DRUGS READILY AVAILABLE IN SCV SCHOOLS

Ease Of Obtaining Drugs Online, Via Mexico And From Dealers Creates
Problems For Districts

This is the first part of a two-part series.

Have your kids been taking some Vitamin R and Triple C with Herb and Al?

If so, you should be worried.

Ritalin (called Vitamin R) is a prescription drug used to treat
attention deficit disorder, but it is also used to get high by kids
who don't have ADD. Coricidin Cough and Cold (Triple C) is an
over-the-counter cold medication, but kids take more than the
recommended dosage to get a buzz. Herb and Al are slang terms for
marijuana and alcohol.

These and other drugs are readily available in the Santa Clarita
Valley, even in our local schools.

"I think drugs are in all schools everywhere, especially here in
Santa Clarita because it's an affluent area," said Cary Quashen,
founding director of ACTION, a local nonprofit organization that
provides substance abuse and crisis counseling programs for parents
and teens. "I'm in the schools - I know what's going on in this
community, and we have a drug problem."

At a recent ACTION support group meeting, held 7 p.m. Tuesdays at
Saugus High School, teens in attendance were asked if drugs were
available in local schools. It took a while for everyone in the room
to stop laughing at the question.

Taylor, 15, said that not only did she take drugs to Hart High School
on a regular basis when she was using, but she has abused drugs while
at school.

"I used to just pop pills during class," she said.

Taylor, who has been clean for six months, said she took Ecstasy,
Vicodin, Oxycontin and other drugs to school and never got caught.
Taylor's mother said her daughter also used to smoke marijuana at school.

"Taylor told me that she has gone out to the perimeter - but still on
school grounds - to smoke pot," she said. Her mother is glad that
Taylor is now getting help. "This is a great program. My daughter
actually told me about ACTION, because she realized she had a problem."

Even if they don't bring drugs to school themselves, teens looking to
get high can almost always find drugs on campus.

"You can find (drugs) at any school - no community is immune,"
Quashen said. "Every school has their middle men who deal drugs."

Doug Thurlow was going through his son's backpack and discovered
that, during the school day, his son had acquired an over-the-counter
medication that kids often abuse.

"My son came home from Hart (High School) with 147 Benedryl tablets
in his backpack, and he got them at school," Thurlow said.

Kevin, 16, who has attended both Sequoia Charter School and West
Ranch High School, said he has taken drugs to school and also
purchased drugs at school.

"I used to have drugs at school a couple of times a week," said
Kevin, who has been clean for more than nine months. "And I purchased
drugs at West Ranch. I did it, like, twice."

Teens can also purchase prescription drugs off the Internet or by
crossing the border into Mexico, but the main place teens find
prescription drugs to abuse is a little closer to home.

"The main place kids are getting prescription drugs is from their
parents' medicine cabinets," Quashen said.

Alcohol, considered by experts to be the drug most often abused by
teens in the Santa Clarita Valley, is also available in area schools.

"I know for a fact that there's also alcohol on campus," said Louella
Youngbauer, who has a daughter at Saugus High School. "I picked my
daughter up from school, and she was drunk, and she was not drunk
when I dropped her off."

None of this comes as any surprise to William S. Hart Union High
School District Governing Board Member Steve Sturgeon, a long-time
advocate of strict enforcement of drug and alcohol violations in
district schools and a proponent of mandatory drug testing for
students in extracurricular activities.

"The use of drugs is commonplace in our schools, whether it's the
Hart district or LAUSD or anywhere else in the state," Sturgeon said.
"It's the nature of adolescence to want to try things."

Sturgeon said alcohol is the drug most abused by local teens, and he
even suspects he knows how students are getting it into schools.
"Kids come in with water bottles that really contain vodka. Or now,
with the flavored vitamin drinks, no one knows what's in those
bottles," Sturgeon said.

The partying only increases over the summer when school is out and
most parents are at work all day.

Working parents don't always realize the mischief their kids are
getting into while left home alone, Quashen said.

"The second week of school, our support groups just explode with new
members, because the kids can't function in school after partying all
summer," he said.

While it is impossible to completely eliminate student drug use,
there are things schools, parents and the community can do to decrease it.

"Kids are always going to be kids, and they'll find ways and means to
beat the system," Quashen said. "The trick is to find ways and means
to deter them."

___

[Sidebar]

Common drugs among teens

* Alcohol * Marijuana * Ecstasy * Crystal methamphetamine * Cocaine *
"Magic" mushrooms * Prescription drugs such as Vicodin, Soma,
Oxycontin, Aderil and Ritalin * Over-the-counter medications such as
Coricidin Cough and Cold, Liquid cough syrup * Inhalants such as
Dust-off (computer cleaner), other household aerosols * Art supplies, glue

SOURCE: ACTION Parent and Teen Support Program