WASTED TEENS, WASTED FUTURE

Drugs: Neglect Of Teens Now Will Cost More Later

It is holiday season at the Olomana School at the Hawai`i Youth
Correctional Facility. There is a special guest and the boys at the
table are excited. They are anticipating being fed holiday treats,
playing games and being visited by a tourist.

Her name is Mildred, a retired attorney from Brooklyn, New York. She
is 72 and white haired. When asked how many grandchildren she has, she
says she cannot remember.

The boys, who are between 15 and 16 years old, Japanese, Filipino,
Native Hawaiian and hapa-haole don't care. Some of them don't even
know where Brooklyn is. Among them are drug users, perpetrators of
violent crimes and thieves.

Few people from Hawai`i come to visit these boys and they are grateful
for the punch, the cake, Mildred's sincere warmth and her willingness
to treat them as ordinary people.

One of the boys who sits next to me compares his hand drawn ink
tattoos, crosses, knives and awkwardly drawn letters with the boy next
to him.

"I want to do drugs," he says staring straight ahead. "That's why I'm
here."

He's not alone.

Nonchalant Neglect

It is estimated by the State of Hawai`i Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division
that 16 percent of the students in Hawai`i's public and private schools
are in need of alcohol and drug abuse treatment.

Less than one third of them receive any help. Not surprisingly the
juvenile halls are full, there are many disruptive students in classes
and no prospect that circumstances will change any time soon.

Ironically, while the number and diversity of young people impacted by
drugs and alcohol has gone up, funding for state programs that could
help them has gone down and in some cases been completely eliminated.

At the Hawai`i Youth Correctional Facility in Kailua, a new
five-year-old building built for 30 occupants now has nearly 60. In
addition another building on the property is housing 25 people. While
children are sleeping on mattresses on the floor and facilities are
bursting at the seams, the political mood toward them is one of almost
complete indifference.

Incarceration without rehabilitation No one seems to care that some of
these children will spend the rest of lives time in the system, that
some girls will have babies at 16, or that few will be rehabilitated
after leaving incarceration.

One of the teachers said that after 12 years of hard work at the
facility, she is confident of having saved only one child from
becoming a repeat offender.

"Its not a priority in the minds of many people," explains a
matter-of-fact Dr. Terry Shintani, the director of preventive and
integrative medicine at the Wai`anae Health Clinic.

"There's no money in it and there no big companies or insurance
companies that benefit so nobody is really interested. People think
that so long as they or their families are not involved it doesn't
affect them.

"What they don't seem to realize is that if you get one child who is
born with fetal alcohol syndrome or a baby born to a mother who is
chemically abused and that person commits x number of crimes you are
going to have this person who becomes a social problem for the rest of
his or her life.

"And when you start to multiply the number of drug addicted babies
that are either going to grow and commit crimes or are going to be on
welfare the cost is enormous."

All Hawai`i Youths Vulnerable

The inability of the public education system to deal with the problems
that face so many young people has been widely addressed.

What has not is that the problems cross class and social lines. How
else can you explain that a recent study of Hawai`i high school public
school and private school seniors indicates that more than 30 percent
of the Caucasian and Native Hawaiian students surveyed indicated that
they were in need of alcohol or drug treatment and approximately one
in five of the Filipino and American of Japanese ancestry students?

The numbers are staggering. It has been estimated by the state
Department of Health that as many as 16,000 children in Hawai`i meet
the criteria for needing treatment. The health department provides
treatment to a mere 1,400 now.

The number of those receiving treatment from funds from private
insurers are unknown.

Renee Klingle, a professor of health communications at the University
of Hawai `i, who administered the survey of 25,000 children in 204
public and 44 private schools said there was a reason why so many
children were at risk. Drugs are readily available to them from
family, friends and peers within their social networks.

"We ask the kids where do you get your drugs and they say they often
get them from family members or friends." Although there is a
presupposition that students attending private schools are not as
badly affected as those in private schools, the drug epidemic among
young people is so widespread that no one is immune.

