PREVENTING DRUG USE BY CHILDREN A COMMUNITY EFFORT

According to the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, more than 20 percent
of high school students in Wisconsin had been offered, given or sold
illegal drugs on school property in the span of a year.

Dodge County school administrators and police say they are working to
decrease those numbers locally.

"We take really seriously students and their learning and their
education," said Dodgeland administrator Annette Thompson. "We are
fortunate that we are a small school. Most teachers know the students
by name. We've got excellent counselors that are building these
trusting relationships with students."

She said educators need to build children's confidence to help them
become the best people they can be. Overall she believes most children
are good and need to be encouraged to make the right choices.

Michael Mosher, Beaver Dam police officer and school liaison officer,
said that often drugs are limited to a relatively few students.

"We're dealing with a small percentage of kids that are getting
themselves into trouble," he said.

Mosher said the most common drug he sees in schools is marijuana.
However, he said there has been a rise in prescription drugs. He said
children will often take whatever they can find at home or in
relative's medicine cabinet.

Beaver Dam drug task force officer Ryan Klavekoske said he has seen a
dramatic increase in the number of prescription drug cases in the last
10 years. With the exception of marijuana, prescription drugs are the
most common drugs they deal with on the street.

"That just wasn't the case 10 years ago," he said. "You dealt with
marijuana, you dealt with cocaine, your stereotypical street drugs."

Klavekoske said the prevalence with both adults and children has made
prescription drugs cases more common than everything except marijuana.

Kay Marose of Dodge County human services and health said when they
get a referral for a child caught with drugs, the first thing they do
is try to gather a history.

"Is this just a one-time incident?" she said. "Are there other issues
in the family? Are they successful in school? Are they having problems
at home? Does the family have a whole culture of accepting substance
abuse?"

She said after gathering information, they try to provide services.
She said sometimes the mind set of a teenager can create challenges
for treatment.

"[With] substance abuse, probably everybody knows, if you don't think
it's a problem, it's very hard to treat" Marose said. "Adolescents,
with their adolescent mind set, they're not mature. They're impulsive.
They don't consider the consequences."

Social service referrals include children ages 10 to
16.

"We try to figure out the risk and the needs and try to fashion their
requirements accordingly," she said. "We will send them to AODA
counseling and that sometimes can be effective. Often it is a choice
about leisure activity and it is a choice about peers. If you have to
change your peer group, that is very difficult for an adolescent. It's
a challenge for the parent. It's a challenge for the community at large."

District attorney Kurt Klomberg said it's important to remember that
most teenagers are not getting prescription drugs by themselves.

"A 15-year-old kid is not filling a prescription by themselves at a
pharmacy for oxycodon, methodone or morphine," he said. "There is an
adult somewhere. It might be the kid's prescription, but their parent
got it filled. Grandparents have got a legitimate prescription for it
and the kid is allowed to go and take it. There are adults that are in
that process."

Klomberg said it may also be a case of adults filling prescriptions
and then selling the drugs. In any case, he said catching the problem
early helps the community in the long run.

He said prescription drug use is linked to heroin use with many
adults. Oxycodone, methodone, morphine and heroin are all derived from
the opium poppy.

"We've seen 100 percent inflation in the street value of these drugs
over the last few years," Klomberg said. "They get the same effect out
of heroin. It's cheaper to get the heroin than it is to get the
prescriptions. Dealing with the prescription drug problem in the
schools before it develops to an unmanageable level is really
important, because those are the future addicts that are going to be
driving the heroin trade in the community if they don't get that
treatment and education early on."

He also said many students don't realize they can be expelled for
having drugs on school grounds at any time of the day, whether in
class or at a football game.

Dodge County Sheriff's deputy and K-9 officer Gib Fairman said he and
his K-9 Ziva have been called into five schools this year.

"The kids are getting smarter these days," he said "They're not
actually bringing the drugs in the schools. If they are, they're
keeping them on their person somewhere or out in their car. But still
it's on school property."

If drugs are found in schools, it is up to the municipal police
department and/or the school to decide how to handle the situation.

Marose said expulsion doesn't really help a student. In fact, she
said, it may simply drive the child into further drug use or simply
not finishing school.

Klomberg said schools have a difficult balancing act.

"You do have to consider that individual and what's best for that
individual going forward," he said "You also have to think about the
greater community. How do you balance that? That's what school boards
and communities are struggling with, is how do you balance that to
deal with the individual as well as making sure that the greater
community doesn't have a degradation because of that influence."

Everyone agrees it is not an issue that is likely to disappear anytime
soon.

"I think it will be an issue for schools today and it will be an issue
for schools in the future," Thompson said. "We need to respond
proactively, and also we have to react when children do decide to
disobey our code of conduct."