
test scores has diminished the importance of the Safe and Drug Free 
Schools program. "We lost sight that student health and well-being is 
a critical component to student success," he said.

Dreelan said kids don't understand meth's danger and think it's like 
marijuana. She said students need to be aware of the dangers and 
parents should know the signs. Officials say they need to do more to 
educate the community and its youth about meth in hopes the demand 
for the drug will decrease.

"Parents say my kid would never do that, we come from an upper-class 
family, but then they're sitting in my office telling me they're 
abusing drugs," Dreelan said. "We can talk about this until we are 
blue in the face but kids are only going to listen when one of their 
friends dies of an overdose."

[Sidebar]

Methamphetamine is a growing problem in the Washoe County School 
District, district counselor coordinator Susie Rusk said.

"It's growing and we don't have a lot of solutions," she said.

Rusk said that in April a single father brought his son to his 
middle-school counselor's office in a panic. The boy had run away and 
done meth in a Reno motel room.

"He couldn't leave (the boy) home because it wasn't safe," she said. 
"They had to eat, so he had to go to work. So he brought him to 
school. He didn't know what else to do."

The boy, who had been hospitalized in the past for being suicidal, 
was placed in a room by the principal's office so he could be monitored.

"The counselor made 22 calls trying to get help for him," Rusk said. 
She said the child is waiting for an opening at a residential 
juvenile treatment center.

"Our problems grow every day and we wrestle with finding them help," Rusk said.

Other meth-related issues that are visible in school are children 
born with meth in their system who behave erratically and need 
special education. Rusk said they have no logic in their volatile 
behavior and it is difficult to educate someone who does not have "a 
full brain."

Rusk said there are also elementary school students who show up to 
school without having eaten or bathed. She said when they call their 
parents, no one answers the phone, and no one picks the children up.

"It's a lot of broken hearts, lost education and taking up a lot of 
people's time," Rusk said of meth. "You feel powerless and you know 
these kids are raising themselves. It's in our face every day."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman