This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Kristen Blair, a North Carolina Education Alliance Fellow.
RALEIGH — Protecting teens from the ravages of drugs indisputably is important. Illicit drug use virtually is unmatched in its ability to decimate adolescent hopes and dreams. This is no late-breaking epiphany; for years, parents, educators, and the architects of anti-drug campaigns have enjoined kids to abstain from drug experimentation.
Several years ago, anti-drug messages were resonating: By any indicator, teen drug use had dropped. But the tide is turning. Adolescent drug consumption is headed back up. Just-released government data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health show an overall uptick between 2008 and 2009 in the number of 12- to 17-year-olds consuming illicit drugs, with marijuana use on the rise, too. These results mirror findings from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America’s latest high school survey, revealing a spike in teens’ ecstasy and marijuana consumption, particularly among girls.
Not surprisingly, more kids are taking drugs to school. Two-thirds of high schoolers and one-third of middle schoolers nationwide say their schools are drug-infested, according to new data from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. For younger adolescents, the increase is sharp. The number of tweens and young teens attending campuses where drugs are “used, kept, or sold” has risen 39 percent since 2009 — a “middle school mess,” reports CASA. Easy access is a ticking time bomb: Compared to kids in drug-free schools, 12- and 13-year-olds on drug-infested campuses are much more likely to use marijuana.
This calls for a ramped-up anti-drug effort, starting at home. No one holds greater sway over teens’ decisions about drugs than parents. Parent prevention involves doubling down on time with kids, expressing love and engagement in simple, practical ways. Data consistently show parents who set rules, monitor behavior, help with homework, share frequent family meals, and communicate clear disapproval of drugs, help kids stay clean.
And disengagement? It’s disastrous: Teens with tenuous family ties are undefended against drugs’ siren song, succumbing to marijuana experimentation at a rate quadruple that of their closely connected peers, CASA has found.
For their part, school districts should pursue aggressive interdiction efforts. Many already are, turning to drug dogs to sniff out contraband. School-based dog searches may be controversial, but they are increasingly necessary. Dogs do not search students, instead sniffing backpacks, lockers, cars, and just-vacated classrooms.
North Carolina’s three largest school districts utilize canine detection. In mid-October, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board passed a policy allowing drug dogs on campuses. Guilford County has permitted dog searches by law enforcement since 1994. Wake County does not have a formal policy, but school spokesman Bill Poston says drug dogs are used when high school principals and school resource officers, working in conjunction with law enforcement, deem they’re warranted.
Bud Cesena, chief of police for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, says the district will use dogs from local law enforcement in searches. Nationwide, school districts also are working with private companies that provide trained drug dogs. The biggest of its kind, Interquest Detection Canines, sends dogs to 1,200 public school districts and private schools, according to its website.
Educating students at school about the dangers of drugs is essential. This is no time to throttle back, especially since school prevention programs are proven to deter drug use.
We must keep at it, unmasking drugs’ dark underbelly. Too many teens are being deceived by the bewitching — but intrinsically false — allure of drugs. But parents and schools, working together, can open their eyes to the truth.