New council to wage war on drugs

The Colchester Youth Services Bureau has formed a local prevention council that is looking at ways to stop teens from abusing alcohol and drugs.
COLCHESTER - The youth services bureau has formed a local prevention council that is looking at ways to stop teens from abusing alcohol and drugs.
The council, which began meeting in October, is looking at various drug and alcohol prevention courses. The courses would run for eight to twelve weeks and would probably be held during school hours, which means it would need approval from the board of education.
Valerie Geato, director of youth services, said that at a budget hearing this spring, a parent asked her if the schools could do more to teach students about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The parent then met with Geato and Karen Loiselle, who was curriculum director at the time, and they decided to form a council to discuss the issue.
"We wanted to have a separate group dedicated to reducing or eliminating illegal drug use in young people," she said. "We have about nine people so far, and are still accepting members."
Geato also said that in the past she had tried to put together groups with a similar mission, but could not find enough interested people.
Events in recent years may have raised awareness of the drug issue. A variety of new drugs, such as Ecstasy, have become increasingly popular among young people in the past decade. Locally, the number of drug-related expulsions has gone up dramatically in the past few years. The problem has even reached the middle school, where four students were expelled for dealing drugs last year. School officials say the school resource officer, who began visiting schools in 2001, has helped them find and punish more drug dealers by encouraging students to report peers who are doing drugs, which accounts for the increase in expulsions.
Currently students learn about the dangers of drugs through the DARE (drug abuse resistance education) program which is presented by local police to youngsters in elementary school. They also learn about drugs in fifth grade, but the subject isn't covered again until tenth grade health class.
Geato's proposal is for a more intensive program which would be taught to middle school students in sixth or seventh grade. That age is considered the best time to educate them on the issue, since most students who do drugs start in high school.
Everyone at the meeting agreed that students need more education about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. But there were concerns about the logistics.
"Some teachers are afraid to give up instruction time," said Scott Cohn, a parent. "They're on tight schedules."
Maddalena Scrivano, a teacher at William J. Johnston Middle School, said there's not enough time for all the subjects being taught now.
"The reading program in seventh grade was cut in half, and half the students did poorly in reading," she said. "More instruction is truly needed, but we don't know where to put it. We can't fit additional programs into the schedule."
Other possible options include holding the drug prevention classes at the Youth Center after school, or having a one-time assembly type of program with follow-up programs throughout the school year.
In March, Bacon Academy's student newspaper, the Bacon Courier, reported that, according to a random survey of high school seniors, alcohol was the most popular drug. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they had used it. Marijuana was second most popular, with 46 percent of the survey group admitting they had gotten stoned.
A new drug that has become popular is dextromethorphan, or DXM, the Bacon Courier said, and 41 percent of the survey group had tried it, making it almost as popular as marijuana. DXM is found in cough or cold medicine pills and cough syrup, and its effects are similar to the hallucinogenic LSD. However, in large doses, it can cause heart failure.Tenth-grader Joey Tredor was one of the six high school students at the prevention council meeting. He's in favor of effective drug abuse education.
"One teacher compared a person's life to a tree and showed how drug abuse cuts off certain limbs," he said. "That stuck with me."
The prevention council is scheduled to meet again on Dec. 15.

Link: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=163...1&PAG=461&rfi=9

[House]

Wow, 41%, huh?

[C20H25N3O]

One teacher compared a person's life to a tree and showed how drug abuse cuts off certain limbs,"

I think a proper way to finish that senetence is to say that it cuts off certain limbs and sprouts new, beatiful, healthy branches in its place.

The tree of knowledge :thumbsup:

[ranticalion]

Since when are DXM and ecstacy new drugs? I wouldn't call things that have been around since the 1940s and 70s new.


P.S. C20whatever, I love how you rephrased that.

[rfgdxm]

Originally posted by drdªv€@Dec 8 2004, 12:52 AM
A new drug that has become popular is dextromethorphan, or DXM, the Bacon Courier said, and 41 percent of the survey group had tried it, making it almost as popular as marijuana. DXM is found in cough or cold medicine pills and cough syrup, and its effects are similar to the hallucinogenic LSD. However, in large doses, it can cause heart failure.

So this explains the inordinately high number of hits to my websites? I had assumed that since my sites were on such an obscure drug as DXM they would get few visitors. dextromethorphan.ws averages over 800 unique visitors a day. And it ain't like that site is so fascinating people would need to repeatedly go to it. I had to renogiate bandwidth with the site host to keep it online. The sites were moved to a server that could handle massive amounts of hits after 20/20 did that news report on DXM. That way if DXM becomes a media sensation (and, with reports that it is "as popular as marijuana", imagine the worry of millions of concerned parents) a sudden flood of hits to my sites won't take out all the other sites on the shared server. I hope the DV has considered the worst case scenarios, as the DV will get flooded with hits too if DXM becomes a media sensation. (IIRC the DV had a host drop them after the host found out what the site was about, and had to find a new host. My host knows quite well the controversial content of my sites, so this shouldn't be an issue.)

[rfgdxm]

Originally posted by tripp420@Dec 8 2004, 04:06 AM
Since when are DXM and ecstacy new drugs? I wouldn't call things that have been around since the 1940s and 70s new.

Please, don't confuse the issue with facts. I've got a Patti Smith MP3 on my site mentioning getting high on DXM from the 1970s. While Ecstasy did become popular in the last decade or so, many people have been getting high on DXM before the general public ever heard of MDMA.

[Rexedgeltoe]

I'd be interested to know what percentage of these kids who rat out drug dealers/users on the advice of their guidance councellor get their asses kicked afterwords.

[jersey_emt]

Originally posted by DextroGeek@Dec 10 2004, 05:35 PM
I'd be interested to know what percentage of these kids who rat out drug dealers/users on the advice of their guidance councellor get their asses kicked afterwords.

Hehe..probably a good percentage.

[EternalMetal]

Originally posted by jersey_emt+Dec 10 2004, 07:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (jersey_emt @ Dec 10 2004, 07:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--DextroGeek@Dec 10 2004, 05:35 PM
I'd be interested to know what percentage of these kids who rat out drug dealers/users on the advice of their guidance councellor get their asses kicked afterwords.

Hehe..probably a good percentage. [/b][/quote]
I know a kid who ratted people out for smoking in the bathrooms. He was a real asshole and graduated a year early. Every body talked about kicking his ass, but i dont think anybody ever did. He called deifus (spelling?) on his parents when they were actually good, caring parents (used to be his best friend). And now he lives at college, but he got foster parents for 2 years in high school. Says a lot about him.

Its funny that the kids who go on these anti-drug campaigns and shit for school have never done any drugs in their life. Its like saying skiing sucks when you never even saw snow before.

[Supernaut]

So this explains the inordinately high number of hits to my websites?

Uh, no.
800 hits a day is not that much.
I think your site pops up first when you enter dextromethorphan on google.
I bet that a great deal (maybe even the majority) of the people that come to your site have no previous knowledge of dxm's recreational potential. I think the most popular sites for other common otc medicines such as asprin, psuedoephedrine, acetominophen, and ibuprofen all get several hundred hits daily. I think that the most popular sites for common recreational drugs (ethanol, marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, opiates) get thousands, if not tens of thousands, of hits daily.


Besides this 42% figure is only for the senior class of one high school.

Furrthermore the survey Question could have been worded improperly and the 42% may include those who have only used DXM to supress coughs.

I wouldn't be surprised if 42% of my graduating class class has robotripped, and I'm sure that they all smoked weed at least once. (Then again I went to a small, druggie-filled alternative school)