SMALL STEPS -- YOUTH USE, ABUSE CALLS FOR ACTION

Pitt County received mixed results from a recent survey of high
school and middle school students about their use of tobacco, alcohol
and narcotics. While progress was made deterring children from
smoking, students admitted a greater willingness to engage in other
risky and potentially harmful behavior. That fact is cause for
concern, but also for optimism. The declining smoking rate indicates
that children are listening to messages of deterrence and behaving
accordingly. By expanding those efforts to explain the ill effects of
alcohol and drugs, Pitt County might be able to make strides in
protecting kids from the danger of substance abuse.

Last spring, a coalition of local medical organizations fighting
substance abuse surveyed nearly 7,000 Pitt County middle and high
school students to determine their behavior patterns in regard to
drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The results, presented at a breakfast for
educators and local leaders, demonstrated a decidedly mixed
conclusion about how schoolchildren view those substances since a
similar survey in 2005.

The report showed a slight decline in the use of tobacco, with 18.3
percent of students admitting to smoking a cigarette in the past 30
days compared to 18.6 percent two years ago. Some 86 percent of those
surveyed said they believed tobacco poses a moderate or great risk to
their health. One can reasonably conclude that warnings about smoking
and its dangerous effects have taken their toll and produced results.

Sadly, the same cannot be said about alcohol or marijuana use. About
73 percent of students said alcohol posed a significant health risk
to their health or well being, and only 72.3 percent said the same
about marijuana. Alcohol use rose among the students, from 28.7
percent in 2005 to 32.2 percent this year, as did marijuana use, from
17.8 percent to 20.6 percent in 2007. Youth in Pitt County, and
across the country, find themselves receiving widely varying messages
about the health threat posed by smoking, drinking and drug use.
While anti-smoking ads are pervasive, cigarettes are virtually
ubiquitous in the entertainment industry. Beer and other alcoholic
beverages are widely marketed -- those businesses invest heavily in
NASCAR, for instance. And pot smoking no longer seems to have the
social stigma of the counterculture as it once did.

But protecting this community's youth depends on helping them sort
through that torrent of media to make informed choices. It means
parents must have serious, sometimes difficult, conversations with
their children and encourage questions and discussion on the matter.
And it means striving to reinforce the message of deterrence in
schools, as well. Pitt County can be pleased in a slight decline in
tobacco use, but it should not be satisfied. Now is the time for
heavy lifting and harder work because both are clearly needed.