KIDS ARE DYING - DO WE CARE?

At certain weekend parties in Manatee County, we are told, along with
consuming plenty of beer and marijuana, teens liven up the evening
with a game they call "Trust." The host puts a big bowl on the living
room coffee table, and the entry fee for "playing" the game is a
handful of pills. When all have made a contribution, the host stirs
the contents, then invites guests to dig in. Each takes a handful and
washes the pills down with a drink.

The game gets its name from this: The players "trust" they will live
through the experience.

This, say leaders of the Manatee County Substance Abuse Coalition, is
just one way local young people casually abuse drugs in what they call
an epidemic of substance abuse among teenagers. While parents and the
community at large bask in denial, teens are overdosing, dying in car
crashes caused by drunken drinking and committing suicide in alarming
numbers, say coalition officials. Last year in the 12th Judicial
Circuit, more than 70 deaths of people younger than 25 were attributed
to alcohol or drug abuse, says Jan Sumner, program specialist for Safe
& Drug-Free Schools and president of the Substance Abuse Coalition.

Adds Ruth Lyerly, coalition member, "That is an astronomical number.
If it were measles deaths, there would be an uproar."

Lyerly has painful, personal knowledge of the problem: Two years ago,
her 18-year-old son Todd Peurifoy, a Manatee High senior, committed
suicide after abusing drugs for 21/2 years. At his funeral, dozens of
friends and schoolmates left personal messages of grief on a
poster-size photo of her son, Lyerly says. Within a year, three of
those friends also were dead: one a suicide, two in DUI-connected crashes.

Sure, teens have always abused one thing or another. In
great-grandpa's day it might have been moonshine, in grandpa's, beer.
For the baby boomers - many of them parents of today's teens - it was
pot and LSD, along with cheap wine and beer. And most of them
eventually straightened out and became productive citizens, didn't
they?

Perhaps this been-there, done-that attitude contributes to the lack of
concern about the substance abuse of today's youth. But coalition
leaders say 21st century society has created a "perfect storm" of a
drug-abuse fad with one tragic consequence: teens are dying. Among the
factors:

- - A variety of new legal and illegal drugs with far greater potency
than boomers ever dreamed of.

- - Easy access via the Internet to prescription drugs like Oxycontin; a
credit card is all a teen needs to order 100 of those powerful and
addictive painkillers. A $150 order can quickly be turned into $1,500
at retail. As few as two doses can hook a user.

- - A new permissiveness toward drugs by society. Many parents no longer
frown on beer or pot use by their teens; quite a few, in fact, allow
parties in their homes, figuring their kids will be safer there than
out driving under the influence. As a result, says Sumner, "anything
short of heroin or cocaine is considered OK" by some.

- - Lack of involvement in their kids' lives by stressed-out parents,
leading to cluelessness about what teens are up to. "Use drugs? Not my
kid," is the reaction that produces a sea of empty seats at
drug-awareness programs sponsored by the coalition.

- - Glamorization of drug use in music, movies and on TV and publicity
about celebrity abusers. The prevailing teen view of drug users has
shifted from "losers" to the "cool" crowd. Indeed, said a ManaTeen
volunteer working with the coalition, students who don't use drugs now
are the exception, rather than the rule; the "clean" kids are
stigmatized as nerds.

This problem is bigger than a single editorial can fully explain.
Hopefully, it could be a catalyst for a community forum packed with
parents who want to get involved in fighting the drug epidemic. For
now, you can learn more about it by attending the Freedom Festival
2007 sponsored by the coalition from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at G. T.
Bray park. Bands will entertain, and volunteers will have literature
to help both teens and parents better understand the severity of the
substance-abuse epidemic that is killing our kids at an alarming rate.

Talk back

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