STOPPING DRUG ABUSE BEFORE IT STARTS IS BEST METHOD

The costs of drug addiction are well documented, but at the same time
beyond calculation. The lives lost, families destroyed, crimes caused and
the sheer waste of human potential cannot be quantified.

Addiction often takes its toll physically, mentally and emotionally, and is
hard to shake because of those effects. Some people are able to say it's
time to quit and do so. But for most the struggle is much harder.

The most cost-effective way to fight addiction - in not only dollars, but
in damage to people and society - is prevention. If people can be stopped
before becoming addicts, we save the legal costs of dealing with them when
they are arrested, the medical costs of dealing with their health problems
and the cost of fighting crimes they commit to finance their habits and the
money our government spends to fight the war on drugs.

And preventing addiction can save otherwise wasted lives, figuratively and
literally.

Operation Save Teens targets young people and adults in schools and
communities, to educate them about the dangers of drug addiction. The
Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and the Calhoun County Drug Task Force
started the organization, but they have some strong local support in the
form of Carol Hudson, an Etowah County mother who lost her son Anthony to
an OxyContin overdose.

Hudson has brought Operation Save Teens to several local schools and two
Etowah County churches. She says all local school superintendents have been
invited to see the program, something she believes is important because of
several deaths in Etowah County in recent years believed to be
OxyContin-related.

Educators at almost all levels could benefit from participating in
something like Operation Save Teens, as could their students, even if
school administrators do not see evidence of a drug problem.

The program could help them identify and deal with any indications of drug
use that they perceive, and perhaps could prevent any drug problems from
developing.

Preventing addiction before it begins, and before it begins to exact its
costs, should be our priority.