EARLY PREVENTION

TAAP Program Teaches Teens Medical Dangers Of Drug Use And Addiction

In an effort to teach teen-agers about the dangers of drugs, the Teen
Addiction Awareness Program is now being offered to juvenile
offenders at the Lee County Juvenile Detention Center.

"It's a concentrated program of intensive educational and prevention
and intervention teaching on the realities of illegal drug and
alcohol abuse," said Dody Vail, executive director of the National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence of Northeast Mississippi.
NCADD sponsors the TAAP program.

The program was brought to the jail at the request of Youth Court
Judge James Floyd, Administrator David Anthony and the late Sheriff
Harold Ray Presley, said Vail. Classes began at 6 p.m. this past
Monday, under the instruction of Porter McKee.

"I'm teaching about addiction and the medical model," McKee said.
"Drug abuse is a physical disease that affects the mind and the
nervous system."

The class teaches about gateway drugs, said McKee.

"Smoking is a gateway to drinking, drinking is a gateway to marijuana
use and marijuana is a gateway to cocaine," McKee said. "They're
starting to experiment with drugs at their age."

McKee said a few students, after completing the course, went on to
join mentor programs with the Tupelo Police Department and the Tupelo
Fire Department.

At any given time, said McKee, there are 10 to 15 students in each
class. TAAP is a confidential program, and students' names and
information are not released.

"If they're released (from detention) prior to finishing the program,
we want to try to keep them with this same group," said Jail
Administrator Robin Cobb. "If they fail to do that, they will be
ordered by the judge to finish the course. We hope to make that part
of the release agreement."

Cobb said she chose the teens in the current class based on the
amount of time they were ordered to spend in detention.

"It's a welcome respite from the usual daily routine, as their day
(in detention) is pretty predictable and boring," Vail said. "Any
teen that the juvenile detention center administrator thinks this
would help is put in the class, because 85 percent of all juvenile
crimes are alcohol or drug related. In the adult jail, it's 95
percent."

Vail obtained a grant to fund the course, Cobb said.

"One of the counseling aspects of the program is that the kids find a
class a safe environment," Vail said. "We can find out what's really
going on with them, their frustrations and fears, and where their
anger comes from. A close bond is usually forged between the student
and the teacher."

Cobb said the teens are shackled at their ankles but not monitored by
guards during the class.

"It's more like an educational curriculum," Vail said. "The teacher
teaches. It's interactive between the students and the teacher."

The workbook used, "Young, Sober and Free," contains stories about
teen-agers on the brink or in the middle of a full-blown addiction,
who came back to live full, productive lives, Vail said.

"They're given a bracelet, a woven bracelet, that says 'Think
first'," Vail said. "It's supposed to inspire them by the name of it
to think first on what they've learned when they're out of the
detention center and faced with some temptations."

NCADD developed the program five years ago after taking a poll to
find out the needs of teen-agers.

"It showed that there was a gap in services for teens who had a
beginning brush with the youth courts," Vail said. "Obviously, we
needed a program that would nip those budding problems. The goal of
TAAP is to prevent kids from heading into full-blown addiction at an
early age and help them to make better life choices."

Regular TAAP courses are offered at the NCADD building on Spring
Street in downtown Tupelo for anyone who wants to attend, Vail said.

"And it's all confidential," she said.