Parents - The Solution to Our Nation’s Drug Problem
March 27th, 2009
Hillary Clinton’s got it right: “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade.” We Americans are about 4 percent of the world’s population but we consume two thirds of the world’s illegal drugs.
The solution to the nation’s drug epidemic lies not in courtrooms and legislative hearing rooms and across our borders, but in living rooms and dining rooms and across kitchen tables.
In seventeen years of research at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA), our most important finding is this: a child who gets through age 21 without smoking, using illegal drugs or abusing alcohol is virtually certain never to do so. There will of course be exceptions—parents who lose a child, a latent genetic vulnerability, some prescription drug abuse by elderly widows and widowers who have lost their financial security and emotional stability—but they are comparatively few.
A corollary finding of our work is that parents have the greatest influence on their children, for better or for worse. There are no silver bullets in a society where it is as easy for a teen to buy a marijuana joint as it is to buy a candy bar, but healthy parental engagement is the most powerful antidote to a child’s temptation to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.
Parents who are involved in their children’s lives, who eat dinner regularly with them, get involved in their school and extracurricular activities, talk and listen to their teens, and take them to religious services are far less likely to have kids who use illegal drugs.
This is also true of parents who supervise their kids and set limits. Moms and Dads who monitor their kids’ activities—the movies and television they see, the music they download, their use of the internet–reduce the risk that their kids will smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.
It’s also important for parents to take the time to explain to their kids the dangers of smoking and drinking alcohol since so much of the advertising of these products is designed to make them attractive to teens. And parents should make sure their kids understand the dangers of experimenting with products they have around the house—from aerosol cans and glue bottles to controlled prescription drugs like Vicodin, Valium and OxyContin. In recent years, we’ve learned how related these substances are. It’s hard to find a heroin or cocaine addict that hasn’t been smoking, abusing alcohol and using marijuana. Just last week, the US government reported that from 2002 to 2007, 17 percent of teens who use illicit drugs indicated that inhalants were the first drug they tried.
The statistical relationship has been known for years. Recent advances in brain imaging and neurology have revealed the reason for this relationship: all these substances affect dopamine (which gives pleasure) levels in the brain in similar ways and imaging display the similar impact of these substances on their brain.
We do not have to look across our southern border or to the poppy fields of Afghanistan to find a solution to the drug epidemic that plagues our nation. We just have to look in the mirror and at the world in which we are placing our teens. Parents need to set a good example and use their power to make that world a better place.
Some material in this piece is derived from my book, How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope for Parents, to be published in August.
Comments:
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It is very much true what you say, but it doesn’t help a lot. We have known it for decades, it was not possible to reach the parents. We must convince politicians and citizens to introduce a control policy which reduces consumption. See Thomas Babor et al.: “Alcohol - no ordinary commodity”, 2003. The two best means are higher prices (taxes) and availability. What do you think of my Project Idea on http://www.alkoholpolitik.ch? http://www.alkoholpolitik.ch/archiv08/projengl.htm
Best wishes
Hermann T. Meyer
Long have we known that education was the golden path to a drug free life for our children and we haven’t done very well, have we?
Why?
It is not blame that will rescue our failing family systems. I do not believe a specific religeous doctine is the answer, check your history books on that idea. So what then?
Politics? Please, give me a break!
We the people of this country need to take our country back and toss out the money changers who profit from the addiction of our children. It is our, yes our, responsibility to seek help, learn how to deal with our own problems, share our vulnerability with our children and connect in positive communication that is based on unconditional positive regard for others. A big job! One that we can accomplish if we work together.
Oh, and put a big cap on the drug companies and government protected drug dealers, i.e. Tobacco Cartel.
Thank you for listening.
As the mother of a 23-year-old who has been fighting addictions since his teens, and the resulting legal and social problems, I am so thankful for what you are doing. I often wonder why the alcohol companies are allowed to put out ads glamorizing their product, when tobacco companies were limited years ago. The ones during sporting events (ie. Superbowl) are especially objectionable. Let’s all not be afraid to speak up for our values!
