PARENTS NEED TO OPEN THEIR EYES

If any St. Albert parents are still under the illusion their children are
completely safe from the dangers of drug addiction, wake up!

It's been almost five years since the Gazette began exposing the increase
in the availability of street drugs in our city and in our schools. At the
beginning, school personnel were reluctant to speak publicly about the
problem, fearing their school would get a bad rap as a "druggie" school,
and some residents accused us of being overly sensational. A few anecdotes,
they said, didn't make a crisis in our midst.

We didn't have a crisis back then, but strong court and police evidence
suggested the number of cases involving "hard" drugs, such as crack and
crystal methamphetamine, was increasing in the Edmonton suburbs. Gradually,
the issue of growing drug use among St. Albert youth gained enough of a
profile to prompt calls to elected officials. That grass roots activism
sparked calls for more law enforcement and city council responded in July
2003 by approving three additional RCMP offers to form a drug unit.

By August of that year, the drug unit made a number of trafficking busts.
At the time, Cpl. Doug Stapleton commented that what surprised him was the
young age of some of the traffickers and users in this community. "There
are lot more kids into it and we know a few who are trafficking in the
schools, junior high and high schools," he said at the time. "Marijuana is
still the big one in schools but we have seized GHB, which is similar to
ecstasy, and even some cocaine." Stapleton also commented on the high level
of methamphetamine use in the city and the discovery of a meth "shooting
gallery" at a Grandin apartment complex. "It's worse here than I expected
and the destruction it causes families is unbelievable," he said.

Still, parents had a difficult time believing their children would fall
victim to unscrupulous traffickers. Little more than a year later, as a
growing number of parents seek out information on crystal meth and
addictions treatment centres and suspects in drug-related shootings await
trial, other parents and teachers still haven't got the message. But their
kids know.

A survey by both St. Albert school districts asked parents, teachers and
junior and senior high school students whether they were satisfied the
districts' drug protocol is effective in deterring students from bringing
illegal drugs and other substances to school. In the Protestant district,
the satisfaction rating of 76 per cent in Grade 7 fell to just 41 per cent
in Grade 12. In the Catholic district, the rating dropped from 69 per cent
in junior high to 53 per cent in high school. School staff showed an
overall satisfaction rating of 81 per cent in both districts, while for
parents it was 87 per cent in the Protestant district and 81 per cent for
schools in the Catholic division.

It seems the kids are in the trenches, where the war on drugs will be
fought, and parents and teachers have little or no idea there's a real
battle in progress. Please moms and dads, talk to your kids about drugs.
Crystal meth is very quickly addictive, cheap and increasingly easy to
access. Just ask some of the parents and kids who found out the hard way.