A new survey by the Partnership for a Drug Free America brings disturbing news. Most adults seriously underestimate the presence of drugs in children’s lives. What can teachers and parents do about this?

First, recognize that parents never think their children will be drug abusers. By the time they discover that’s not true, they are disbelieving at worst and frightened at best. Second, if you suspect a child is using drugs, get help immediately. The goal is to act before drug use turns into drug abuse or drug addiction. Third, prevent children from starting drug use.

Do not expect the culture to help. Many movies, videos and songs glamorize drug use, and drug legalization proponents dominate the Internet. Like it or not, it is your responsibility to educate children about the harmful effects of drugs.

Let children know you care about them enough to do whatever it takes to protect them, and that protecting them means setting limits. It is hard to say no to someone you care about, but you must nonetheless do so sometimes. Teens will protest but one day, after they’ve made it safely through adolescence, they’ll tell you they understand why you imposed limits and they’ll thank you for protecting them from the difficult challenges of growing up in today’s world. So, tell children you expect them not to use drugs and identify the consequences if they do. Do not try to be a child’s best friend. Children have many best friends, but only rarely a concerned, caring, and involved teacher or parent.

Dan Tripps
Health, Fitness & Nutrition Section Editor

Learning good refusal skills can be very helpful in difficult social situations that may occur during in a child’s life. They help children becoming comfortable with setting limits and feeling natural about saying no to drugs which, in turn, increases self-confidence and self-esteem.

First Steps

Ask questions. “What are we going to do?” “What are you asking me to do?”

Identify the problem. “That is not right.” “That is not a good idea.”

State the consequences. “If I smoked with you I would not feel good about myself.” “If I took drugs, I could get kicked off the team.”

Suggest an alternative. “Instead of smoking pot, let’s….”

Encourage solicitor to change plans as part of staying connected. “If you change your mind, I'll be at the field/home.”

Tough Steps

Stay calm. Take a deep breath.

Review three key affirmations: 1) Saying no does not necessarily mean that the other individual will stop liking you even if it seems like it at the time; 2) Their anger with your decision is not sufficient reason to say yes. 3) Your rights are important.

Address the other person by name and make eye contact.

State your reasons for saying no.

Final Steps

Assert that you need to be heard.

Pause to see if the person is listening.

If you are not being heard, leave with an offer to meet later.

Gratification is a powerful biological force. When individuals do something that produces great pleasure, they tend to do it again, caused by specialized nerve cells devoted to producing and regulating pleasure. Addictive drugs can activate the neurological pleasure circuit.

Drug addiction, therefore, is a biological, pathological process that alters the way in which the pleasure center and other parts of the brain function. Almost all drugs that change the way the brain works do so by affecting chemical neurotransmissions. Some drugs, like heroin and LSD, mimic the effects of a natural neurotransmitter. Others, like PCP, block receptors and thereby prevent neuronal messages from getting through. Still others, like cocaine, interfere with the molecules that are responsible for transporting neurotransmitters back into the neurons that release them. Finally, some drugs, such as methamphetamine, act by causing neurotransmitters to be released in greater amounts than normal. Prolonged drug use changes the brain in fundamental and long-lasting ways, as though a switch in the brain flips on and transforms a drug abuser into a drug addict.

To better help students, familiarize yourself with the main classifications of drugs by both their medical name and use and their street name and symptoms, advocate a series of life skills to avert the paths that lead to drugs, and a set of refusal skills to say no to drugs if students encounter them along the way.

Narcotics are drugs medically used through injection or ingestion to relieve pain and thus available through prescription. Among the most commonly abused narcotics are Heroin (snow, skag, H, Harry, horse, hard stuff, dope, boy), morphine (M, morpho, Miss Emma), codeine (school boy), Dilaudid (lords), Demerol, Percodan, Methadone (dollies), and Talwin. Abuse systems include lethargy, drowsiness, euphoria, nausea, constipation, constricted pupils, slowed breathing, convulsions, coma, and possible death.

Hallucinogens have no medical use. Usually ingested or injected, they cause trance-like states, excitation, euphoria, increased pulse rate, insomnia, hallucination, convulsions, brain damage, and possible death. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD, acid, pearly gates, wedding bells, microdot, ice), phencyclidine (PCP, angel dust, hog), dimethyltryptamine (DMT), Mescaline (peyote, mescal, M&M), methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy, love drug, Adam, X), dimethoxymethamphetamine (STP, serenity, peace), and psilocybin are the most common substances.

Depressants can be obtained through prescription for tranquilization, sedation, and sleep. Ingested or injected, they cause drowsiness, confusion, loss of coordination, tremors, slurred speech, depressed pulse rate, shallow respiration, dilated pupils, coma, and possible death. The leading depressants are sleeping pills and tranquilizers such as Seconal, Nembutal, Amytal, Quaalude, Miltown, Noctec, Placidyl, Valium, Librium, Tauxene, and Serax. The street vernacular for these drugs is highly diversified and includes downers, barks, candy, goofballs, reds, yellows, blues, yellow jackets, nimbles, pinks, devils, Christmas trees, phennies, and peanuts.

Cocaine (coke, flake, snow, dust, happy dust, gold dust, girl, Corine, Cecil, C, freebase, toot, blow, white girl, rock, base, Scotty) causes excitability, euphoria, talkativeness, anxiety, increased pulse rate, dilated pupils, paranoia, agitation, hallucinations, convulsions, cardiac arrest, and possible death. While it is medically injected for local anesthesia, it is administered illegally by injection, smoking or sniffing.

Marijuana in the form of Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol, Cannabis sativa, hashish, or hashish oil is medically ingested or smoked as a treatment of glaucoma and for relief of nausea in cancer patients. It causes mood swings, euphoria, slow thinking and reflexes, increased appetite, dryness of mouth, increase pulse rate, delusions, and hallucinations. One of the most popular and easily accessible drugs its street names are varied including pot, grass, reefer, joint, stick, Mary Jane, Acapulco Gold, rape, jive, hay loco weed, bhang ganja, hash, hash oil.

Stimulants used medically used for anesthesia as nitrous oxide or readily available over the counter, include Amphetamine, methamphetamine, biphetamine, Dexedrine, Desoxyn, Tenuate, lonanin, Tepanie. Sniffed and known on the street as uppers, pep pills, wake-ups, bennies, eye openers, copilots, coast-to-coast, cartwheels, skyrockets, bambido, jelly beans, smeets, A’s, Black Beauty, ice, crank, their symptoms include drunkenness, slurred speech, loss of coordination, nausea, vomiting, slowed breathing, liver damage, nerve damage, brain damage, and possible death.