Chairman Joe, I beg to differ with your statement that Hillary got it right on blaming her fellow Americans for causing the mayhem in Mexico. You and I are both old enough to remember when the “feminists” complained that we should not blame the victim for the crime of rape by saying things like “she deserved it” or “she was wearing the wrong clothes or said the wrong thing, etc.” The feminists were right and, today, we hardly ever hear such insensitive and sexist remarks. Better still, we place the blame where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of the criminal, not the victim. Hillary’s statement in Mexico the other day may have been an attempt by her to ingratiate herself with her hosts by parroting a common refrain offered by all leaders of drug producing countries to excuse their failure to deal effectively with their criminals. She fell for one of the world’s oldest canards. Indeed, at the 1909 Shanghai Opium Commission meeting, the British used pretty much the same excuse to justify their involvement in the Asian opium trade. Compared with most other developed nations in the world, our drug control policies have worked quite well to reduce drug-related morbidity and mortality. Instead of recognizing this, Hillary belittled the efforts and achievements of millions of her fellow Americans like you and me who are fighting every day in every way to keep our kids safe from drugs. Instead, she blamed us for causing the murderous criminals in Mexico and elsewhere who produce and smuggle drugs to our cities and towns. Maybe it was something we were wearing or said that provoked these international drug thugs. I agree with the rest of your analysis and I thank you and your colleagues at CASA for doing an otherwise fine job of telling it like it is (most of the time).
It is unfortunate that our country still fails to accept that the disease of addiction is not going away. We need to inform the kids whose lives we touch that abuse of alcohol and other substances is not neccessary to have a good time! We need to tell them how great they are and that we love them, as well as spend quality time with them.
Excellent points of view, Barry. It does indeed start in the family system. This is why I fell head over heels for CASA. I will soon have earned my Bachelors degree in addiction counseling, and though I have a problem with the assembly line of treating addicts, CASA has given my hope with their ideas to help troubled youths and their families. Even with CASA, I still won’t be able to help a youth until they have had 8, 9, 10,? years with their family system. Plus, I’m leaning heavily towards the science of addiction. Unbelievable what is being discovered today. Oh, by the way, I really thought Mrs. Clinton would be a fresh outlook on my children’s future. However, she is married to Bill (Skull and Bones) Clinton. Seriously, think about it!
Re: Hillary is Right……
The US-Mexico Narco-Weapons contract must be
broken. They traffic Drugs and Humans, we provide
cash and Guns. US is throwing gasoline on the fire
of Mexican violence; and importing drugs/violence to US cities.
We are also empowering South American narcotics producers,
organized crime groups, and financing terrorism in these
illicit trades. Please don’t regress to “Just Say NO” Look where
that got us.
Just Say Go!
Thanks Joe.
In over 25 presidential debates, no candidate from either party mentioned drug abuse as a national problem. Yet I would be willing to bet that the problem exists in many of the candidates’ own families.
The United States demands and consumes more illicit drugs per capita than any other nation. The human toll is compelling. A recent Gallop Poll reported that 1/3 of all Americans reported a loved one with an alcohol problem, ¼ had a loved one with a drug problem. Over half of all inmates in the correctional system were convicted of a drug offense. For the most understandable of reasons, Alcoholics Anonymous is based on creating a therapeutic “community” outside of easy visibility.
In our local schools here in western Massachusetts, surveys that ask about alcohol or pot reveal that more junior high and high school teens are regular users than the average nationally. By high school, 57% of students are using alcohol regularly and 39% are smoking pot. Our challenge is indeed close to home.
While many of these kids will mature out of their drug use, 10% to 15% will become addicted to alcohol, pot, or harder drugs. A recent study followed a group of teens for 10 years who either drank or smoked pot heavily. Researchers concluded that pot was “the drug of choice for life’s future losers,” with pot smokers 6 times more likely to use other drugs than those who drank alcohol, and 3 times more likely to be unemployed or drop out of school.
