DRUG CLASS AN EYE OPENER FOR LOCAL TEACHERS

Part of Friday's professional development day held at Barrhead
Composite High School, focused on the impact that drugs have on their
users and what teachers should look for when they're in their classrooms.

Taught by RCMP Cst. Morroco Johnson, the school liaison officer, the
hour-and-a-half session saw a full house of over 26 educators sit down
in a classroom to hear the presentation which covered a plethora of
drugs and their effects.

Johnson began the session by defining a drug as anything that changes
the way a person's body or mind works.

She spent the majority of the next hour speaking about specific drugs,
giving examples of how they smell, or what they look like.

For drugs like crack cocaine or methamphetamine, which are
increasingly common in the Barr-head area according to the police, she
gave graphic details coming from her experiences working the beat.

Johnson spoke about the threat to students' health and well-being from
popular drugs like marijuana, ecstasy and cocaine, while warning those
present about the rising popularity of drugs such as methamphetamine,
colloquially called meth, which has become an epidemic in many parts
of the country.

She said that while working in more affluent areas in southern
Alberta, she saw many cases of cocaine and ecstasy abuse, while in the
region around Barrhead, cheaper drugs like crack cocaine and meth are
more common.

If a parent or teacher suspects that someone is abusing meth, they
need professional help to stop using the drug.

"Most of the people on crack, meth or heroin have to go to a centre,"
Johnson said, while clicking through slides showing the rotten teeth
and deep, festering sores common among meth addicts.

While meth, marijuana and cocaine have had an effect in the community
for years, Johnson suspects that date-rape drugs such as
gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, or GHB, may be trickling into Barrhead's
high school.

"There's been a few incidents at the school where I suspect GHB might
be involved," said the officer, who patrols the halls of local schools
as part of her job as a school liaison.

Even the family medicine cabinet can be a source of drug abuse, if
teens take their parents' prescription medication or become involved
in illegal methods of obtaining drugs like oxycontin or ketamine - a
powerful horse tranquilizer - Johnson said.

"I think it's around Barrhead," she said, referencing the number of
veterinary offices that may see ketamine go missing. "Keep your eyes
open for this one," Johnson told the crowd. "We have quite a few
drugstore thefts."

The main message of the afternoon session, for Johnson, was that
whether they were in the classroom teaching, behind a desk in the
school's office or at home with their own children, everyone plays a
role in how kids turn out.

"Be a good role model because they're going to follow what you do,"
she said. If parents need help reaching their children, the government
of Alberta has created, along with law enforcement, a program called
Kids & Drugs. Johnson said the program is a way for parents to educate
themselves on how to approach drug abuse with the attitude that they
should help their children, rather than yell at them.

For educators sitting in the audience, Johnson's presentation was a
useful tool to add to their toolbox when they head back into class,
said Allan Menduk, the principal of Fort Assiniboine School.

He said the presentation reinforces a reality in rural Alberta and
small schools. Drugs can be a problem and educators need to know what
to look for.

Menduk felt that seeing examples and hearing about both the physical
and behavioral signs that a student may be using drugs was useful.

This year has been a quiet one at Fort Assiniboine though, as the
staff hasn't seen evidence of drug use at the small composite school.

"We haven't had any signs of it coming into the building," Menduk
related.

Michelle Kennett is a program assistant at Dunstable School in the
Pembina Hills School Division. She felt the presentation was "eye opening."

"There was one of the movies that we were shown about kids doing as
their parents do and that really should be on TV," she said.

"What they showed was a parent going to beat up a wife and a child
right beside, doing the same thing, a mother throwing up on the side
of the road and the child doing the same thing," she explained, about
the public awareness video Johnson played.

"We really have to think what we're showing our children and the next
generation to come."

While drugs are much less of a concern at elementary schools like
Dunstable, the program assistant echoed the sentiment of many in the
room, confirming that the presentation was welcomed by many educators
in the room.

"This is information for anybody, it's out there in our world,"
Kennett said.