POT USE 'NO BIG DEAL' TO TEENS

Jeff Nudera, a health teacher at Naperville Central High School, says
teenagers think smoking marijuana is "no big deal."

He wants to prove them wrong.

To gather ammunition, Nudera attended a marijuana conference Wednesday at
the College of DuPage.

About 200 people from throughout the area also took part to learn how to
teach teens to shun pot.

"We've seen an increase of use among the mainstream of students," said Debra
Quinn, a counselor at West Aurora High School. "They will admit to using,
and they don't wish to stop."

"Prevalence has so dramatically increased, and the attitude is so blase or
lackadaisical," agreed Mary Bernhardt of Breaking Free, a drug treatment
center in Naperville and Aurora.

Yet marijuana has changed significantly from the 1960s to the 1990s, she
said.

Susan Dalterio, a professor at the University of Texas and Wednesday's
conference speaker, told the group that marijuana is up to 25 percent
stronger than it used to be, and the drug is highly addictive.

On top of that, a new way to smoke it can be lethal and can cause more
aggressive behavior, she said.

"Blunts," or cigars stuffed with marijuana and soaked in a solvent, have
started appearing in places like Houston, she said.

"If a child is asthmatic and decides to experiment with any drug soaked in a
solvent, it can be life threatening," said Dalterio, an expert on drug use
and its dangers.

Blunts also allow more THC, which produces marijuana's high, into the body's
system.

In the '60s, marijuana contained only trace amounts of THC, she noted. "In
the 1980s, it was up to 10 percent. Now it is up to 15 or 17 percent," and
in some cases it's up to 25 percent.

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, hashish can contain up to
28 percent THC.

The problem with THC - and the more than 450 other chemicals in marijuana -
is that it alters brain chemistry, Dalterio said.

And unlike alcohol and other drugs, marijuana is not water soluble. It is
stored in fat cells for weeks at a time.

"Marijuana has staying power," she said, noting that's why it doesn't
produce a hangover. "There's no withdrawal."

If used often enough, the drug can change brain chemistry, leading to
changes in behavior.

"People are slower," she said. "They get very relaxed about important
things."

That's because long-term use slows down the absorption of hormones and other
chemicals in the brain.

Dalterio said parents should become alarmed if their child once had "huge"
dreams and now seems unmotivated.

"They aren't stressed if they lose a girlfriend or a boyfriend," she said.
"They lose their edge."

Rhonda Sweedler, coordinator of Hazelden Chicago at Lombard, the group that
hosted Dalterio at COD, said at least 90 percent of their clients report
they use marijuana.

The center has treated 150 young people aged 14 to 25 since opening in
March.

"Schools are reporting to us that most kids having drug and alcohol problems
say their first use was in the sixth or seventh grade," Sweedler said.

"We really need to band together and look at this problem earlier than high
school, when it becomes a matter of intervention," she said.

Craig Boura, a clinician with DuPage County's Psychological Services, said
that won't happen until better statistics on local use become available.

"There really is a lack of quality material that has information that I
really trust," said Boura, who teaches a class to adolescents arrested for
marijuana possession.

In a given year, county courts will order about 200 people aged 15 to 25 to
take his class.

"I would suspect that's a small percentage of the people using," he said.

Checked-by: Don Beck