STUDENTS FIGHT BACK AGAINST METH

Boys & Girls Club, COMA offer meth education

In the middle of a white poster were four letters scrawled in
purple.

M-E-T-H.

Samantha Caudillo worked with her group to hastily cover up the
letters with post-its, pictures from magazines and drawings of their
own.

Each one represented something a community could use to battle meth
abuse.

"This looks like a good community," Caudillo said, pointing to a
picture of children playing in a park. "Let's put this on there,
because if you do meth, then you can't have this."

She and her group were in the midst of a seminar Tuesday at the Boys
& Girls Club of Craig about meth abuse and its effect on individuals
and communities. Communities Overcoming Meth Abuse worked with the
club to incorporate educational programs into national
Methamphetamine Awareness Week.

Jonathan Judge, a program manager with the Colorado Meth Project,
brought a new curriculum and fresh information for the classes he
will teach during the week.

On Tuesday, he focused on meth in communities and how the destructive
drug can break down not just individuals, but the structure of an
entire community.

He began with an exercise that wove a web of colorful string around
the room, each of which represented something the community took
pride in, like the Moffat County School District, the Craig Police
Department and the outdoors.

When Judge cut one string, the entire web fell apart.

"It's not an individual problem," Judge said. "It affects everyone
around that person."

He discussed with the students how toxic waste from meth labs can
contaminate natural resources and how two thirds of identity theft
cases are meth related.

While the class was meant for students as young as 10, many of the
students already have experienced the force of meth within their
social network.

Tatam Hickman, 10, said she had a family member who was addicted to
meth.

"She had two of her teeth fall out," Tatam said. "And she had to get
fake ones."

Samantha said she also had a family member who went through a battle
with meth.

"We told her she had to stop or we would all go to therapy or
something," Samantha said. "She would act all weird and think people
were after her."

She said she understood how meth could grab hold of an entire
community.

"It would affect people because once they do it will keep spreading,"
she said. "It will affect the whole environment. People would just
hide in their rooms."

However, she said the community can react and support one
another.

"We can tell them their lives will be better if they don't do it,"
she said.

Although meth education tends to focus its efforts on teens and young
adults, Judge said it's important to keep children as young as 10
aware and informed of the drug and its consequences.

"We want to give them sound information and reinforce their healthy
habits and identify the negative ones," he said. "There's a lot of
ignorance and misinformation surrounding the drug, and we just want
to equip them with facts."

Judge said he was not well informed when he started his job with the
Colorado Meth Project. His background was in education, not substance
abuse.

Through working with addicts, their families and communities, he has
seen the effect that meth can have on individuals, communities and
society.

He admitted that what he saw was worse than he had
imagined.

"The drug is worse than I thought," he said. "The consequences of
using are worse than I thought. But the hope is greater than I
thought, too. When I see the Boys & Girls Club and COMA working
together to educate children, that gives me hope."