DRUG USAGE SURVEY GETS COMMUNITY'S ATTENTION

The outcome of last week's survey of drug usage at R. H. Watkins High
School has already been noticed. Students, parents, and Laurel School
District faculty members started to show a little more interest in school
programs like D. A. R. E., drug classes, and anti-smoking programs. Laurel
School District Safe and Drug Free School Coordinator Paula Watkins said
schools had programs in place for years, but the Parents' Resource
Institute for Drug Education (P. R. I. D. E.) survey helped them focus on
areas that need the most help.

"The most surprising area of the survey was our eighth graders. We see a
huge jump in usage of tobacco, beer, alcohol, and drugs in our eighth
graders. It's fairly low for the seventh graders and it goes back down for
freshman, but there is this jump during the eighth grade year," Watkins
said. "That's why we have to set a firm foundation and start early, start
at home, start with parents, start in the community and to get Laurel and
Jones County linked together to work as an entire community. The kids run
together on weekends and after school. They are friends. The problem is not
really worse in the county schools or the city schools."

The Jones County Sheriffs Department started sponsoring classes in area
schools. D. U. I. Unit Commander Jerry Hutcheson visited Lillie McCullum's
fifth grade class at Stanton Elementary School Tuesday morning. Hutcheson
said deputies arrested six people under age 16 for D. U. I.'s this year. He
also said there was once a big problem with teenagers going into the county
and meeting in fields for large parties where they used alcohol, marijuana,
and other drugs.

Hutcheson told students that association with people who use drugs could be
just as bad as using drugs. He said people can still get high from
second-hand marijuana smoke and the drug can show up in drug test. And,
police can arrest everyone in a car or home where they find marijuana or
any illegal drug for possession. "God gives you a brain to use on your own
and do your own thinking. Is it worth a few minutes of pleasure to affect
your entire life? Don't let your friends think for you," Hutcheson said.

Some of the most common drug and substance abuse problems in children are
fairly common. Hutcheson said inhaling helium from balloons is just as
dangerous and kills brain cells just the same as inhaling other chemicals.
Children also inhale glue, spray paint, cooking spray, and correction
fluid. "We sometimes use high-strength glue in fingerprinting. If that
stuff sticks to windows and guns to help us see fingerprints, imagine what
it's doing to your nose and your brain."

Watkins said there are ways parents can begin the fight against drugs
early. She said, "When you take a baby home you wrap it in a cocoon-like
blanket. Then, it gets a crib. When the baby gets a little bigger, he gets
a playpen. As time goes on, he eventually gets the run of the house and
then the yard. How can a parent expect a child to go from having boundaries
all of his life and then have none without there being a problem?" Watkins
also told parents to spend time listening and talking in real conversations
with their children. She reminds parents to spend a few minutes of quality
time with their kids each day. And, parents should be awake when their
teenagers get home from a night out.