Post by: Antigen on May 01, 2001, 02:30:49 PM
Those of ya'll who joined us in Orlando last November might remember seeing a couple of people in a small white sedan with the Covenant House logo on the side visiting SAFE on some business on that Open Meeting night.
Well, here we have CH & John Mica propagating the myth of marijuana addiction and promoting a place called Another Chance*. So what does this mean? Did the CH people read the material, maybe watch the video that we gave them and, maybe, disassociate themselves from Loretta Parish? Is that why she's in dire financial straits? Or is Another Chance maybe just another mind-rape mill?
*
Website:
Section: National
Author: Dana Canedy
ORLANDO GLITTER HIDES DARK SIDE OF YOUNG DRUG USERS
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Arnitra Johnson can imagine the rush of riding one of the roller coasters at Disney World. She has never been to any of the theme parks here, but she thinks the thrill must be the same as the high she used to get from marijuana and Ecstasy.
"Ecstasy, that's the talk of the town," said Ms. Johnson, an 18-year- old who lived until recently in the local Covenant House, a shelter for homeless youths. "It makes you feel good, see different colors."
That is the Orlando Ms. Johnson knows, one in which the bright colors come not from the lights and the fireworks at the tourist attractions but from life in a drug haze, on the streets. It is the Orlando that millions of tourists drive obliviously through every year on their way to fun and fantasy.
Ms. Johnson represents the most extreme example of how the image and the reality of this playground city can be worlds apart. While Orlando is no doubt a great place for young people to visit, it is not a great place for many of them who come here on their own to live, say experts on the city's social problems.
Rich from tourism dollars, Orlando is virtually synonymous with family fun. In many ways it is an ideal city, with well-maintained municipal services and facilities, decent schools and an economy that is diversifying into high-technology industries. But the city also has a high rate of teenage heroin use, and government officials and drug counselors say the area has also been struggling with the rising popularity of club drugs like Ecstasy, taken in pill form, and GHB, a liquid sedative.
Orange County, which encompasses Orlando, has among the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and uninsured youngsters in Florida. Nearly 40 of every 1,000 girls 15 through 17 in the county become pregnant compared with 35 statewide and 32 nationwide, according to Florida Kids Count, a project of the University of South Florida in Tampa. And 28 percent of the children under 18 have no health insurance, compared with a state average of 22.3 percent and a national average of 15.6 percent, the Orange County Department of Health says.
The percentage of children living in poverty in the county, 22.3 percent, is in line with the state average of 22 percent and the national average of 21 percent. But experts on social issues say the perception is that everyone here has money to spend on cotton candy and stuffed animals.
"You go to Disney World and everything is orderly and clean and perfect," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of the Children's Health Fund in New York, which provides health care to poor children nationwide and operates mobile medical clinics that offer free treatment in inner-city neighborhoods and at centers like Covenant House. "But if you go to the center of Orlando it is the absolute opposite." Referring to Orlando's neediest youngsters, Dr. Redlener said, "Mickey Mouse is not going to help them."
Ms. Johnson, who recently received her first physical examination in years at the mobile clinic and now lives on her own, knows that to be true. "I've heard about Disney and Epcot and stuff like that," Ms. Johnson said. "But I've never been to those places."
Orlando's most vexing problem, by far, is its high rate of drug use, particularly among young people. Since the mid-1990's, Orlando has ranked as high as third among the nation's cities in heroin-related deaths of teenagers per capita, the Florida Office of Drug Control says.
State officials say drug traffickers are increasingly using Orlando, like Miami, as an entry port to smuggle narcotics from Puerto Rico, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. As the supply has increased, so has the distribution at rave clubs and house parties that cater to a young crowd.
"We have lost a lot of young people who have had exposure to the increasing amount of heroin in Central Florida," said Representative John L. Mica, a Republican who represents Orlando.
"We're trying to get a handle on it," said Mr. Mica, who has held several House subcommittee hearings in the city to investigate the problem. Three years ago, Congress said Orlando was the headquarters of a "high-intensity drug-trafficking area" and allocated money for local authorities to combat the problem.
But on the street, little seems to have changed in the availability of narcotics, said several teenage addicts interviewed recently at Another Chance, a counseling center in a suburb here.
"It's pretty easy to get," said Matt P., 15, a patient at Another Chance who was trying to recover from addictions to marijuana, Ecstasy, acid and alcohol.
To be sure, most youngsters here are not addicted to drugs and are living with their own families. And other cities of similar size struggle with the same problems as Orlando. But the problems here seem somehow magnified by the stark contrast with the city's pristine image.
"Orlando has a bright, shiny veneer," Representative Mica said. "Unfortunately, we've also been a victim of tragedy."
Orlando can also attract young people because of the promise, often broken, of abundant service jobs and round-the-clock entertainment, said Paula Tibbetts, a spokeswoman for Covenant House.
"They come for the glitter and glitz they've heard about Orlando and believe it will be a happy place," Ms. Tibbetts said. "What happens with so many of them is they never set foot in the amusement parks and they end up in marginal living situations and in some circumstances those totally fall apart and they end up on the streets."
Stephanie Fincher, a 20-year-old recent resident of Covenant House who is estranged from her adoptive parents in Atlanta, came to Orlando for work and fun but became pregnant and ran out of money.
In donated jeans and an orange shirt, Ms. Fincher could pass for a middle-class tourist. Her hair and makeup are flawless, thanks to store-sample cosmetics, and the slick stroller in which she pushes her son, Anthony, was donated.
"When I walk outside I don't look homeless," said Ms. Fincher, whose son was named for another homeless shelter where she lived, Anthony's House, in Zellwood, Fla.
She figures the misconceptions strangers have about her are just like the ones she had about Orlando.
"I thought, 'Oh, this is going to be fun to live here,' " she said, "but it didn't really turn out that way."
If there's a worse idea going than locking kids up for victimless crimes, it's probably locking them in close proximity to some tyrannical altruist bent on helping them whether they need it or not.
Edited by: Antigenic 
at: 5/24/01 11:44:12 am
Post by: LeighBright on May 02, 2001, 01:51:15 AM
Maybe there's something wrong with me (ha-ha) but my motto is: Trust no one! - I don't get it. Something smells fishy to me. What benefit does this program get for taking care of people who have no insurance . . . is it me, or is anyone else concerned that these are young people with no family support system . . . just the cult (oops!) I mean, program to call "family." Sounds like a set-up but, then, I'm just naturally distrustful - oops, I mean, unnaturally - there is nothing natural about being distrustful.