COUNSELORS SAY DRUG USE STARTS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL

CLINTON -- Most teen drug users began using illegal substances before
turning 11, Hunterdon County high school counselors say.

That's why public schools need to intervene sooner, said Dave Chango, a
counselor at North Hunterdon High School. Schools are missing their chance
at stopping the problem by waiting until high school to start drug and
alcohol prevention programs, he said.

"We call it prevention, but at the high school, we're a little late,"
Chango told an audience of law enforcement officials and educators Tuesday
at the Holiday Inn. "The CORE team (or intervention referral service) at
the high school is great, but at the middle school would be even better."

Rather than preventing drug use, high school counselors are intervening
with students who are already involved with alcohol and illegal substances,
Chango said.

Prevention should be done for children who are in fifth grade or younger,
said Glenn Graham, a counselor at Voorhees High School. Statistics show
that early intervention is necessary because "once they hit sixth or
seventh grade, they face the first onset of use," he said.

Chango, Graham and other counselors from the five county high schools
discussed substance abuse prevention and intervention programs that have
worked during the conference.

One such initiative, now in its second year, is a peer education program
organized by Graham. About 20 Voorhees High School juniors and seniors lead
seminars for eighth-graders who will be attending Voorhees as ninth-graders.

The program is called PEAS - Prevention Education Against Substances - and
is funded through a grant from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of
New Jersey, Graham said. PEAS is modeled after a similar transition program
at The College of New Jersey, which provides a daylong training seminar for
the high school students, he said.

Groups of five high school students conduct 30-minute seminars for one
eighth-grade class. The seminars include activities, games, prizes, role
playing and a question-and-answer session.

The main message is that most students in the county are not doing drugs,
Graham said, citing the 2000 Hunterdon County Youth Risk Behavior Study,
which says 68.5 percent of students in ninth and 10th grades have not tried
marijuana, cocaine or other illegal substances.

"We're trying to change the social norm that every kid is doing drugs,"
Graham said. "That's not the reality. The reality is most kids aren't doing
drugs."

The response to the program has been positive, both from area middle
schools, who have reacted enthusiastically to the second year of PEAS
seminars, and from the students themselves, Graham said.

The younger students "look at the high school kids like they're gods," he
said. "They could hear (the anti-drug message) from me over and over, but
they don't want to hear it from me. The kids really listen to other kids
because they perceive them more as their equals."

Counselors at the middle school welcome the positive interaction, which is
only enforced when the future freshmen encounter their peer leaders at high
school orientation and other events, said Sue Penn, the guidance counselor
at the Clinton Public School.

"Anything that will form a bond or connection, let kids get to know the
(high school) program is positive," Penn said.

But the PEAS seminar is not all games and socializing.

"They talk reality, they give kids time to ask questions and (the
eighth-graders) like it," she said.