Drug use and addiction pierce into our fears too much. As parents, children, siblings or partners, we just close our eyes.
Take the sad story of the actor Heath Ledger, found dead in his Manhattan apartment this past January. His toxicology report measured shelves-worth of narcotics like oxycodone, mood effecting drugs, and hypnotics….all in the brain of an otherwise healthy 27-year-old. Like millions of Americans of all ages, Heath Ledger had a life-threatening and debilitating substance problem. Yet the media and his family chose to focus on the accidental nature of the overdose, presumably because the more likely explanation was simply too revealing and stigmatizing.
Heath Ledger died because others, friends or family, tried in vain to put an easy face on an ugly wound.
It seems beyond reason that despite all that molecular neuroscience reveals of the basic mechanisms of addiction, we continue to regard it largely as a personal failing meriting moral judgment and marginalization. Drug addiction has become a “brand,” not a diagnosis, with the label conveying more about the person than about brain chemistry.
Only a generation ago, cancer was a barely –spoken word: it predicted its own inevitable finality. Today, cancer survivors can celebrate advanced medical science and a compassionate society. Imagine a time when survivors of “addiction” are so welcome that families like Ledger’s embrace the truth at the earliest possible moment of diagnosis, optimistic that full remission is possible.
Substance abuse remains the true third rail of American political discourse. And when the problem is kept in the shadows, solutions are much harder to find.
As with most difficult problems, a missing ingredient is “will,” individual, local, and political. With it we can traverse the barriers of fear and shame. Parents, partners and other significant others can be taught how to modify day-to-day behaviors that can have a profound effect on their loved one’s addiction. It is through political will that treatment-on-demand will become a reality.
At the core though remains the stigma. There are no ribbons to wear, no marches to join, and no telethons to raise money. Stories about local kids who “ overdose “ or “ binge “ to death or run away into lives of risk and despair remain as frightening as looking through the microscope at a slide of our own cancer. With compassion, clarity and some courage, we can move drug addiction from a place of fear to the prospect of real progress.
Dominique Simon-Levine is the Director of Allies in Recovery, a center in Northampton, MA that provides family members of those with substance problems research-based trainings, resources, and support.
As a child from a broken home who started smoking (my dad’s) cigarettes at 13, drinking at age 15 and smoking cannabis at 16 will attest that the information in this article is probably quite accurate. I cannot say for certain that I would have turned out differently had I grown up in a two parent environment.
My Dad had to work 3 jobs sometimes to support 3 kids at home when mom ran off so we had a few unsupervised hours a day.
I Love my Dad and he did alright by us, I got the belt a couple times but only in the extreme cases when I deserved it. I remember discussions about drugs and alcohol vaguely as we didn’t get into details.
I can tell you this for example that the years of drinking were the worst because I can’t remember all the times I endangered other people’s lifes by getting behind the wheel totally intoxicated. The effects of alcohol are worse than the effects of tobacco because you can still smoke a cigarette and effectively drive but they BOTH WILL KILL YOU eventually and possibly others around you ie: drunk driving fatalities, and second hand smoke.. The effects of cannabis are FAR less harmful to you and / or others around you and WILL NOT KILL YOU or others around you. I DO NOT recommend driving after smoking cannabis because there is the chance that you may be pulled over for driving too slow. The worst thing cannabis ever did to me (negatively speaking) is to drain my wallet so I could’nt buy the cool things my non-smoking friends were buying, but these were the choices I made voluntarily.
I prefer prevention and recommend to ALL youth to steer clear of all these substances and in the case of the ones that have already crossed that barrier and are seeking help, lets try and help them break the habit and not throw them in prison for harming themselves.
The part of this article that is missing is PEER PRESSURE which has a bigger effect on some kids than even a two parent stable environment does.
