TAKES A VILLAGE TO DEAL WITH YOUTH DRUG PROBLEM

IDLENESS, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of
new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices

- - Ambrose Bierce

Shock, disbelief and dismay were our reactions to the headline
announcing that the kids of Nevada County had the highest percentage
of drug use in the entire state. No, not here! How could that be?
Many of us moved here to escape the gangs, drugs and crime of the big
cities. But don't just shrug your shoulders, and grudgingly accept
this news with the dismissive attitude of "It's not my problem."
These statistics are a wake-up call, and we had better wake up. There
is nothing, absolutely nothing more important than protecting our
kids. Whether you have kids or not, even if your kids are already
grown, as mine are, it's our most pressing problem, and we had better
do something about it - all of us, working together. Let's explore
the four principal elements.

Stop The Creeps Who Are Supplying The Drugs

Let's face it. It's not our kids who are harvesting the marijuana,
importing the crack and running the methamphetamine labs. I hope
there is a special place in hell for the creeps who are getting rich
by hooking our kids. Catching these criminals is the job of law
enforcement. All we can do, as private citizens, is to have the
courage to notify the police if we get an inkling of where the kids
are getting it.

Parental Involvement

The cursed reality of family life in the 21st century is that in many
homes, both parents must work to make ends meet, or even worse, due
to divorce, there is only one parent, and she must often work long
hours to barely get by. So, when the kids come home from school,
there is nothing to do but sit alone, watching TV, or play computer
games, or just "hang out." We can't fault the parents for having to
work. It just puts more pressure on them during the hours that they
are with their children, to talk to them; to listen to them; and even
more important, to set a good example. The gateway drugs are tobacco
and liquor. Kids know it is illegal for them to smoke or drink. If
they can get away with that, it is only a small step for them to
smoke a joint or pop a pill for a moment of instant gratification.

But parents need help, from the schools, from the community, from all
of us. Our schools, with educational programs on the disastrous
effects of drugs, and with the "Just Say No" program, have been doing
everything they can, and it certainly has had a beneficial effect,
but this alone, obviously, has not been effective in stemming the
tide of drug use.

Peer Pressure

It is normal and healthy for children, as they grow, to seek
independence - to undergo the process of getting ready to leave the
nest and spread their own wings. It is a process in which, little by
little, they resist parental control as they attempt to learn self-
control. In this process, still desperately needing love, acceptance
and understanding, more and more they seek it from their peers rather
than their parents. It is in this period of transition that they are
most vulnerable.

Exacerbating their vulnerability, children, being children, live in
the present, with little concept of the long-range effects of their
actions. So when one of their friends says, "Don't be a geek. Just
try it. It won't hurt you," their parents aren't around to stop them.
What can parents do? They need help.

The Double Whammy Of Failure And Boredom

There are exceptions to every rule, and some child geniuses and star
athletes fall to the allure of drugs, but those at greatest risk are
those children who do not excel as students, athletes or as socially
popular. The most critical age, the age when the majority of children
experiment with their first cigarette and their first drink, is in
the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. "Satan finds some mischief for
idle hands to do," said Isaac Watts 400 years ago, and Satan is still
at it. The challenge is for us to give each of our kids interesting
activities that fill their lives with opportunities for little
successes. Peer pressure can be equally used to promote fulfilling,
positive activities instead of harmful ones. This is the area where
the schools, the community, and each of us can do the most to reverse
the scourge of drug use by our kids.

The cheapest and most effective antidote for our kids' boredom and of
their experimentation with drugs as a means of instant escape, is
positive, supervised recreation. Parks, alone, are not enough if
there is no one there to supervise them when they get there, and to
teach them the endless possibilities of sports, chess, art, crafts,
etc. School gyms are not enough if there is no one there to open them
so the kids can get in, and to supervise their activities when they
are there.

During the course of the past two years, for the first time ever, the
Board of Supervisors has made money available for this kind of
recreation. The more I investigate what is truly going on in our
local county government, the more amazed I am at what the reformist
members of the current Board of Supervisors, Bruce Conklin, Barbara
Green, Izzy Martin and Peter Van Zant, have been able to accomplish
in the relatively short time they have been in office. They have not
had more money to spend than their predecessors. However, by creating
a working environment where coordination and cooperation between
various departments is the rule, instead of
every-department-for-itself competition, tens of thousands of dollars
have been saved, which funds they are now allocating to help our kids.

With these funds, and a like amount from the school budget, Terry
McAteer, the superintendent of schools, has been able to pay for rec
directors to staff the school gyms every Saturday night in eight of
our high schools and middle schools. The surveys, upon which the
statistics we recently read were based, were taken two years ago, in
January 2000. Now that these gyms are open for the kids to enjoy,
together with other steps Terry is implementing, he is confident that
the next survey, to be taken this coming February, will show vastly
improved results.

But there is so much more that could be done, if only he had the
resources. The gyms should be open on Friday evenings, as well. And
if the resources were available, each of the elementary schools
should also have a rec director so their school grounds could be open
and supervised with wonderful activities from the end of the school
day at 2:30 until dinner time.

Terry estimates that the cost of a rec director is only $6,500 per
year for each school. What a wonderful fund-raising activity for each
school's PTA. As an alternative, if the funds are not available,
Terry tells me that if sufficient people volunteer, even for only a
couple hours a day, one or two days a week, he will set up a training
program, and open up the school playgrounds with volunteer rec
directors. He urges all interested volunteers to call him, directly,
at 478-6400. (Isn't small-town life wonderful?)

I'm volunteering. I invite you to join me.