TEENS SEEK WAYS TO FIGHT DRUGS, ALCOHOL

If high schools provide more extracurricular activities, teens will
have less opportunity to, say, light up a joint.

The suggestion that after-school options like drop-in gym would help
solve the teen drug and alcohol problem was one of many that came from
a group of about 45 Grade 9-11 students from four city high schools
gathered at Hunting Hills High School on Saturday.

They spent the day at a youth symposium called Changes, looking for
solutions to drug and alcohol issues.

Events included presentations and students sharing their own
experiences with addiction or those of friends, plus brainstorming for
solutions.

Later in the afternoon, representatives of each of the four high
schools: Hunting Hills; Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive; Notre Dame; and
Red Deer Public Alternative School, presented the action plans they
had hammered out to the whole assembly.

The strategies included:

- - Bringing drug-sniffing dogs into schools.

- - Tougher consequences at school.

- - Having students meet with teachers and educate them about how to
detect a student who is stoned and the kind of behaviour such a
student exhibits.

- - When students are expelled, make it a requirement that their parents
must accompany them to AADAC sessions so the parents are better able
to help their children.

- - Hold more student assemblies with speakers such as Norbert Georget.
He addressed Saturday's group about teenage drinking and driving,
substance abuse and peer pressure. Georget is a former Saskatoon
paramedic who dealt with the aftermath of drinking and driving and
drug addiction while on the job.

- - Show students the effects of addiction, don't just talk about it.

- - Create and display posters, even in school washrooms, but change
them frequently or the message loses its punch.

- - Have more people available for teens to talk to. School counsellors
are overloaded as it is and you have to make an appointment to see
them.

- - Separate the topics of smoking, drugs and alcohol and go into them
in greater depth. For example, do an entire class on cocaine,
including its side effects and the sort of behaviour exhibited by
people under its influence. And provide information on how to quit an
addiction.

- - Provide alternatives, like having free or low-cost drop-in gym after
school, or access to the art room to paint, sculpt and draw.

- - Maintain the momentum of Saturday's session by getting together
every two weeks.

- - Role play scenarios that might develop, like taking the car keys
from a drunken friend.

Ed McIntyre and Chris McKerracher of Sylvan Lake acted as "theme
weavers" at the conference.

McIntyre urged the participants not to let the progress made on
Saturday die.

David Laing of Alberta Community Development participated in the
session and is to put together all the action plans and send the
resulting document back to participants. He too urged the students to
put the plans to work in their schools and challenged each school to
implement at least one of the suggestions.