EXPERT: DRUGS HAVE HIDDEN DANGER

Ex-DEA Agent Says Students Seek Good Feeling Without Knowing Risks.

LAKELAND | Drug use in the 1960s and 1970s was rebellion, mood
swings and psychedelic colors.

OxyContin, an addictive pain killer today's students crush and
swallow, has a different impact.

It gives them a sense of warmth, safety and well being, they tell
Bob Stutman, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent who paid
a follow-up visit to Lakeland on Thursday.

Stutman was in Lakeland last year at the behest of local business
leaders to interact with students and parents at George Jenkins High School.

This year he was at Lakeland High School.

"It is no longer a sense of rebellion," Stutman said. "It is using
drugs to simply feel better in reality."

But students don't realize how dangerous prescription drugs like
that are, he said, just as some don't realize what they take.

At Lakeland High, Stutman heard about drinking and taking OxyContin
or similar prescription drugs, with marijuana appearing to come third.

He heard students describe "classic flashbacks but they had no clue
they were flashbacks because they didn't know they were using LSD."

Students eat mushrooms they think give a natural high, not knowing
they're laced with LSD, he said, recalling one who said "I thought I
was going nuts."

Parents can't afford to ignore children's drug use or the role they
may play in causing it. The largest predictor of whether a student
will start long-term alcohol or drug abuse is how much interaction
their parents have with them at the dinner table, Stutman said.

Changes in drugs students use and why they use them require changes
in approach, he said, adding that he recently quit working with a
national group because it continued looking to the past.

"They were dealing with the problems of the '70s and '80s," he said.
"I don't have time for that. I'm dealing with kids who are dying now."

Thursday night, he spoke at Lakeland High about the need to work
together in explaining the dangers of drugs in ways students can
understand and respect.

He and Angie Ellison, executive director of the Drug Prevention
Resource Center, hope Lakeland High will form parent and student groups.

Between Stutman's visits, the center's board has gone through its
own self-examination.

One outcome is a rebranding: The center is changing its name to
InnerAct Alliance.

For more information, Stutman can be reached at 863-802-0777.