Time to fight the numbers

It’s always a bit disturbing when we seem to celebrate a decline in

the number of children drinking, smoking and using drugs. A report

from the Huntington Beach City School District last week showed that

the number of seventh-graders who drank and smoked went down, but the

use of marijuana remained the same, and the use of inhalants went up.

This is still a problem to be combated.

The California Healthy Kids Survey measured drug, alcohol and

tobacco use among seventh-grade students. The voluntary, confidential

survey gathered responses from 627 students.

The survey showed that the number of seventh-graders who admitted

to using alcohol at any point in their lives was down from 28% in

2001 to 20% last year. Reported tobacco use also fell, but by only

1%, with 6% having admitted to having tried cigarettes. Marijuana use

remained steady at 8%, and the number of students who admitted using

inhalants, commonly known as “sniffing” or “huffing,” rose from 7% in

2001 to 9% in 2003.

School board members approached the survey results with the proper

attitude -- that this is still a problem to be combated.

Trustee Bill Wallace said he is alarmed by the survey -- as we all

should be.

While it is good news that some of the numbers are down, the rise

in drug use, no matter how small, is cause for concern.

The school district and the community need to be proactive in

bringing those numbers down.

Perhaps it is time for a new drug awareness program, one that

brings in high school students as mentors, or recovering drug

addicts, perhaps. There has been much disagreement and debate over

the old Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. Studies showed it

did not work. Others said it did. Either way, it is time for a bigger

and better program.

The district plans to conduct the survey again this spring,

including fifth-graders to comply with mandates laid out by the

federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Let’s hope all the numbers are down on that one.