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Read Ebook: Fire at Red Lake Sandy Steele Adventures #4 by Leckie Robert
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Ebook has 328 lines and 12132 words, and 7 pages
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INTRODUCTION iv
WHAT CAN WE DO? vii
CHILDREN AND DRUGS 1
A PLAN FOR ACTION 11
What Students Can Do Learning the Facts 31 Helping Fight Drug Use 33
What Communities Can Do Providing Support 37 Tough Law Enforcement 39
CONCLUSION 40
SPECIAL SECTIONS
Teaching About Drug Prevention 44
How the Law Can Help 49
Resources 59 Specific Drugs and Their Effects 59 Sources of Information 67 References 74
Acknowledgments 78
Ordering Information
--"Stewart," a high school student
Children and Drugs
Americans have consistently identified drug use among the top problems confronting the Nation's schools. Yet many do not recognize the degree to which their own children, their own schools, and their own communities are at risk.
Research shows that drug use among children is 10 times more prevalent than parents suspect. In addition, many students know that their parents do not recognize the extent of drug use, and this leads them to believe that they can use drugs with impunity.
School administrators and teachers often are unaware that their students are using and selling drugs, frequently on school property. School officials who are aware of the situation in their schools admit, as has Ralph Egers, superintendent of schools in South Portland, Maine, that "We'd like to think that our kids don't have this problem, but the brightest kid from the best family in the community could have the problem."
The facts are:
? Drug use is not confined to certain population groups or to certain economic levels in our society; it affects our entire Nation.
? Drugs are a serious problem not only in high schools, but now in middle and elementary schools as well.
? All illegal drugs are dangerous; there is no such thing as safe or responsible use of illegal drugs.
? Although drug trafficking is controlled by adults, the immediate source of drugs for most students is other students.
Continuing misconceptions about the drug problem stand in the way of corrective action. The following section outlines the nature and extent of the problem and summarizes the latest research on the effects of drugs on students and schools.
Extent of Drug Use
Drug use is widespread among American schoolchildren. The United States has the highest rate of teenage drug use of any industrialized nation. The drug problem in this country is 10 times greater than in Japan, for example. Sixty-one percent of high school seniors have used drugs. Marijuana use remains at an unacceptably high level; 41 percent of 1985 seniors reported using it in the last year, and 26 percent said they had used it at least once in the previous month. Thirteen percent of seniors indicated that they had used cocaine in the past year. This is the highest level ever observed, more than twice the proportion in 1975.
Many students purchase and use drugs at school. A recent study of teenagers contacting a cocaine hotline revealed that 57 percent of the respondents bought most of their drugs at school. Among 1985 high school seniors, one-third of the marijuana users reported that they had smoked marijuana at school. Of the seniors who used amphetamines during the past year, two-thirds reported having taken them at school.
The drug problem affects all types of students. All regions and all types of communities show high levels of drug use. Forty-three percent of 1985 high school seniors in nonmetropolitan areas reported illicit drug use in the previous year, while the rate for seniors in large metropolitan areas was 50 percent. Although higher proportions of males are involved in illicit drug use, especially heavy drug use, the gap between the sexes is lessening. The extent to which high school seniors reported having used marijuana is about the same for blacks and whites; for other types of drugs reported, use is slightly higher among whites.
Initial drug use occurs at an increasingly early age. The percentage of students using drugs by the sixth grade has tripled over the last decade. In the early 1960's, marijuana use was virtually nonexistent among 13-year-olds, but now about one in six 13-year-olds has used marijuana.
Fact Sheet
Drugs and Dependence
Drugs cause physical and emotional dependence. Users may develop an overwhelming craving for specific drugs, and their bodies may respond to the presence of drugs in ways that lead to increased drug use.
How Drug Use Develops
Social influences play a key role in making drug use attractive to children.
The first temptations to use drugs may come in social situations in the form of pressures to "act grown up" and "have a good time" by smoking cigarettes or using alcohol or marijuana.
Drug use frequently progresses in stages--from occasional use, to regular use, to multiple drug use, and ultimately to total dependency. With each successive stage, drug use intensifies, becomes more varied, and results in increasingly debilitating effects.
Fact Sheet
Cocaine: Crack
Cocaine use is the fastest growing drug problem in America. Most alarming is the recent availability of cocaine in a cheap but potent form called crack or rock. Crack is a purified form of cocaine that is smoked.
Effects of Drug Use
The drugs students are taking today are more potent, more dangerous, and more addictive than ever.
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the effects of drugs. Drugs threaten normal development in a number of ways:
? Drugs can interfere with memory, sensation, and perception. They distort experiences and cause a loss of self-control that can lead users to harm themselves and others.
? Drugs interfere with the brain's ability to take in, sort, and synthesize information. As a result, sensory information runs together, providing new sensations while blocking normal ability to understand the information received.
? Drugs can have an insidious effect on perception; for example, cocaine and amphetamines often give users a false sense of functioning at their best while on the drug.
Drug suppliers have responded to the increasing demand for drugs by developing new strains, producing reprocessed, purified drugs, and using underground laboratories to create more powerful forms of illegal drugs. Consequently, users are exposed to heightened or unknown levels of risk.
Drug Use and Learning
Drugs erode the self-discipline and motivation necessary for learning. Pervasive drug use among students creates a climate in the schools that is destructive to learning. Research shows that drug use can cause a decline in academic performance. This has been found to be true for students who excelled in school prior to drug use as well as for those with academic or behavioral problems prior to use. According to one study, students using marijuana were twice as likely to average D's and F's as other students. The decline in grades often reverses when drug use is stopped.
Drug use is closely tied to truancy and dropping out of school. High school seniors who are heavy drug users are more than three times as likely to skip school as nonusers. About one-fifth of heavy users skipped 3 or more schooldays a month, more than six times the truancy rate of nonusers. In a Philadelphia study, dropouts were almost twice as likely to be frequent drug users as were high school graduates; four in five dropouts used drugs regularly.
Drug use is associated with crime and misconduct that disrupt the maintenance of an orderly and safe school conducive to learning. Drugs not only transform schools into marketplaces for dope deals, they also lead to the destruction of property and to classroom disorder. Among high school seniors, heavy drug users were two-and-one-half times as likely to vandalize school property and almost three times as likely to have been involved in a fight at school as nonusers. Students on drugs create a climate of apathy, disruption, and disrespect for others. For example, among teenage callers to a national cocaine hotline, 44 percent reported that they sold drugs and 31 percent said that they stole from family, friends, or employers to buy drugs. A drug-ridden environment is a strong deterrent to learning not only for drug users, but for other students as well.
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