CITY DRUG USE ENCOURAGED BY SLUGS AND SLIME

A recent conversation with a friend has troubled me greatly.

He learned that his 13-year-old youngster was experimenting with drugs with
his newfound friends.

My opinions of drugs aside, this is serious -- especially for youngsters
under 16. How should a parent react?

When you are with the in-crowd, doing a toke outside the school, a kid
feels cool and with it. Being part of the cool guys is a really big deal.

Not cool, fool.

Unfortunately, you can't make a kid understand the reality of the
situation. That is, they are sheep being led down the garden path. In
reality, their leader is a loser, destined for bigger things, like brain
damage, unemployment, seclusion, paranoia or perhaps a lucrative career as
a drug pusher. Often, the only way the leader of the pack has friends is
buying them with free drugs. They don't have the personality to make
friends otherwise.

And the friendship is a perceived one. In reality, the free drugs they are
getting are an investment in securing a long-term customer. Drug use in
Kenora is reaching epidemic proportions among the young. Prices are such
that kids can afford even the most addictive products like crack cocaine.
Marijuana is more expensive but still within the reach of a kid with five
bucks in his or her pocket. Drug experimentation among the early teens and
'tweens (nine to 12 years) scares me. There is still a lot of development
going on in the minds and bodies of these kids and any impediment to that
development can have life-long repercussions. Realize that the brain works
on chemical impulses and drugs cause the interactions to be interrupted and
modified.

I'm not a scientist, but it seems obvious to me.

But not to worry. Things like this only occur in other people's families,
right.

Wrong.

At a seminar on Wednesday evening, the Tri-Force drug group brought some
citizens up to speed on the local drug scene.

Scary stuff.

But most of it was a confirmation of what we have seen ourselves and heard
from our readers. Yes, drugs are readily available in Kenora. Yes, there
are kids starting to do drugs at age 10-years-old or younger. Yes, it is in
the junior highs and solidly entrenched in the high schools. Yes, the
teachers are helpless to prevent it based on legal restrictions.

Many in Kenora have places in their neighbourhoods where kids are seen
coming and going on a regular basis. The police are aware of some of these
drug outlets but the legal system makes it difficult to gather sufficient
evidence to prosecute. But the police encourage you to call them or
CrimeStoppers.

Compounding the issue, society has made it all but impossible for parents
to control their kids. A call from your offspring to police or a child
welfare agency causes parents to be treated like criminals, even before an
investigation takes place. Proper discipline is being regulated out of
existence.

What it comes down to is that parents must do their own policing in spite
of the restrictions.

Those in the know offer this advice:

Know where your kids are and whom they are hanging with. Maintain contact
with the parents of their friends. Check up on your kids. If they are going
on a sleepover, confirm with the parents that there will be adult supervision.

Maintain communication with your kid's teachers. A major flag of a drug
problem is falling marks and truancy problems at school. And if your child
starts hanging around with a new group of friends, be careful.

Let me tell you some scary stories, stories that you would expect to hear
in major cities like Winnipeg, which has a major child pornography and
child prostitution problem. Kenora is not exempt!

Kids are offering their bodies in exchange for drugs. Local teens and
tweens are being used for transporting drugs from Winnipeg because, as
young offenders, they are safe from the law.

They are giving up their souls and their bodies to the habit, before they
are old enough to understand the implications of their decision. Others are
stealing from local stores and homes to pay for their habit.

There are ways to find out for sure if your child is doing drugs. Maybe the
way he or she reacts when questioned about drug use. Find out the
behavioral ticks that could indicate drug use.

Drug testing at the medical clinic is possible. Lo-Cost pharmacy among
others sell a home drug test kit which will test for marijuana, cocaine,
methamphetamine, PCP and heroin among others. The cost is about $30. Drug
residue stays in your system for three weeks or more.

But regardless of tests, police say that the best way of controlling your
child's exposure to drugs, especially up to age 16, is just ensuring that
you "know where your kids are tonight." Maintain communication with
teachers and other parents so you know what is happening in the community.

Finally, maintain pressure on the city, the provincial government and the
schools to provide the outlets for kids at all skill levels, not just the
more athletic.

With cutbacks to funding for intramural school activities and disputes
between school boards, government and teachers, the average teenager is
being excluded from sports and other after-school clubs.

User pay in sports means that some families just can't afford to have their
kids participate in some sports.

Maybe the key is not prosecution, but prevention through participation.