Dear Joe,
Secretary Clinton was right on target, and after 25 years of working on this subject it is music to my ears to hear an American government official tell the truth. But I’m wondering why you jump from this statement to the issue of our children. Sure it’s important to keep kids from misusing alcohol and illicit drugs, but let’s not blame our nation’s habits on our kids. They haven’t taught adults how to misuse drugs and their flow across the border won’t stop if kids stop demanding them. We adults are the root of the problem. And the problem lies in a group far larger than those who are addicted.
Fortunately, we now have an evidenced-based way to reduce this demand, which is driven not just by addicts but by people who occasionally use marijuana, cocaine, and prescription drugs the way they misuse alcohol. Screening, Brief Intervention, or Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) has not only been tested successfully in over 50 clinical trials, it has also been demonstrated in a huge, ongoing Federal program. It is the 21st century revolution in this field to reduce our adult and adolescent demand from misused substances. But we need CASA’s support for expanding its dissemination through many Federal agencies and within the healthcare reform process. So let’s get that support through your board room so it can get into medical practices and hence into everyone’s living rooms!
If addictive treatment is going to work then it must DEMAND that every member of the family participate at some level of the education and counseling process, inlcuding not limited to STOP using in the home while treatment is in process, which could be up to a year of intensive treatment with several more years of follow-up services.
Great discussions, and on target for the most part. I think that Hillary was right in her statements that we, in USA are the responsible parties for the drug epidemic and trade across the borders.
As parents and community coalitions we must work together, supporting one another in education and parenting skills as Joseph Califano, Jr reported. It begins with the parents, who do have the most influence on their children (negative or positive).
My dad began smoking at 10 yrs of age, and smoked 2 to 3 packs when he came home from WWII. My two brothers and I began to swipe a cigarette or two from his pack when we were in grade school and he found the butts in the milk barn. He took us aside all together-age 12, 9 and 8 and told us his story about how he began smoking, and how he had tried several time to stop (without success). Among othe things, he said that if we wanted to smoke, we would need to sit in the house with our mother and/or with him present and we could smoke his cigarettes, but if he had to do it all over again, he never would have begun smoking. He did warn us that if he caught us sneaking a smoke elsewhere, he would “tan our hides”. None of the three of us ever smoked or used alcohol after that “father to son” talk we received that day.
I believe that parents do have the strongest influence. I also believe that communities can come together and with planning and assistance from trained professionals, and a task force which includes all sectors of the community, with support from schools, churches, city councils and concerned persons, lowering in the rising drug and alcohol use can be obtained. It is difficult work; it takes patience and persistance; it take cooperation from parents, who unfortunately are often the ones who supply prescription drugs and alcohol to their children and their children’s friends–sometimes unknowingly. Lack of supervision and too often easy access and ignorance or a false sense of trust (that their child would never do anything wrong), open the opportunity for abuse by teens and even those in elementery schools.
As a Minister of the United Methodist Church in a small community in Kansas, I am part of a “task force” - which is making progress, working together to reduce abuses in our community of 3600 people.
Thanks for the opportunity and the comments on this serious topic which we all need to pray can and will be brought under control for our next generation of children–my grandchildren.
Kathryn A. Keeler, M.D.
Assistant Professor Orthopedic Surgery
Chrildren’s Hospital in St. Louis, MO
Fellowships from 2007/2009:
Hospital for Children, St. Louis MO.
&
Chrildren Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware
Dear Parents,
Now, more than ever, our kids need our help to succeed.
Everyday our children are confronted with tough situations that will impact their lives. Among them, prescription drug abuse.
Unfortunately, prescription drug abuse is widespread yet under appreciated since many parents are often unaware of the problem. In 2007, more than 4.1 million teens abused prescription drugs and one-third of all new abusers of prescription drugs were 12- to 17-years old1.
