COFFEE BREAK: Student substance use, rudeness on the rise

The March PTA Coffee Break featured a panel including parents, a police officer, an administrator and an expert all tasked with discussing student drug and alcohol use.

Laguna Beach High School Assistant Principal Bob Billinger was frank in his assessment of the issue.

“This is a topic that’s very controversial at times in our community,” he said. “Do we have a problem in our community? Yes, we do.”

Billinger received applause for telling parents to be their children’s parents, not their friends.

From the beginning of the current school year until today, he said, the number of drug and alcohol-related cases at the high school has gone up by seven or eight students since last year; it may seem like a small number, he said, but that’s already an increase of about one-fifth to one-third of the previous total.

Ecstasy and prescription drugs have seen an increase in popularity among ninth and 10th grade students; those in the upper grades are less likely to use, Billinger said.

Every student who has been suspended this year said they began using in middle school.

The most recent state Healthy Kids survey found that although Laguna Beach students were the most well-adjusted, they also had the highest incidence of drug and alcohol use.

“We’ve got healthy kids who are stoned and drunk,” Billinger said.

He told parents a common reaction he gets from kids and parents is that marijuana and alcohol use isn’t a “big deal.”

“‘Not a big deal?’” he asked. “They’re the starting point for 95% of kids.”

He accused some parents of purchasing drugs and alcohol for their kids’ parties and then turning a blind eye to what happens, either leaving the home or going to bed while their children used them with their friends.

“How can we more honestly handle ourselves and our neighbors’ accountability?” he asked. “Tell them to knock it off. You’re poisoning our kids.”

First offenders are put into a new mentoring program, where they meet weekly with a school staff member of their choice, such as a teacher, coach or office staff member.

Billinger described one student who was mentored by a coach.

The student had never given track a thought, but joined the team and later won the high jump competition.

Thurston Middle School Principal Joanne Culverhouse urged parents to trust school administrators and communicate with them.

“If we see a problem, there is a problem,” she said. “Denial gets in the way.”

Drug ‘underbelly’

Laguna Beach Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education Officer Zach Martinez told parents about the party scene in Laguna.

He said there has been an increase in marijuana-related citations and arrests.

“It’s opening the door for drug use,” he said. “Marijuana kills the ambition of children.”

Martinez said teen partyers have become more rude and aggressive to police officers, who are unable to do anything if a party stays within a home; they can only enter a home if they see underage drug and alcohol use.

But a new program will allow the police to criminally prosecute parents who purchase alcohol if a student leaves a party intoxicated and then kills someone, he said.

He described middle-of-the-night phone calls about students who were overdosing on heroin or cocaine, and partyers who throw bottles at or challenge officers to fights.

“We should be the example to the rest of our nation,” Martinez said. “We have to come together. We have to wake up.”

Expert weighs in

Clyde Pentz, a Cal State Long Beach professor who operates the USC Institute for Prevention Research with his wife, Mary Ann, discussed the spheres of influence that affect a child’s judgment daily.

Parental influence was only one element of a wider set of forces including the media, friends and the child’s school.

“Parents are just a small piece,” Pentz said.

He discussed programs they have developed that include policy awareness and role-playing elements to teach kids to be assertive, and include discussions on drugs, consequences and social norms.

Pentz said kids always overestimate the amount of fellow students who use drugs and alcohol.

“Adolescents think everybody does it,” he said.

So the USC group devised a program where the actual levels were randomly tallied, and had students stand on either side of a room to represent what percentage actually used in the classroom. When the majority of kids stood together on the non-use side, they looked around and were shocked and gratified to find that it was far more common to abstain from drugs and alcohol.

“We need to have a community that supports and creates a norm of non-use,” Pentz said.

He recommended being more aware of both a school’s drug and alcohol policies and their children’s actions, but was quick to add that no one person has the solution for every child.

“There is no magic bullet,” he said.

For more information on the monthly Coffee Break series, held the third Wednesday of the month during the school year, call Judith Anderson at (949) 494-0447 or e-mail [email protected].