Treatment Gap for Teen Addicts (Part 1 of 4)

KIDS ON DRUGS

Parents, Counselors Condemn The Scarcity Of Help From County

The craving begins as soon as they wake up from a fitful night's sleep.
They need something just to get out of bed. The desire shoots through their
bodies. All they want is to take another hit, to get their first fix of the
morning.

Again and again, the teens swear off the speed, the heroin, the coke, the
acid. But the day after being released from Juvenile Hall, they call a
dealer. The night after leaving a rehab hospital, they reach for the
needle. On their way home from a support group meeting, they pull out the pipe.

The debate is an old one: Do they relapse because they aren't ready to
abandon their addiction? Or is it because the help isn't intensive enough
for them to escape the lure of drugs?

The high estimate from teens and parents is that half of Ventura County's
youths use illegal drugs. The low estimate from the county's top drug
official is 10%.

But even that conservative estimate means nearly 10,000 Ventura County
teens are drug users. And many of those--1,000 or so--require serious
treatment for full-blown addictions to drugs and alcohol. If they don't
receive that help, counselors say, it can lead to jail or death.

Just last week the county recorded a particularly tragic and dramatic
example of that, when a high school student was killed by a freight train
in Moorpark.

Friends said 16-year-old Drew Diederich was apparently high on LSD when he
ran from police onto the railroad tracks, where he stood until the train
came. Earlier that night Drew had attended a drug rehab meeting, counselors
say.

"With tragedy after tragedy, we just sort of shrug our shoulders and wish
it could be different," said Ginny Connell, executive director of the
Palmer Drug Abuse Program, which is contracted by the county to treat teen
drug users.

"The reality is . . . there aren't enough of us out there and we aren't
able to get to these kids soon enough." Connell said she doesn't know what
it's going to take to get county leaders to address this treatment gap for
teen addicts and increase funding for rehab programs.

Parents and counselors say the lack of services to treat adolescents with
substance abuse problems in Ventura County is appalling.

The county last year served 311 youths in drug and alcohol programs.
Officials say three times that number needed help.

Most shocking is that the county only provides six beds for drug-addicted
teens in the entire county--all of them in one small Santa Paula program
for girls.

Other resources are equally scarce throughout the community, parents say.
There are few 12-step meetings geared toward teens. And there aren't enough
drug counselors at schools.

The county spends about $185,000 a year on drug programs for youths, while
the county's top drug official says he needs $1 million. And while
adolescents make up 10% of the clientele for drug and alcohol programs,
they receive only 2% of the money.

Luis Tovar, who oversees all the county alcohol and drug programs in
Ventura County, recently applied for a $500,000 federal grant to expand
drug and alcohol services for local teens. He expects to hear next month
whether the county will receive the money.

"We are so woefully underfunded," Tovar said. "And because of funding,
we're handicapped. It's extremely difficult to be able to provide for
adolescents."

Teens, Poll Cite Higher Drug Use by Youths

Ventura County teens say the number of drug users is much higher than
county officials estimate. In a 1995 Los Angeles Times Poll of 460 Ventura
County teenagers, 36% said at least half of their classmates regularly used
illegal drugs.

Last fall the Simi Valley Youth Council, a student group that advises the
City Council on youth issues, conducted a survey of 377 high school
students. Of those, 46% said they had used illegal drugs.

And statewide, 53% of high school juniors said they had used drugs at least
once, according to a 1997-98 study by the California Department of Justice.
Nearly 49% said they had used drugs in the past six months, up from 38%
earlier in the decade.

Although the use of marijuana and alcohol has leveled off around
California, methamphetamine and inhalants are becoming more popular among
teenagers, the study showed. And the drugs are pervasive. Name the drug,
teens say, and you can find it just about anywhere in the county.

"It's everywhere," said Tracy, 16, who began smoking pot as a Simi Valley
middle school student before graduating to acid and ecstasy. "Every kid
probably knows someone or that person knows someone who can get it for
them. It's easy."