Most teens believe that prescription drugs provide a “safe” high2 and nearly one-third of teens believe there’s “nothing wrong” with using prescription medicines without a prescription3. In addition, prescription drugs are widely available and often free or inexpensive. 70% of teens who abuse prescription pain relievers report obtaining the drugs from their friends’ or family’s medicine cabinet1.
The most common prescription drugs abused include: painkillers, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medications, and stimulants such as medications prescribed to treat ADHD2. In addition, common over-the-counter medications such as cough medications and cold remedies containing dextromethorphan (DXM), a cough suppressant, are also taken in order to “get high.”
Prescription drugs are dangerous and deadly. While these medications certainly serve a purpose (I have personally prescribed narcotic pain medications such as Vicodin and Oxycontin to many patients after surgery) prescription drugs are addictive and their effects could be lethal. While many families recognize the importance of locking up guns and liquor few consider locking up potentially dangerous and even deadly prescription and over-the-counter drugs commonly found in many household medicine cabinets.
We need to eliminate the risk of prescription drug abuse by locking up our medicines.
As Joseph A. Califano,Jr. has said “There are more kids abusing prescription drugs than abusing marijuana. When I was a kid in Brooklyn, NY when parents had liquor they locked up the liquor cabinet. Maybe parents need to lock up the medicine cabinet.” By locking up our Rx drugs this act will help parents and caretakers better secure our children’s future and thereby empowering and enabling our children to succeed and excel.
U.S. drug czar John Walters speaking at the White House in September 2008 with a warning to parents: Lock your medicine cabinets.
Dr. Kathryn A. Keeler MD
1. National Survey on Drug Use and Health. 2007
2. Prescription for Danger. Office of the National Drug Control Policy Executive Office of the President. January 2008. 3.Partnership Attitude Tracking Study. 2007
Cristin A. Keeler OT/LR
Designer/Inventor of the MedicineSafes
Occupational Therapists and Safety Product Developer
Working in New York City
1.1 million students in over 1500 schools.
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
Over the past ten years I have had the privilege of working closely with children and families in New York City as a pediatric Occupational Therapist. This experience has made me acutely aware of the team of individuals that it takes to nurture and raise a safe and healthy child. It begins with parents, who must ensure a secure and loving environment with good values and extends to caregivers, teachers, civil servants, government agencies and businesses.
The community responsibility to ensure the health and welfare of the next generation cannot be overlooked.
My work with children in the community has included pre-teens and middle school and high school students. This group, in particular, seems to be most “at risk” as they navigate serious developmental challenges of growing up. I have found that adult temptations of sex, drugs, and alcohol are influencing children as young are 9 and 10. Without guidance these immature individuals are more likely to give in to temptation and explore areas that they are not ready to consider, as a result, the child will make poor decisions. This is why it is our responsibility to safeguard our children, our community and our future.
With this in mind, I developed the idea for the (I do not want to do an ad for this Product). The concept was born during an interdisciplinary meeting of therapists and teachers working with children with Asberger’s syndrome in New York City. We discussed safety concerns in the home as the child matures and appropriate environmental controls. I thought of ways to control access to harmful substances and decided the best way to do this is to lock up prescription drugs.
I realized that this type of intervention has applications to assist families of neurotypical children as the use of prescription drugs by children and teens has increased dramatically. This sample intervention of locking up Rx drugs can dramatically affect the lives of our children by ensuring safety in the home, guiding the choices they make, and encouraging carry-over into the choices made within the community.
“It is shocking to me how much my middle school students talk about drugs and sex to each other…when I work with them one on one, they express a strong desire to be kids and just play.” OT working in NYC middle school
Our goal is to let our children be children.
