DRUG USE ALTERS SCHOOLS' PRIORITIES

Filing excitedly into the gym at Kanata's All Saints Catholic High
School Tuesday, more than 1,600 teens from all over west-end Ottawa
mostly seemed happy just to have time off class.

But they quieted down as they watched a slick big-screen production
with full DVD motion. And they left mulling over an intriguing
question: Had they ever crossed their "stupid line?"

"There is a line of choice that separates a smart risk from a stupid
risk," says Catherine Clark of the national non-profit group
Smartrisk, which took its injury-prevention campaign to local students
this week.

"It's in your power to make the right choice. And you eliminate all of
your options if you take a stupid risk."

Smartrisk has excised the word "not" from presentations. Ms. Clark
says organizers realized that laying out a menu of prohibitions to
teens is counter-productive.

Instead, the show is graphic. Very graphic, like including the
grinding sound of a therapeutic halo being bolted onto someone's head
without anesthetic.

"If you tell a kid what not to do, they turn right off. You have to
lay out their choices and help them make smart ones."

"The preachy stuff just doesn't work," agrees Heather Grant, a Grade
12 student at Frederick Banting Secondary Alternate Program. "It will
only drive them to do it more. Teenagers are rebellious by nature."

Smartrisk's focus is preventing injuries; it's as likely to campaign
against unsafe baby walkers as teen impaired driving.

But impaired driving is a leading cause of teenage death and injury.
So getting Smartrisk into schools is just one part of a much larger
united effort by the eight high schools in Dunrobin, Richmond,
Stittsville and Kanata.

As reported here last week, the schools have concluded that they have
a serious drug and alcohol problem on their hands.

They've realized working together is an essential part of any
solution. They insist drug abuse is a community issue but admit it
revolves around schools. And teens' social networks connect all the
area's schools.

"If you're going to work with young people, you need to work through
schools," says Daintry Topshee, who runs the Banting program.

"You make all your contacts at school," says Ms. Grant, who was
smoking marijuana every day until three months ago. Meeting a boy she
really liked prompted her to seek help from Rideauwood Addictions
Services. It operates at some schools, including hers.

"In high schools today, one in 10 kids are stoned or drunk in class,"
estimates Rideauwood's Paul Welsh.

"The big challenge is to get kids to come to the first session," says
Mr. Welsh.

Actually, the big challenge is finding the $15,000 to get a part-time
addictions counsellor into the building so there can even be a first
session. Schools are madly fundraising to try to expand the
availability of counselling.

"The money that might go for buses for teams or something else is
going to the addictions counsellor," says Paul McGuire of Holy Trinity
High School.

Mr. Welsh concedes experimenting with drugs and alcohol is a teenage
rite of passage. By graduation, nine-tenths of teens will have tried
alcohol and half will have used pot.

So his focus is kids whose problem is so severe it's disrupting the
classroom and destroying their education.

"We don't work with kids who've been caught with a
joint."

Mr. Welsh's clientele is high an average of 25 days a month and drunk
for 10. "We are dealing with kids who have very substantial problems."

The good news is it's possible to get results quickly. "With kids,
your chances of success are much greater than dealing with a
40-year-old."

So back to the beginning. There has been a booming population of teens
in the far west end, doubling since 1991 to nearly 20,000. Yet, today,
there are actually fewer resources to make that early difference in a
youth's life than a decade ago.

The schools are proving there are things we can do to help kids with
substance-abuse problems. But it just hasn't been a priority for
municipal, school board or provincial officials.

Come to think of it then, whose stupid line should we be most worried
about?