'HARD DRUGS' USAGE RISING

Quad-City area officials say juvenile drug abuse still centers around
alcohol and marijuana abuse.

But they also say that certain "hard drugs" that were popular years and
even decades ago are making a comeback, that children are trying narcotics
at an earlier age and they worry what that holds for the future.

"The age of kids using drugs is getting younger and the drugs they're using
are getting harder," said Dan Roach, the director of the Quad-City
Metropolitan Enforcement Group, or MEG, based in Rock Island.

Roach has seen a major trend toward Ecstasy, also known as MDMA. "This is a
very old drug that has come back around in a different form and it's cheap
to get and extremely dangerous," he said.

Ecstasy use has become a fad among young people because it can cause
hallucinations and euphoria, but it also can cause strokes and heart
attacks and has been shown to impair intelligence.

Bettendorf police Lt. Greg Trudell said MEG's annual report for the year
2000 shows a slight increase in cocaine use among youth, but a slight
decrease in the use of methamphetamines, which surfaced as a popular
illegal drug throughout Iowa during the 1990s. In the Quad-City area last
year, MEG uncovered 15 methamphetamine labs, or remnants of labs.

Drug enforcement officials say the United States makes up only 6 percent of
the world's population, but it consumes about 76 percent of the illegal
drugs that are manufactured.

And authorities caution that even the hardest drugs seem to know no
financial bounds.

"We see kids from everywhere, from all schools and every segment of the
population," said Lisa Sexton, a senior counselor at the Center for Alcohol
and Drug Services, or CADS, adolescent day treatment facility in Bettendorf.

In the past month, a 10- and 11-year-old were reported to have alcohol in
their systems after a fatal traffic accident in which one of the children
was killed, and toxicology reports showed a 14-year-old Milan, Ill., boy
died after "huffing" inhalants and walking into traffic along a stretch of
rural highway.

The incidence of hard drugs, along with the use of inhalants, has made
abuse among juveniles ever more of a concern, and adding to the worry is
the fact the Quad-City area is without a residential drug treatment
facility for youth.

"There's a definite need for residential help around here, and it really
concerns me," said Robert McQuay, the CADS prevention program manager in
Davenport.

Having no inpatient facility leaves Iowa Quad-City facilities such as CADS
with no choice but to send the most severely addicted patients to the
closest residential treatment centers, which are in Cedar Rapids or Ames.

Sexton said the CADS outpatient program has about a 30 percent success rate
for first-time patients.

"Our average outpatient program is six weeks and some of the kids come four
nights a week," she said.

She also said that CADS has not seen many huffing or substance-sniffing
patients lately, but acknowledges the difficulty in identifying those
problems. "It's a lot harder to catch in a drug screening," she said.

McQuay said that not having a live-in treatment facility makes it difficult
for youngsters to overcome their addiction to certain drugs.

"It's extremely hard for kids that have been using for years and are now
supposed to stop in 28 days." he said.

Alcohol and marijuana problems form the bulk of the caseload at CADS, but
Sexton says they are seeing some increase in cocaine use. "And Ecstasy is
mentioned a lot more," she added.

On the positive side, Trudell, a former MEG official, said school-age kids
are definitely using drugs, but they are not bringing narcotics into the
schools very often because of the proactive approach area education
administrators are taking.

"Right now, we have more junior high kids than normal, but the majority of
kids don't get the drugs at school," Sexton said.

"Security cameras in the high schools and middle schools have helped. Also,
several high schools have had MEG come in with drug-sniffing dogs," Trudell
said.

At Bettendorf High School, the drug-sniffing dogs have paid off. "A couple
of times, we found paraphernalia like pipes, but since the dogs came, we
haven't found any," he said.

And those working with drug-abusing youth believe facilities such as the
CADS day treatment center and the Robert Young Community Mental Health
Center in Rock Island, plus area drug enforcement agencies, are doing an
admirable job with the resources available.

"I don't know if the drug problem is getting better, but I don't think it's
getting worse. Everyone is addressing the situation head-on," Roach said.

Roach will lead a drug recognition seminar for parents at 6 p.m. Monday at
Pleasant Valley High School.

"We do these all over the Quad-Cities and we get a great response. If the
demand (for drugs) is there, the supply will be there, so education is
key," he said.