Cristin Ann Keeler
The solution to our drug epidemic lies not “across kitchen tables” but ON kitchen tables. We are a malnourished nation in spite of our girth due to impoverished soil and daily diets of white flour, white sugar, fried almost-foods and precious few whole grains, fruits, seafood, and vegetables. Our adrenal glands are taxed to the max by incessant emotional and physical stress. According to Kenneth Blum, PhD, a pharmacogeneticist with pioneering research on the genetic link to alcoholism, about one third of all Americans are genetically deficient in the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine, leading to the revolving door of our treatment facilities, prisons, and pharmacies. Talk therapy can no more cure or even treat neurotransmitter deficiency than a good counseling session can return a diabetic’s blood sugar to normal.
Some of the remaining two thirds of drug users are malnourished because their drug use led to nutrient-deficient meals or no meals at all. Others are not malnourished, just using as a part of their social system. They are the ones who can “Just Say No” and who respond so successfully to motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy, and all the excellent work of the counselors in our programs.
For the biochemically deficient, only biochemical restoration allows their minds to focus and to receive our best efforts at counseling. Restoration begins with wholesome food and is quickened with individualized nutritional supplements and acupuncture.
Stimulant users and the fatigued among us who can’t concentrate need the amino acid tyrosine to build more dopamine. People in emotional and physical pain need phenylalanine to maintain endorphins. People who are obsessive-compulsive, suffer panic attacks, nightmares, low self-esteem, afternoon cravings, and suicidal thoughts need tryptophan or 5HTP to produce more serotonin. And, people who are anxious and tense need GABA to produce more GABA.
Yet, even a cheap multivitamin makes a difference. Stephen Schoenthaler, PhD of California State University Stanislaus proved inmate violence and rule infractions reduced so dramatically within three days from a daily multivitamin-mineral that a $1 investment returned $1,000 in one month to the California Department of Corrections.
We will successfully empty our prisons of the parolees returning from blowing their parole due to drug use and produce productive, tax-paying, healthy citizens when we give every client who walks in our treatment program door a nourishing meal, food to take home every day, and nutritional supplements that match the biochemical need of the individual. That’s what the Sacramento County Probation Department is doing with its Drug Court and we saved our county $20 million our first ten years.
Anyone interested in learning more, come to a conference cosponsored by the State of California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs and the nonprofit Community Addiction Recovery Assoc. (CARA) at the Hilton Sacramento Arden West Hotel April 17-19th 2009 in Sacramento. It’s called Brain Repair for Addictive Disorders: Cost-Effective, Successful, Drug-Free Therapies. All details at http://www.carasac.org/Conference/index.shtml or call 916-485-2272 or carolynreuben@carasac.org. You can read about nutritional restoration in The Mind Cure by Julia Ross, MFT or Seven Weeks to Sobriety by Joan Mathews Larson, PhD and books by other speakers at the conference.
As the adopted parent of 6 children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) I believe our nation has not openly addressed alcohol and drug addictions as a national crisis. Raising children directly affected by prenatal alcohol use shows me and anyone working with my family the devastating affects alcohol use can have on an individual. My family is at high risk to continue this risky behavior as they grow older. I wonder how many individuals currently struggling with an alcohol addiciton may also be struggling with an undiagnosed FASD as well.
Research and programming for FASD prevention and interventions f are sorely underfunded or non-existing in most areas of our nation. We may very well need to put our money upfront to prevent future alcohol exposed births so as not to pay for costly programming later in an individual’s life. Further, we need to support the individuals with FASD to lead successful, meaningful lives.
Parents are the one’s who should be screaming for the regulation of cannabis. Regulation IS law and order. Prohibition is a free-for-all. We should have learned that by now.
In addition, ALL advertisements pertaining to alcohol and tobacco should be heavily restricted or banned in public venues, and available on the internet only on “18 or older” sites; and absolutely no direct marketing of prescription medication to consumers should be allowed. Children become curious about prescription drugs because they learn about them on television and through magazine ads.
It is our love affair with unfettered capitalism that is our downfall. Even suggesting that a company should not be allowed to advertise a product (tobacco) which is essentially no more than a slow-acting poison sends certain folks into paroxysms of indignation.
