KENOWA HILLS: SURVEY, CAMPAIGN TARGET DRUG USE

ALPINE TOWNSHIP -- Many high school students assume drug abuse is
widespread among their peers.

A $100,000 federal grant will be used to show Kenowa Hills High
School students how that assumption is often misleading.

Peer pressure has many teens presuming drug and alcohol use is
common, said Nancy Harper, project director of Alcohol Education,
Research and Training, or ALERT, a U.S. Health and Human Services
anti-drug program.

The one-year ALERT grant will fund a survey, a school-wide anti-drug
campaign and counseling services.

Kenowa Hills High School's 1,230 students will take a survey in
March to gauge how many use alcohol and drugs, Principal Peg Mathis
said. The poll will identify students only by aggregate groups, such
as their age and grade level.

Administrators plan to release the survey results in the fall --
when the anti-drug campaign is launched.

"What makes this different with this program is the social norm
campaign tries to affirm the students who are not using," Mathis
said. "We think it's (the number of non-users) larger than what we think."

Harper said drugs don't have the allure they once had with adolescents.

"We find the vast majority of students, 80 to 90 percent, don't want
to date someone who smokes, uses drugs or alcohol," she said.

Counseling will be available as well, said Harper.

"This is a five-year project," she said. "It takes about two years
to make a difference in a high school. We expect, after two years,
to see a 10 to 20 percent reduction in the use of alcohol and other drugs."