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Drug use by Carroll County teenagers is
on a downward trend, but alcohol use among 12th-graders remains
higher than the state average, according to the most recent edition
of a statewide behavior survey.
Educators,
law enforcement officials and drug prevention coordinators
were all on hand at the Board of Education building Thursday
morning for the release of the 2002 Maryland Adolescent
Survey.
"I'd really like to emphasize the fact that
Carroll County is fortunate," Superintendent Charles Ecker
said. "We work together. Particularly in an area of such
importance, we have to work together."
The survey is
given to selected pupils in the sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th
grades every other school year. Pupils are asked if they have
ever used, tried in the last 12-months, or used in the last
30-days a variety of illicit substances. In Carroll, 2,021
pupils participated in the survey during the last school
year.
The most encouraging statistics in the 2002
survey were in the sixth-graders behavior, said Joanne Hayes,
the school system's drug prevention coordinator. No pupils in
the sixth grade reported using heroin, methamphetamines,
barbiturates, or narcotic drugs, such as cocaine. In the 2001
survey - the last given - some sixth-graders in Carroll
reported having tried every substance except designer drugs,
such as ecstasy.
Although survey results, when compared
with surveys given in 1998 and 2001, generally showed downward
trends for substance abuse in Carroll, the county remained
above the state averages in some categories.
The
percentage of high school seniors in Carroll drinking alcohol,
during the 30 days prior to the survey, dropped from 57.2
percent in 1998 to 46.2 percent in 2002. But statewide, only
44.3 percent of high school seniors reported using alcohol
within 30 days of the survey.
And the number of binge
drinking seniors in Carroll - those that reported drinking
five or more drinks in one sitting - dropped from 37.7 percent
in 1998 to 30.4 percent in 2002. Statewide, only 28.8 percent
of Maryland high school seniors reported binge drinking in the
30 days prior to the survey.
Sheriff Kenneth Tregoning
credited the higher figures for Carroll County to increased
independence of 12th-graders and to greater amounts of peer
pressure that high school seniors face.
School board
President Susan Holt said the numbers are a reminder that
parents need to stay involved in their children's lives, even
as they get close to graduation.
"If you look at it
from a complete perspective, parents find a lot of things to
do with their children when they're in the sixth grade and the
eight grade," Holt said. "I think, too, the county needs to be
adamant about talking to our children."
The survey does
show a slight increase in heroin use, over a 12-month period,
among high school sophomores and seniors. In the 2001 survey,
2 percent of Carroll seniors reported using heroin in the year
prior to the survey and 0.8 percent of 10th-graders reported
using heroin during that time frame.
In the 2002
survey, 2.2 percent of Carroll seniors reported using heroin
in the year prior to the survey as did 1.2 percent of
10th-graders. Across the state, 1.9 percent of seniors
reported using heroin use over the 12-month period and 1.2
percent of 10th-graders.
Olivia Myers, director of
Junction, a Westminster-based treatment center, said the
survey is important because it gives data for drug prevention
educators and program coordinators to use.
"We were
seeing an increase in heroin in '95-'96," Myers said. "We felt
like the voice in the desert ... When the data came out we
finally had something to show people that it wasn't a blip in
the data, that it was a problem." |
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