STUDY: RURAL KIDS USE MORE DRUGS THAN CITY KIDS

The scene: rolling hills, cows grazing on farms, small, quaint towns
where everyone knows everyone else. Then add this to the picture:
teen-agers smoking crack, snorting cocaine, drinking and using marijuana.

Something doesn't seem to fit? Well, that's the portrait of rural
America - where teens are more likely to use drugs than their urban
counterparts - painted by a recent study.

The study, by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse,
says 11.6 percent of eighth-graders in rural areas used marijuana in
the past month as opposed to 8.6 percent in big cities. Rural
eighth-graders also used cocaine more in the past year, 3.1 percent
versus 2.1 percent. In the last year, 2.1 percent of eighth-graders in
the country used crack cocaine; their city peers, 1.2 percent.

"Parents still believe that this is something that happens in Utica or
Syracuse," said Susan Jenkins, executive director of Bridges, the
Madison County Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

In fact, a survey of pupils in Central New York by the state Office of
Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services found that among seventh-
through 12th-graders, 76 percent have used alcohol; 57 percent
cigarettes; 44 percent marijuana; 20 percent inhalants; 20 percent
analgesics (painkillers); 12 percent LSD; and 7 percent cocaine.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, at Columbia
University, released its study Jan. 26. The center used 1999 data to
determine the use of illicit drugs, alcohol and nicotine by eighth-,
10th- and 12th-graders in large metropolitan, small metropolitan and
rural areas.

The study defined rural areas as counties where no city has a
population greater than 50,000. Oswego, Madison and Cayuga counties
fit that definition. And by some people's reckoning, much of Onondaga
County outside the Syracuse area is rural.

The nationwide study found rural tenth-graders use more cocaine,
amphetamines, crack, barbiturates, inhalants, hallucinogens, LSD,
heroin, steroids and tranquilizers: Every drug except marijuana and
Ecstasy. High school seniors in rural areas use more cocaine,
amphetamines, barbiturates, inhalants, crack and tranquilizers. The
use of marijuana, hallucinogens, LSD, Ecstasy and steroids is higher
in cities once students reach the twelfth grade, the study said.

The numbers of Central New York youths using drugs mirror those of the
national study. The most recent numbers from the state Office of
Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services show 25 percent of Central New
York fifth- and sixth-graders have used alcohol, 19 percent have
smoked cigarettes and 4 percent have used marijuana.

Marijuana use among Central New York teens is slightly higher than the
state average, said Daniel F. Farrell, a spokesman for the substance
abuse office.

One reason parents choose to live outside urban areas, is that it
appears to be a healthier place for children, said Kathleen Fenlon,
executive director of the Oswego County-City Youth Bureau. Parents
assume drugs and alcohol are not a problem, she said.

They're wrong.

Rural teens have less to do than their urban counterparts, and getting
to the activities that do exist isn't always easy. Also, cities offer
more services to deal with drug problems, say local school officials,
drug counselors and those who work with youth.

Young people in the country have fewer options and less access to all
kinds of recreational opportunities, said Kevin Days, executive
director of Booker T. Washington Community Center in Auburn. With
fewer options, sometimes rural teens "chose poorly," he said.

Fenlon hears from young people all the time that if a person wants
drugs or alcohol, "it's easy to get."

Anybody who walks along the streets of Madison County can see it's a
problem, said Jenkins. Young people today have more money, mobility,
access to drugs and unsupervised time, she said.

Everyone agrees the first step to addressing teen drug use is to admit
that there is a problem.

That's a hard thing to face for many parents, Fenlon said. And that's
why they need to be educated, too.

Jenkins cited a survey that said young people don't know what their
parents expect. And many parents don't feel they have much influence
or find certain topics hard to discuss, she said.

"Sometime (parents) think students are more sophisticated than they
really are," Jenkins said.

Experts say parents and school and the entire community have to form a
united front to combat drug use. Sometimes, though, adults send mixed
signals, they say.

Recently, officials in two area schools districts were criticized for
punishing students who attended parties where drugs and alcohol were
available.

Last fall, the Oswego school board wanted to investigate district
administrators after they interrogated a group of students who
attended such a party. The party ended with a home being vandalized.
Local youth workers and drug counselors criticized the board for
sending mixed signals to students.

More recently in Cayuga County's Union Springs, the parents of an
athlete sued the district after the administration suspended a group
of athletes and honor students for attending a party where alcohol was
available. A judge threw out the suspensions. Again, critics
complained that adults were sending mixed signals.

Union Springs schools Superintendent Whitney Vantine called the
judge's decision "unfortunate." But, he said, some good came out of
the incident. The district and community are talking about substance
abuse and a host of other issues, he said.

"We're doing everything we can to raise awareness about the issue,"
Vantine said.

Kathy McCloskey, the administrator responsible for health and physical
education in Syracuse schools, said she never saw the drug problem as
solely an urban problem.

"I believe it is true whether you're in an urban, suburban or rural
area," she said.

Students need reinforcement from home, school, teachers, coaches,
churches and police, she said.

"That's when it's going to get through to the kids," she
said.

However, it is a complex issue, she said.

"The real issue is that society is so complicated and some problems so
powerful, that you can't get away from it," Days, of the Auburn teen
center, said. "You used to be able to get away from that culture."