No area of Ventura County is immune. Students of every race, ethnicity and
socioeconomic level struggle with substance abuse issues. In the more
affluent cities of Moorpark and Thousand Oaks, just as in south Oxnard or
along Ventura Avenue, teens are stealing from their parents and spending
their weekly allowances on drugs. Drug dealing is a fact of life on middle
school and high school campuses. Sixteen-year-old Parker Mitchell's story
is disturbingly common.

The Simi Valley student, who has a tongue ring and wears bright magenta
lipstick, smoked her first cigarette when she was 9. For the next two
years, she says, she drank alcohol and smoked pot regularly. When she
turned 11, she began snorting cocaine, and quickly became addicted.
Meanwhile, she was popping pills, getting high constantly and smoking about
two packs of cigarettes a day.

"I was way into it," she said. "I did every kind of drug I could get my
hands on."

She maintained her straight-A average in elementary school, but then got
her first F in the seventh grade. She said to make herself feel better, she
got drunk. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

Drugs were not Parker's only worry. Her father was abusive, she said. She
was also diagnosed at 12 as a manic-depressive with obsessive compulsive
disorder. She tried to kill herself when she was 13. She stole all the time
and ran away from home three times, she adds. She did heroin, speed, acid,
ecstasy and crack.

At 14, however, the drugs stopped working. Parker got fed up with being an
addict, so she decided to get clean. It hasn't been easy. Two hospital
visits for detox and treatment. Three relapses. A week in the county's only
residential treatment center. Hundreds of support group meetings.

Now, Parker has been clean and sober for nearly three months. She is
getting As and Bs in school, and tries to inspire other teens to give up
drugs. At a recent support group meeting, Parker told a friend she was
proud of her for reaching 30 days clean.

"You know what you did?" she asked. "You saved your life."

Some of Ventura County's teen drug users come from upper middle-income
families with few visible problems, but most are children of alcoholics or
addicts. They come from broken and abusive homes. Their parents are in
prison. They suffer from depression and anxiety.

At a recent support group meeting in Oxnard, a counselor asked the teens to
raise their hands if a family member used drugs. All seven teens, seated in
a circle, reluctantly put their hands in the air.

"If they don't use, they aren't part of the family," said Barry Boatman,
who heads Children's Alcohol Rehabilitation and Education, which serves 24
foster teens at residential centers. "If mom and dad are using and selling,
and the kid stops, they are out of the loop. They don't fit into the family."

In many cases, drug problems escalate because of parental leniency. Parents
look the other way when their kids use alcohol or marijuana, said Cynthia
Kravets, an alcohol and drug specialist with the county.

"But when they start using meth, LSD or heroin, the parents freak out," she
said.

Many teens don't view marijuana as dangerous either. In probation
interviews, teens often say, "I don't do drugs. I just smoke bud
[marijuana]." But that is often seen by counselors as a gateway drug,
leading them quickly and dangerously toward harder substances.

Among the younger users, inhalants are becoming increasingly common, local
educators find. The youths sniff aerosol computer cleaner sprays, paint
thinners and nitrous oxide, looking for a quick, cheap high. But the
inhalants cause blackouts and neurological damage. And a single,
overwhelming sniff, known as a huff by users, can be fatal.

Among wealthy teens, heroin is the new drug of choice, counselors and
doctors say. Heroin is now cheaper and more potent then ever, turning more
and more middle- and upper-income youths into hard-core addicts. Ecstasy
and meth are also becoming more popular. For under $10, kids can get a
spoon of heroin to keep them high for three hours, or a hit of speed that
will keep them high for 10 hours. Acid costs about $5 per dose.

Principals Report Drug-Free Campuses

Teens who use drugs inevitably fall behind in school. They aren't motivated
to work. They cut classes to use. They get caught using or selling and get
expelled. Or they drop out, and their lives revolve around drugs. And many
school principals do their best to look the other way.

