MARIJUANA'S RISING THREAT

For More Kids, Use Turns Into Addiction

John Brown experimented with marijuana at age 10, and it wasn't long before
his experimentation grew into a five-year addiction.

Turned on to the drug by an older brother, John said, he first started
taking "tokes," or hits, every other week off of blunts - a marijuana
cigarette wrapped with cigar leaves.

At his peak use, the Vincent High School freshman said, he smoked as many
as eight blunts per day. He is now among a growing number of youths who are
addicted to marijuana.

Today's marijuana use is no benign rite of passage, experts say. The
average level of THC - the active ingredient - in the drug rose from less
than 1% in the mid-1970s to more than 7% today, according to the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and that higher potency is
leading more young people to addiction.

Adolescent marijuana addiction is a serious health issue, said Robert
Denniston, who leads the national anti-drug campaign as acting director of
the drug policy office.

In Wisconsin, among the youth ages 12 to 17 entering treatment in 2002,
more than one in three had marijuana as their primary substance abuse,
according to the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services, part of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.

According to national statistics, the proportion of eighth-graders who
tried marijuana in the last decade doubled, from 1 in 10 to 1 in 5.

"Marijuana is the most prevalent drug of addiction for kids. The drug today
is so much stronger than even 10 or 15 years ago," said Brian Fidlin, a
senior outpatient psychotherapist with the adolescent chemical dependency
program at Aurora Psychiatric Hospital in Wauwatosa.

"The public needs to be educated," Fidlin said. "Almost every individual I
see acknowledges marijuana use to the point where they are not functioning
anymore."

Since its inception two years ago, the Aurora program has treated more than
500 patients.

Experimenting younger Clean and sober for five months, John, now 15, is
among 18% of high school males in Milwaukee who used marijuana before the
age of 13. That statistic is from the federal Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.

John, who lives in Metcalfe Park, said it was easy to buy the cigars to
make blunts at "certain stores that didn't check ID," and it was equally
easy to get weed.

"Someone would always give it to me for free because I knew people who sold
it," he said. "It was part of my environment. We were smoking, drug dealing
and involved in gangs."

John, who was arrested earlier this year on drug possession charges, has
been in a court-ordered drug treatment program since June confronting the
personal issues that led him to begin using the drug in the first place.

"My mother is incarcerated, and my father is somewhere. He doesn't have a
place, either," said John, who now lives with an aunt. Taking a deep breath
and closing his eyes, John said that marijuana "made everything slow down."

John is in treatment at the Milwaukee Adolescent Health Program, located
within the Downtown Health Center, 1020 N. 12th St. The program offers free
chemical-dependency treatment and is funded through the Medical College of
Wisconsin and the Fighting Back Initiative.

Cleon Suggs, an alcohol and drug counselor with the program, said he sees
50 youths a month who have drug addictions, primarily to marijuana. He said
many have underlying problems, such as depression, and they use marijuana
to self-medicate.

"These kids are up against a lot of adversity. The kids I deal with have
problems at home and at school," he said. "It's an escape. A lot of kids
are facing time because of that pleasure. My job is to give them an
alternative to feeling good and help them overcome a lot of those social
difficulties."

The drug has wreaked havoc in the lives of many families throughout
Milwaukee's metropolitan area.

In Wauwatosa, Katrina Kruck and her husband, Michael, had their
marijuana-addicted son, Alex, arrested for striking his father.

"He was hitting me and his dad when he came off of a drug high. We just
couldn't live that way anymore," Katrina Kruck said.

Alex, who had been an A-student and an avid sports player through eighth
grade, began using marijuana heavily when he got to high school, she said.

A junior at Wauwatosa East High School, he recently completed court-ordered
time at St. Charles Youth & Family Center for the attack on his father.

"Marijuana is not the innocent drug people think it is. It's an absolute
nightmare to see your child flush his life down the toilet for the drug,"
Katrina Kruck said. "We have had drug dealers in front of our house because
Alex didn't pay them for the drugs."

Katrina and her husband have sought help by joining a parent support group.
On a rain-chilled evening, Katrina Kruck joined a dozen other parents
gathered in a small space just inside a Brookfield fitness center.

They formed a circle, and one by one shared their experiences as the parent
of a drug-addicted teen. One woman in the group said her 16-year-old
daughter traded sexual favors for marijuana. A man said his daughter saved
up her lunch money to buy pot. Another woman said she had to take out a
second mortgage so her son could get treatment for his addiction.

The group is small, Katrina Kruck said, but there are many other parents
out there who are in denial.

"Unless people start talking about it, the problem is only going to get worse."