Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

CAMPUS APPEARANCE

Earlier this year a Spanish Springs High School senior and her father
met with her counselor to withdraw from school.

She was one semester shy of graduation.

The girl had privately told counselor Lara Dreelan she was a
methamphetamine addict. She was skipping school and didn't care anymore.

"I tried to talk to her dad and said she needed drug rehab because
she couldn't fight it on her own," Dreelan said. "He said, 'Whew, I
thought you were going to tell me she was pregnant.'"

School officials say that methamphetamine is becoming a visible
issue, contributing to truancy, poor grades, criminal activities and
bad health. Many parents and teachers, officials say, aren't familiar
with meth and its devastating effects, enabling students to slip
undetected into addiction.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control found that 12.5 percent of
Nevada high school students had tried methamphetamine at least once
- -- the highest rate in the nation in 2003. While just under 9 percent
of high school males had tried meth, more than 16 percent of high
school girls in Nevada had experimented with the drug -- by far the
highest rate in the nation. Among Washoe County high school students,
12.4 percent had tried meth at least once that year, a state survey found.

While state officials say the percentage for girls using meth
declined in 2005 to 7.7 percent (federal reports have not been
released yet for 2005), the percentage of high school boys taking the
drug continues to climb.

And those increases are coming at time when federal funds for
longstanding substance-abuse prevention programs are declining. And
Nevada, unlike other states, spends nothing on anti-drug programs in schools.

Federal Safe and Drug Free Schools grants will likely be reduced 21
percent nationwide, said Michael Fitzgerald, coordinator of the Safe
and Drug Free School program in Nevada. The state Department of
Education said federal funding for the program dropped 32 percent
from 2002, when it was $2.5 million, to 2005, when it was $1.7
million. Nevada's population has grown 14 percent during that time.

Funding has shrunk

Fitzgerald said Nevada gets minimum funding roughly equal to
Wyoming's, which has one quarter of Nevada's 2.4 million residents.
Federal funds nationally have shrunk from $600 million 10 years ago
to about half that amount. In 2005, the federal government budgeted
$437 million nationally for schools' anti-drug programs, but
President Bush has budgeted nothing for 2006 and 2007, although
Congress approved $346 million for the current fiscal year. Bush's
2007 recommendations have not yet gone through Congress.

"We've been on and off the chopping block for years," Fitzgerald
said. "In Nevada, we've gone from $4.25 per student to $1.15.
Programs are going to be cut back or eliminated, and there won't be
an incentive to create new programs or add staff when we know the
money is soft.

"Nevada has zero state funds for the program," he added. "It's always
been that way since the program started (in the 1980s). We are one of
the few states that has no education funding for this from the state level."

Changing their behavior

Fitzgerald said state programs in Oregon and Washington can survive
because they receive state funding.

Katherine Loudon, Washoe County School District's substance-abuse
coordinator, said the district knows that meth is a serious and
dangerous issue.

"What's going on outside in the community comes into the schools,"
Loudon said. "My department is not about punishing kids but helping
kids change their behavior and move forward. It all starts in
kindergarten with general (prevention) messages through high school."

Loudon said if federal funds are eliminated, the school district will
have to find other sources of funding. "(The cuts) will be felt and
it will hurt," she said.

Fitzgerald said that Clark and Washoe counties will receive the
majority of whatever federal funding is available but the state's
smaller districts will likely get $5,000 or less.

"You can't have this program with that much money," he said. "For
several years, the General Accounting Office did evaluations of these
programs and said the primary reason they were not successful is for
lack of funding. Then the government turns around and cuts funding."

State officials say there is a correlation between prevention
programs and adolescent substance abuse. A 2005 report from the
state's Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Abuse said prevention programs
that identify substance-abusing individuals at the local level before
they become addicted is essential to reducing chronic alcohol and drug abuse.

"Many of these individuals could benefit from early identification
and intervention, which can reduce tremendous psychological and
financial burdens on the individual, family and community," the
report said. Identifying substance-abusers early would ease the
fiscal strain on criminal-justice, health-care and drug-abuse
treatment systems.

How the money is spent

In addition to substance-abuse programs, Loudon's department provides
education and after-school programs aimed at preventing violence,
suicide, sexually transmitted diseases and bullying.

The program uses student surveys to determine such problems as age of
first drug use, and then uses prevention methods to target those who
need help. Workbooks titled "Too Good For Drugs" are given to
elementary, middle and high school students.

Loudon said helping children improve self esteem, decision making,
respect and problem solving also helps them turn down the lure of drugs.

"It's not just about drugs, but about decisions," she said.

In March, the district hosted community meetings to address meth and
its impact on children, the community and the environment. The
meetings were a collaboration with the newly formed Meth Community
Response Alliance.

Loudon said the Safe and Drug Free Schools program would survive by
merging with other school programs funded through different avenues and grants.

Fitzgerald said research shows these anti-drug messages work, often
pushing back the age at which students first experiment with drugs and alcohol.

"I've got two teenage boys and this hits me as a parent because I
know they are not going to get the resources they need," he said.

Is meth 'left behind'?

Fitzgerald surmised that emphasis on the No Child Left Behind Act and
test scores has diminished the importance of the Safe and Drug Free
Schools program. "We lost sight that student health and well-being is
a critical component to student success," he said.

Dreelan said kids don't understand meth's danger and think it's like
marijuana. She said students need to be aware of the dangers and
parents should know the signs. Officials say they need to do more to
educate the community and its youth about meth in hopes the demand
for the drug will decrease.

"Parents say my kid would never do that, we come from an upper-class
family, but then they're sitting in my office telling me they're
abusing drugs," Dreelan said. "We can talk about this until we are
blue in the face but kids are only going to listen when one of their
friends dies of an overdose."

[Sidebar]

Methamphetamine is a growing problem in the Washoe County School
District, district counselor coordinator Susie Rusk said.

"It's growing and we don't have a lot of solutions," she said.

Rusk said that in April a single father brought his son to his
middle-school counselor's office in a panic. The boy had run away and
done meth in a Reno motel room.

"He couldn't leave (the boy) home because it wasn't safe," she said.
"They had to eat, so he had to go to work. So he brought him to
school. He didn't know what else to do."

The boy, who had been hospitalized in the past for being suicidal,
was placed in a room by the principal's office so he could be monitored.

"The counselor made 22 calls trying to get help for him," Rusk said.
She said the child is waiting for an opening at a residential
juvenile treatment center.

"Our problems grow every day and we wrestle with finding them help," Rusk said.

Other meth-related issues that are visible in school are children
born with meth in their system who behave erratically and need
special education. Rusk said they have no logic in their volatile
behavior and it is difficult to educate someone who does not have "a
full brain."

Rusk said there are also elementary school students who show up to
school without having eaten or bathed. She said when they call their
parents, no one answers the phone, and no one picks the children up.

"It's a lot of broken hearts, lost education and taking up a lot of
people's time," Rusk said of meth. "You feel powerless and you know
these kids are raising themselves. It's in our face every day."