DRUGS, ALCOHOL ABUSERS GETTING YOUNGER

SANTA CLARITA -- Specialists who work with local kids in therapeutic
programs and in the schools say drug and alcohol use among teens and
adolescents is skewing younger and younger.

Statistics are hard to come by, but workers in the trenches say more
13- and 14-year-olds are paying a price for tangling with off-limits
substances.

"We're getting called more and more by the middle schools to do drug
tests for kids and we're coming in and doing early interventions on
kids a lot," said Cary Quashen, founder of the nonprofit ACTION
parent and teen support program. "We're finding pot, alcohol, and
over-the-counter drugs like (cough medicine) seem to be real big with
young people."

The group conducts programs in local high schools, and the for-profit
Action Family Counseling program operates nine intensive outpatient
programs and two residential treatment centers.

Quashen said teen girls who opt for methamphetamine to help them lose
weight underestimate its pull.

"They start with diet," he said. "But the euphoria becomes
emotionally addictive, and it only takes one time to be addicted by
crystal meth emotionally."

The drug is easy to come by and it's cheap. In contrast to imported
drugs like cocaine, meth can be formulated in a van or an apartment
down the street. Quashen said some batches are tainted with battery
acid, rat poison or arsenic.

Getting caught with drugs or alcohol or selling them on junior or
senior high school campuses results in suspension, intra-district
transfers or expulsion. The man who oversees suspensions and
expulsions in the 22,000-student William S. Hart Union High School
District said the number of violators has been creeping up
districtwide though figures are not yet available for the current school year.

"It appears, though I can't say to what extent yet, drug and alcohol
violations are higher this year," said Richard Freifeld, director of
student services for the district. "It's a definite issue out there."

In 2003-04, 16 students were expelled; in 2004-05 it dropped to 12;
but in 2005-06, 25 students were ejected.

All students caught with banned substances are suspended for at least
five days. In 2003-04, 118 students were suspended; in 2004-05 the
number climbed to 145; and in 2005-06, 200 students were suspended.

District officials take into account a student's record, whether it's
a first or second offense and other extenuating circumstances before
levying consequences. High schoolers are not the only ones being
dismissed or lobbed outside their comfort zones to different schools.

Of the 200 drug or alcohol-related suspensions this past year, 154
students were high schoolers, but 46 attended junior highs. That is
up substantially from past years: in 2003-04, 14 were junior
highschoolers and in 2004-05, 19 attended junior highs.

Some of the increase may be attributed to the school district's
growth in the past few years. While marijuana and alcohol are most
commonly confiscated, Freifeld said, they are being joined by a
growing number of other substances.

"Prescription drugs that don't belong to the students (are popular)
and a number of kids are using Coricidin as an intoxicant," he said.

Freifeld said the district is attuned to solving underlying problems
and students are often referred to ACTION or the Santa Clarita Valley
Child and Family Center's Drug and Alcohol Prevention Education
Curriculum program for help.

A former drug dealer who attended local high schools and sold drugs
on the premises -- and is now clean -- said many of his customers
were seventh and eighth graders referred by their friends or older
siblings. They would rendezvous in secluded wash areas or public restrooms.

"If the older sibling is doing it it's more likely the younger one
will do it too," he said. He sold pot for $15 a gram, which filled
about one-forth of a sandwich bag, and a $20 bag of meth would yield
eight to 10 hits.

Quashen said a recipe for problems is sometimes concocted by working
families whose offspring have a lot of time on their hands and lots
of disposable income. Jamie Wilder, a marriage and family therapist,
said young friends with money often share drugs with friends who
can't afford them.

Ari Levy, a clinical psychologist and executive program director at
the Child and Family Center, said some parents may minimize the
teen's drug use by labeling it experimentation.

"When you have someone who's under the age of 15, 16, who is involved
with using substances, that's not experimentation," he said. "(In
year's past) experimentation occurred in college, maybe late high
school. When you're talking about those who are younger, that's not
experimentation, that's a problem."

He said if developing youngsters use drugs it may color how they deal
with their lives as adults and how they handle stress and emotions.

"When they're adults, they may lean back on the substances," he said.

On Thursday, the National Institute on Drug Abuse on released an
annual survey that monitors substance use trends among eighth through
twelfth graders. It showed past-month use of illegal drugs had dipped
23 percent since 2001, but misuse of presription drugs and
non-medical use of over-the-counter drugs is a big concern.

In the first national survey of non-medical use of cold or cough
medicine, the survey found 4.2 percent of eights graders reported
using cold or cough medicines during the past year to get high, the
group reported. The Monitoring the Future survey, where students
self-report use, has helped the government meausre drug and alcohol
use and attitudes among adolescents and teens since 1975.

Wilder said parents often don't understand the unwitting role they
play in their kids under the radar use of over-the-counter drugs.

"That's what kids can get easily at home and from other kids --
Coricidin, Benadryl, Vicodin," she said. "A lot of studies show
parents speaking to their kids about drugs, parents monitoring their
kids, these are the kids who will have less problems with substance abuse."