One University of Hawai`i researcher said that the information gleaned
from their studies indicates both groups were equally at risk. Private
schools did slightly better, with 13 percent indicating need for
treatment. Sixteen percent of public school students indicated that
they were in need of treatment.

The problem of alcohol drugs and rehabilitation is not a public school
problem, but more insidiously, a widespread problem that affects all
Hawai`i youth.

Legacy Of Latchkey Childhood

There are a number of reasons for the epidemic. Hawai`i has a well
established drug culture that goes back at least two generations.
In Hawai`i the selling of drugs for many years has been viewed as a
"victimless crime."

The children have few defenses. Because of today's economy in which
both parents work, large numbers of young people grow up as "latchkey
children" with the television as babysitter. Lacking close family
networks, grandparents, uncles, aunts etc. as role models the children
look to TV and music videos for cues on how to behave.

In many cases, TV reinforces the use of drugs and alcohol the children
see at home.

Unfortunately, there has been little financing for alternate programs
that build self-esteem and help teens interact such as midnight
basketball, social centers and structured programs for
rehabilitation.

During the last 20 years, efforts at reform have been sporadic.
Repeated calls for new drug programs, better facilities for young
children and counseling for teen mothers by organizations such as the
ACLU have been met by successive state and county administrations with
indifference.

In part, this may be because each of Hawai`i's demographic groups
responds differently to the drug crisis.

Some of the groups, primarily Hawaiian, Caucasian and Filipino, tend
to take a more tolerant view of drug use, often viewing it as a stage
through which young people progress.

Other groups, particularly Japanese and Chinese, take a harsher view,
threatening members of the families with exclusion if they do drugs.

Societal Risk In Making

Some parents mistakenly conclude that it is a "public school" problem
because they sent their own children to expensive private schools where
the penalty for doing drugs or alcohol can be expulsion. No one understood
that when funding was cut for children's programs, the roots of more
expensive long term problems were being created.

The risks for society are steadily increasing, from working class
Kalihi to upscale Lanikai. The situation on the Neighbor Islands is
even worse, with Hawai`i, Maui and Kaua`i counties having a larger
proportion of students with substance abuse treatment needs than the
City and County of Honolulu.

Elaine Wilson, the head of the State Department of Health Drug and
Alcohol Division, said that alcohol use by teenagers often leads to
drug use. Hawai`i eighth graders drink (on average 20 out of 30 days)
at a rate three times the national average and the problem is getting
worse.

"What concerns me is that we are getting information that increasing
numbers of 4th graders are drinking, Wilson said.

"We used to worry about 15 year olds Now we worry about 11 year olds.
The problem is snowballing. Its frightening."

Barbara Fuller is the teacher in charge at Olomana School at the
Hawai`i Youth Correctional Facility. She has taught at the school for
twenty years.

"We know today that the need for money to buy drugs is causing crimes.
The other big problem is that many of the youth that are in trouble
lack the ability to read and write. If they have a problem, it's not
diagnosed andby the time they get into seventh and eighth grades, they
seem to fall apart. They drop out of school, become truant and one
thing leads to the other."

Focusing on Youths

Young people, whether they are in private or public schools, have to
be made a state priority.

More money has to be invested into school-based alcohol and drug
rehabilitation programs in public as well as private schools.

Money must be invested in structured programs of counseling,
prevention of teen pregnancy, new public gyms, parenting classes,
remedial reading and special education.

The expertise to do this right is out there. It is not being done.
Elected officials in Hawai`i have had a free ride on this issue for
too long.

They should have it no more.

Civic organizations like Rotary and the Hawai`i Civic Clubs that devote
much of their time to helping outstanding students need to spend some
time helping those at risk. Some of the teenagers, particularly those
from Neighbor Islands get no visitors at all.

The cost of drug counseling is $2,000 per student.

I asked Wilson what she thought the costs would be if Hawai`i continues
along its present path.

Her reply: "What's the cost of our future?"