Nationwide, 80% of high school principals say their campuses are drug free.
In contrast, 78% of students say there are drugs on campus, according to
the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

"It's a problem in every school, public and private," said Eddie Zager, a
substance abuse counselor at Apollo High School in Simi Valley. "When they
don't put programs in place, they are not admitting that there's a problem.
And if there's not a problem, they don't have to deal with it."

The state Department of Justice has found 31% of high school juniors and
20% of freshmen have attended school either drunk or loaded at least once.
Students tell stories of sneaking drugs into school, passing drugs to each
other in classrooms, buying and selling drugs in cars and school restrooms,
smoking marijuana on campus at lunchtime.

Meanwhile, though denying drug use on most campuses, school officials
across the state spend millions of dollars on prevention programs to deter
students from using drugs in the broader society.

A Rand study released a year ago said the school-based drug prevention
programs are worth the cost but have produced only modest results. The
study estimated the best of anti-drug prevention efforts will curtail a
student's drug use by an average of 8% over his or her lifetime.

One of the most common school prevention programs is DARE, Drug Abuse
Resistance Education, which focuses on teaching students how to say no to
drugs through weekly lessons by police officers.

DARE officers work with schools in several local cities, including Simi
Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ojai. But some students and teachers say no
amount of classroom lectures will ever put a significant dent in drug use.
Parker, the 16-year-old recovering addict, said DARE didn't help her at all.

"I graduated from DARE with flying colors," she said. "I was stoned at my
DARE graduation."

Now, some schools are trying a different tack. Some campuses are focusing
on treatment by offering a range of counseling and support groups at
school. Other districts are hiring on-campus police officers and
drug-sniffing dogs to deter students from bringing drugs to school.

"Have we gotten everything? Probably not. Are we proactive? Yes," said
Jo-Ann Yoos, principal at Thousand Oaks High School.

In Ventura County, about four out of every 1,000 students possessed, sold
or used drugs or alcohol at school during the 1998-99 school year,
according to an annual report by the California Department of Education.
"There's always going to be drugs on campus," said Sheriff's Deputy Julie
Smith, who works at Moorpark schools. "Just because we have a school
resource officer there doesn't mean your child is going to stay off drugs."

In 1999, Ventura County sheriff's deputies arrested 286 juveniles on
suspicion of having or selling illegal drugs. That number is down from 367
five years ago. But police officers and prosecutors say the teens are also
committing a host of other crimes: petty theft, burglary, check forging and
tagging.

Superior Court Judge Brian Back, who presides over Juvenile Court, said
drugs are involved in 19 of his 20 cases. "It's just overwhelming," he
said. "If we didn't have substance abuse issues with these kids, we almost
wouldn't need a Juvenile Court."

Chris Weidenheimer, division chief of Ventura County Juvenile Hall, said
90% of the teenage inmates have substance abuse issues. Of those, 5% to 10%
are hard-core users, she said. When new inmates are admitted,
Weidenheimer's staff members routinely find pills in the inmates' pockets
and baggies of white powder in their underclothes.

County-Funded Effort Provides Inpatient Care

The one county-funded program in Ventura County that provides inpatient
care for teenagers is the six-bed Rainbow Recovery Youth Center in Santa
Paula, a house nestled in an orange grove.

During their four-month stays, the girls are busy from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
most days with exercise, school, housework and meetings. Every week they
attend five support sessions in the living room and six rehab meetings in
the community.

Although Rainbow's focus is drug rehabilitation, the girls also spend time
developing their self-esteem and learning how to replace drug use with
other activities.

There are also two psychiatric hospitals in the county--Vista del Mar and
Anacapa by the Sea--that provide inpatient drug rehabilitation. Because of
the cost, the hospital slots are often filled by teens whose parents have
insurance.

In response to the obvious need for more residential treatment services,
Leonard and Debbie Goldberg founded a nonprofit organization in 1994 to
raise funds for teens whose family insurance does not cover drug treatment.
Now the Westlake Village couple are trying to open a 30-bed treatment
center for teens in Ventura County that would include detox, rehab and
schooling.

The Goldbergs learned from first-hand experience that drug treatment in
Ventura County is slim for teens not in the juvenile justice system. Their
daughter used drugs heavily when she was a teenager, they said.

