No need for programs??

[Anonymous]

-Week course on drugs begins...

Deputies and teachers begin drug problem course on the Suncoast.

Yesterday at booker middle school, deputies met with teachers to help them learn to "spot" and "stop" drug abuse among our kids, kicking off a five-week course designed to give teachers and parents the knowledge they need to help keep teens clean.

It's sheriff's deputies who do the teaching in this after school class, and they say by the time sarasota county kids get to high school nearly one in six of them has tried an illegal drug.

Guidance Counselor Star Conti is here to learn how she can cut that number down.

Star Conti: "The more education we can give the students, from elementary on up and the parents, then the more hopefully better decisions the students will make for themselves."

Memories still burn from five connected drug deaths in August, and a 15-year-old girl's overdose just this week.

All of the victims were young. It?s a fact that drives these deputies to get their message to parents and teachers.

Sgt. David Zachos, Sarasota County Sheriff's Office: "The kids are learning from other kids basically, and about other things in life?but mainly drugs?so if they can get good, valuable information that's truthful from the teachers and from the parents, I think we can make a difference."

Deputies say their efforts against drugs can work. An education and ad campaign has brought down ecstasy use dramatically from where it was five years ago. Drug arrests in schools have climbed over the past three years. Deputies say those arrests are tools for treatment.

"That's not so that we can get all these kids arrested?that's so we can get these kids some help by maybe tipping the parents off, and parents taking action."

But with just one or two resource officers assigned to each school full of curious kids, the fight's a tough one, but it's easier with each new room full of allies.

If you want more information on how to talk to your kids about drugs, what they are and what effects they can have, check out http://www.theantidrug.com.

[Antigen]

Why in the world would we hire cops to teach kids about drugs?

If I want my kids to learn something about drugs, I'd look to the medical field. After all, they're the ones trained in drug use, abuse, side effects, etc. Medical professionals might note that many pharmaceuticals are virtually identical to street drugs except in regards to quality control and distribution channels. Some kids might wonder why heroin or cocaine on the street are so dangerous while fentanyl and amphetamines available from your corner pharmacy are less so.

That's not what these officers want kids to know about drugs. All they want them to know is that they will be punished externally for even daring to speak of drugs in other than approved terms. "Just say NO!" and don't ask any questions! Even your own friends and family are not as important as the drug war, so you should turn them in to your friendly school resource officer (AKA Aunt Polly w/ a 9mm side arm)

Parents ought to know just what these officers are teaching their kids so that they can counter the bullshit w/ a little truth.

They used to burn witches. Today we laugh at them. Today we jail people for marijuana. Tomorrow they'll laugh at us.

--Robert "Rosie" Rowbotham

[Deborah]

Good reference book:

"Chocolate to Morphine"
Dr. Andrew Weil

[Brown]

I personnaly had a problem with substance abuse, and I don't think that taking them to the police to have their questions answered, or taking them to the medical field is right either.  I think the best thing to do is to search out the people that had a problem with it in their lives.  But then turned it around, and conquered it and is now a succesful person.  I know that the people that helped me the most were the people that had been in my shoes before and could honestly relate with me and what I was going through.

That doesn't mean that there is no need for the programs though.  I still think that they are a place that is needed being a graduate myself, it is there that helped me kick my habits.

[Antigen]

On 2004-10-11 22:15:00, Brown wrote:

 I know that the people that helped me the most were the people that had been in my shoes before and could honestly relate with me and what I was going through.

Stone soup, friend. That's about the only way anybody ever grows up and learns how to live. And, believe it or not, most (not some or a lucky few, but most) kids who get themselves into trouble early on learn from the natural (not cntrived) consequences of their mistakes and from observation and ditch their bad habits w/o any organized intervention at all.

It has ever been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues

--Abraham Lincoln

[Brown]

I agree with you.  Most do.  But how long would you wait?  Could you just sit their and watch your son or daughter throw away their entire life?  It may take to long for them to realize their "mistakes", and by that point they might have already dropped out of school and have nothing for their life.  Could you wait that long?  I don't believe that you or any other decent human could wait like that just hopeing that things get better.  

I also don't think that every kid in the world needs to goto a program.  I do believe that there are a large number of kids that do.  And if they are given the chance to graduate, I think that it will become clear that they needed some sort of intervention.