CHARLOTTE YOUTHS' DRUG USE DOWN, STILL ABOVE STATE AVERAGES

Immediately after the Charlotte County school district learned in 2002 that
its students had the highest rate of drug use in Florida, the district
finally decided it needed someone to fix the problem.

The hiring of Amity Chandler is paying dividends now.

According to results of the 2004 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, less
Charlotte middle- and high-schoolers are using illegal drugs and alcohol
than in 2002, but the percentages are mostly still well above state averages.

As for illicit drug use, Chandler, director of the Charlotte Alliance for a
Safe & Drug Free Community, said Charlotte now ranks ahead of Gulf, Monroe
and Wakulla counties.

She also said the 2 percent to 5 percent drop seen in nearly all categories
is what she realistically hoped for, but is still not nearly good enough.

"We want to move two or three (percentage) points every year," Chandler
said. "This is progress, but it's nothing to write home about yet."

The survey was given randomly to 877 middle-schoolers and 875 high-
schoolers in the spring of 2004. Exaggerated surveys were then discarded,
and 1,627 of the surveys were analyzed.

Students were asked a series of questions on their use of drugs and
alcohol, including if they have ever tried them and if so, had they done so
within the past 30 days, which helps signify common use.

As in years past, alcohol use dominated the use of other drugs with
Charlotte youths, including almost 22 percent of respondents who said they
had at least five drinks in a row in the 30 days before they took the survey.

The alcohol problem particularly bothers Chandler because besides tobacco,
it is the one thing the public can really keep from children.

"As a community there's absolutely, positively no reason why our kids
should be able to get a hold of alcohol," she said. "For the number to be
that high is inexcusable."

A cross-section of students found the most common way of getting alcohol
was simply taking it out of their parents' refrigerator or liquor cabinet.
Convenience stores was second on the list, which led to the Charlotte
County Sheriff's Office conducting a number of stings using underaged
children attempting to buy alcohol from convenience stores. Even after the
stings, Chandler said around 30 percent of stores still failed to comply.

Charlotte High School senior Ryan Nolan said drinking is "very, very
popular" among his fellow students, but hasn't seen a difference since he
entered the school four years ago.

"I don't think it's gotten better or worse," he said.

After the use of cigarettes, at nearly 16 percent, marijuana came in third
in usage by Charlotte respondents at 14.7 percent.

Students say that marijuana use is on the rise because of its availability,
and is often easier to get than alcohol.

"That's the cool thing to do now," said Kristen Cerniglia, an 11th- grader
at Port Charlotte High School.

Samantha Rothman, also in 11th grade at PCHS, said students often do "wake
and bakes," where they smoke marijuana before going to school in the
morning, which contributes to the nearly 17 percent of respondents who said
they went to school drunk or high within 30 days before the survey.

For Chandler, it was refreshing to see her two years of work pay off with
some minor success. She started refreshing parents and teachers about drugs
and paraphernalia, then started a "bombardment" campaign to reach students.
Radio and television advertisements, billboards and classroom posters
referring to the ills of drug and alcohol use surrounded Charlotte youths
wherever they went.

Chandler's office even began a program that stages an overdose and takes
students through the gruesome process of how hospital staff pump a stomach.
The demonstration even ends with the "overdoser" being zipped up in a body
bag to drive home the point.

And her job gets no easier in the future.

Studies show that incidents of deviant behavior and drug use rise after a
disaster, such as Hurricane Charley. However, Chandler is confident the
percentages will continue to fall when students are surveyed again in the
spring of 2006.

"These things spike after a natural disaster, but they also level off," she
said.

Chandler's department is starting a grassroots program that will attempt to
reach middle-schoolers before they come in contact with alcohol or illegal
drugs. In next year's School District budget, $50,000 is already set aside
for a "social norm" media campaign, and a grant is in the works to start an
alcohol prevention curriculum in the middle schools.

"The perception is, 'I have to do stupid and at-risk things to fit in by
the time I get to high school,'" Chandler said. "We are going to try to
debunk that."

The survey was first administered in 1999, and is a joint effort between
the Florida departments of Health, Education, Juvenile Justice, Children
and Families, and the Governor's Office of Drug Control.

A spokesman for DeSoto County said his district did not take part in the
survey last year, and representatives for Sarasota County were unavailable.