Thank the Goddess (yes, I am one of “those” feminists) that we are finally taking a long delayed look at Drug Policy Reform, and as a result may finally have a chance of saving our civilization.
I admit freely to being a major fan of Mr. Califano and CASA. In counterpoint to those who support increasing access to addictive substances such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin, Mr. Califano sanely supports drug-free lives with real science, real experience, real advice. Drug-free is the only way to go, the only sane future. Earlier today, I chased down a friend of mine who was addicted to heroin for decades and has beaten that enemy at last. I asked him what effect that heroin had on him, aside from the illegalities. He told me, “The illegal actions landed me in jail and made me homeless. But the heroin itself robbed me of my life. I was anesthetized. I felt nothing, none of the joys of life.” Is this what we want for Americans when there are successful ways to reduce demand through effective rehabilitation or prevention through education, especially of our youth? I say no. I will continue to say no at every opportunity. I will continue to say no until the day I die.
I think we are overlooking another addiction that is a product of the times. Computer gaming/internet addictions. These are specifically targeted at our teens and we need more research and controls on the gaming industry.
I am the Recovery Housing Manager at The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR). CCAR organizes the recovery community (people in recovery, family members, friends and allies) to
1) Put a face on recovery and
2) Provide recovery support services.
By promoting recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction through advocacy, education and service, CCAR strives to end discrimination surrounding addiction and recovery, open new doors and remove barriers to recovery, maintain and sustain recovery regardless of the pathway, all the while ensuring that all people in recovery, and people seeking recovery, are treated with dignity and respect.
CCAR’s membership represents all facets of the recovery community, people in recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction, family members, friends and allies and numbers more than 3,000. We have a pool of almost 600 volunteers. Approximately 300 of those individuals are actively volunteering. We put a face on recovery through frequent speaking engagements, cable public access television broadcasts, DVDs, videos, posters, a web presence http://www.ccar.us, and major events to promote recovery like Recovery Walks! September 26, 2009 will be our 10th Recovery Walks! In the year 2000, Recovery Walks! was the first march ever in support of recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction. Through four recovery community centers located in Willimantic, New London, Bridgeport and Hartford CCAR provides a variety of support services. Some of these services include all-recovery groups, recovery training series, family support and education, recovery coaching, recovery social events, telephone recovery support, recovery oriented employment services and assistance with recovery housing with the website http://www.findrecoveryhousing.com
Let’s continue to advocate for programs that focus on the light of recovery and not the darkness of addiction. Our children are counting on us.
The biggest problem about kids and drugs is that parents don’t know how to talk to kids about drugs.
Hello
God bless you for your continuing service in helping to stop drug use ,starting with cigarettes! You were so right! Their link with obesity has led to harder drug use as kids are less cared for they get less nutrition which affects their brains adversley they feel bad,disoriented,crazy so they try to “fix” themselves. If only they got enough right nutrition,sleep,exercise and knew about love. Somebody has to take them to church and as your study proves-parents have to set solid family values and high expectations by example!
Thanks
E. Vale
Dear Chairman Califano:
Good article! If we we prevent the problem of ATOD use and abuse we won’t have to pay for it later, in lives or dollars.
On the question of how best to prevent it, is a federal mandate for non-punitive random drug testing for all students grades 6 through 12 not only desirable, but necessary?
I know parents are most important, but based on your own research at CASA, 56% of kids are at moderate to high risk due in large part to parental shortcomings. We know also that on average, a kid uses drugs for two years before parents even know, and too often, its too late then to get them help.
America is not only in the economic abysss, but one if four or five students don’t even graduate from high school …. and according to UC Santa Barbara each dropout will cost society $392,000 as the burden public health, welfare and the justic system.
Non-punitive random drug testing is the best among many tools to keep kids off alcohol and drugs, keep them safe, in the system until they reach adulthood intact. Certainly the epidemic demands radical action … if this can even be considered radical.
Roger Morgan
Californians for Drug-Free Schools