Pubdate: Sun, 15 Jun 2014
Source: News Journal, The (Wilmington, DE)
Copyright: 2014 The News Journal
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/1c6Xgdq3
Website: http://www.delawareonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/822
Author: Rhonda Graham

EARLY EDUCATION KEY TO DRUG-ABUSE PREVENTION

One of the more generous community resources available to Delaware
families is a program directed at elementary school children about
"safe touching."

Appropriately, it often takes place in the classroom where all the
students, regardless of gender, can be on the same page about the
importance of setting and observing boundaries.

The overwhelming message is: You determine who has access to your body
and don't allow anyone to make you feel uncomfortable when you deny
them access to touch you.

Ultimately, you matter and don't be afraid or ashamed to take steps to
keep it that way.

It's led by adults trained in age-appropriate messaging to developing
and inquisitive young minds, as well as the emotional needs and
limited behavioral assets of children.

Mostly it sends children back home with awareness that they can take
charge of what happens to them, and what to do to stop such unwanted
fraternization.

Of course cerebrally, that's yards down the path from possessing the
self-help tools necessary for tackling the demon of heroin addiction.

Or is it really? Having grown up in a time when heroin (pronounced
back then as her-a-won) superseded the impact that crack-cocaine
unleashed around on the nation during 1980s, the solution back then
came down to two options: methadone treatments or die.

At least that's what the choices were for the guys in the
neighborhood, who went off to Vietnam in the '70s in defense of the
homeland and returned confused and with no direction for their future.
They were a psychological mess -- bereft of jobs and their
government's support and credible mental health resources.

But they did have the assurance of and access to a heroin fix to cope
with the stubborn terrors of guerrilla warfare that preoccupied their
thoughts.

But fast forward to a new century where the return of heroin addiction
has produced passage this week of Senate Bill 619, approving the use
of Naloxone, a life-saving drug that improves the chances that people
who overdose will survive and get connected to treatment services.

S.B. 619 allows Delaware's Department of Health and Social Services
"to create a community-based program that will put Naloxone into the
hands of friends, family, and maybe service providers at no or low
cost."

Credit the forward thinking leadership of DHSS Secretary Secretary
Rita Landgraf, who has been willing to push for new, more progressive
thinking about addressing social problems with evidence-based strategies.

According to Forbes Magazine, since 2002 the National Survey on Drug
Use and Health has asked a national representative sample of Americans
who are 12 or older whether they have used heroin in the previous
month. The survey results are shuddering: The number of past-month
users rose from 166,000 to 335,000 in 2012. That's an increase of
about 100 percent over a decade.

But enough with the numbers about the ongoing devastation of a
self-indulgent plague. It's consumed considerable public safety
resources, and destroyed hundreds of lives in the First State.

As with every social menace, the hard realities back up David Humes, a
former drug addict, whose son's addiction led to a deadly overdose.

"I lost my son to the disease, I have been a person in recovery from
alcohol and cocaine and marijuana since October 1987."

On Tuesday Humes will be among the hundreds of Delawareans expected at
The News Journal Imagine Delaware Forum, to give witness to a new
reality about heroin and other drug addictions. To register for the
free forum, visit delawareonline.com/imagine. We need to prevent
addiction with education and proven treatment services. It's also time
we start this messaging much earlier than the pre-adolescent years.

"Curing someone from heroin addiction is not possible. The best you
can do is introduce them to a life-altering treatment program. From
there, it's up to them."

That quote pops up on several Internet websites promoting
substance-abuse treatment services nationally. It comes across as
pretty cynical, when in reality, but necessary hard-core honesty about
the emotional fortitude, self-discipline and individual grit necessary
to reshape addictive behavior.

"I think it's prevention and education," said Humes. "Starting as
early as elementary school, in Delaware I believe that it's a mandate
that 15 hours a year is spent on health issues. With drugs, this is an
important one. But because the teachers have so many responsibilities,
in a lot of instances students aren't getting enough education on
prevention."

Hmmmm ... one can only imagine, how an outreach on substance abuse,
similar to "safe touch" elementary classes can reset the future for
those eventual teenagers and adults.
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MAP posted-by: Matt