Most of the county's programs are outpatient and target youths in the
juvenile justice system. Juvenile Drug Court, which began last summer,
allows juvenile offenders to avoid jail time if they agree to an intensive
outpatient drug program.

There are three county-run outpatient programs, in Simi Valley, Oxnard and
Ventura. The teens attend weekly group sessions and monthly individual
counseling sessions, and are sometimes subject to random drug testing as a
part of their probation.

The county also contracts with private programs such as ACTION and Palmer
Drug Abuse Program to provide outpatient treatment. If the child is
court-referred, the county pays. If the child is a voluntary client, the
parents pay. But both programs also offer free services if a family can't
afford treatment.

ACTION runs weekly support groups throughout Ventura County, and offers
drug testing, a 24-hour hotline, drug counselors in the schools and an
emergency crisis team. In the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, teens attend group
and individual meetings and work through a 12-step program.

During a recent Palmer program meeting in Camarillo, about three dozen
youths lounged on couches. Above them, several names decorated the "wall of
recovery." As they took turns talking about their lives or feelings, a few
cried. Others held hands.

Cali, 15, a flippant teen who has tried ecstasy, acid, coke and heroin,
said she had been clean for two days.

"Two days is like a long time," she said. "I don't even know if I want to
be clean." She bragged about her 4.0 grade-point average, but said she
knows the drugs will catch up with her if she starts using again.

Angela, 18, with a weary expression and a baby boy, told the group she has
been clean for about a year. Although she missed the money she made selling
drugs, she said she is glad to be thinking clearly again.

"It's been a real hard road," she said. "I put a lot of things in jeopardy,
including my son. Everything is falling into place."

Parents and counselors agree residential centers are the biggest need in
the county. But they also say schools need to help students overcome their
addictions, and that there is a need for more teen 12-step groups.

Rigo, 17, who now attends teen meetings regularly to deal with his drug
problem, said that during his early days of recovery he dreaded going to
groups where most of the addicts were adults.

"I felt weird," he said. "I felt like I didn't belong. I was with a bunch
of 40-year-old heroin addicts."

Some say that even with the most extensive rehab and treatment, teen drug
addicts need to hit rock bottom before they are ready for treatment. But
that isn't easy for most young people, who, unlike older addicts, rarely
risk losing their jobs, marriages or children.

For some teens, losing their stereo or television might be enough of a
bottom. For others, it could be expulsion from school or time in Juvenile
Hall. The most serious addicts may have to overdose or see a friend die
before they decide to stop using drugs.

And, sometimes, even that isn't enough.

"It's hard for kids to bottom out, because they think they are invincible,"
said Weidenheimer of Juvenile Hall. "When they do bottom out, they are
dead. Then it's too late."

And to truly give up drugs, teens in nearly every instance need family
support, a new set of friends and healthy activities. Zager tells the
youths they only have to change one thing--everything. Playmates,
playthings and playgrounds.

"I tell them, 'If you hang around in a barbershop, you're gonna get a
haircut,' " he said. "It's the same thing with drugs. They need to change
their friends."

At a recent ACTION meeting at Simi Valley's Apollo High School, parents
went to one room and read aloud a list of parents' rights. You have the
right to a drug-free home. You have the right to change your mind. You have
the right to determine who may enter your home.

In another room, Zager led the teens in a conversation on the challenges of
staying clean. Recovery, he said, is more than just putting down the pipe.
It's a change in attitude.

Amie Swain, 16, knows that well.

After two years of doing pot, ecstasy and acid, Amie stopped doing drugs.
But after 65 days clean, she almost lost it all. Her purse was stolen,
along with her sobriety chips. She put the pipe in her mouth and had a
lighter in her hand before changing her mind.

"Then I realized what I was doing," said the red-haired teen with a wide
smile. "I think I've come a long way. I believe that I'm an addict, but I'm
gonna stay clean. I'm really strong. I can do it."

Part 2, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n709/a02.html