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| For Teens, Parents: Time To Stop, Look and Listen |
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Posted by FoM on June 20, 2001 at 21:25:27 PT By Leef Smith, Washington Post Staff Writer Source: Washington Post 
It's a tense start to Gerri Cathcart's night. Anxious parents are seated around a table in her Fairfax City office, ambivalent but ready to begin four hours of alcohol- and drug-awareness tutoring. The class has been assigned to them, not because they ran afoul of the law, but because their children were caught using alcohol or drugs. But before they can begin, Cathcart has to deal with a problem. One of the parents smells of alcohol. A veteran probation counselor, Cathcart notices immediately. It's hard enough to straighten out the kids, she reasons to herself. She's not going to allow this. "I need you to get him out and 'breathalize' him," Cathcart tells a colleague behind closed doors. Unruffled, she returns to her office and pushes forward, telling the parents they must learn to recognize and address their children's drug and alcohol use before it becomes a chronic problem -- or worse, a deadly one. Downstairs, sons and daughters fill another room for their own court-ordered class on making smart choices about drugs and alcohol. Most of the teens are first-time offenders, but odds are it's not the first time they've used. The usual punishment is suspension of driver's license, a fine and community service, but many are also required to participate in this relatively new program called Substance/Alcohol-Focused Education, or SAFE. The program, administered jointly by Inova Fairfax Hospital and the county's Alcohol Safety Action Program (ASAP), is assigned at the judge's discretion. Participants must pay the $175 fee themselves. SAFE was modeled after an effort launched several years ago in San Diego. The program was so successful that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration encouraged states to copy it. So far, the only jurisdiction in Virginia to embrace the program is Fairfax, where substance abuse is widespread, especially at this time of year with graduation and "beach week" partying. According to a recent survey of Fairfax County students, a majority of seniors said they drink alcohol regularly, and nearly a third of them reported having been drunk in the last two weeks. The problem of underage drinking took the national spotlight again recently when presidential daughters Jenna and Barbara Bush were cited for alcohol violations. The incident has led to talks between parents and their children in many households. Fairfax County officials decided to give SAFE a try because they were worried about what they called a hole in services to first-time offenders. Instead of the traditional sanctions of fines and suspended licenses, officials said they also hoped to expose adolescents -- and their parents -- to the real consequences of substance-related impairment. "For the first-time offender who needs a down-and-dirty program -- straight up, straight facts, straight information -- there was a gap," said Teena D. Grodner, a judge in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court. "We're filling that gap." Classroom instruction is just part of SAFE's 10-hour journey of awareness. The message has many stops. One of the most enlightening is a graphic slide presentation by county medical examiner and emergency room physician William Hauda, who chronicles the tragic details of local substance abuse-related deaths and punctuates them with harrowing crash photos. The teens also are required to visit Inova Fairfax Hospital for a three-hour tour given by a counselor. Particularly powerful is the Neuro-Science Unit, where, guided by nurses, the teens talk with patients and family members about the accidents that changed their lives. "The majority of kids think you live or die and there's nothing in between," said Lin Tokarz, who administers the SAFE program at the hospital. "But when they come onto our floors, they realize that perhaps not the worst thing is dying. It might be never being normal again or a traumatic brain injury, that their actions have consequences for themselves and their families." One of those affected by the tour was Nestor Maldonado. Two days before Christmas 1999, Maldonado, then 17, was partying with friends in a Fairfax hotel room. Fueled by marijuana and Ecstasy, a synthetic stimulant with a hallucinogenic effect, the group got loud. Police were called, and a scared Maldonado was locked up for the first time. "I couldn't believe it happened," Maldonado recalled. "I never thought I'd get caught." He was one of the first teens assigned to the SAFE program. His grades were mediocre, he said, because he spent more time going to clubs with friends than studying. Still, Maldonado had dreams of college and a soccer scholarship, which he now says were unrealistic given his lifestyle. Today he credits SAFE and the hospital tour for helping him see how destructive his lifestyle had become. "I saw one patient who wanted to be a [fashion] model," Maldonado said. "He went out with his friends. They were drunk. The car flipped, and it messed up his whole face. That really affected me. . . . I didn't want to end up like that." After graduation from J.E.B. Stuart High School near Seven Corners, Maldonado returned to Inova Fairfax -- this time as an employee. He transports patients to and from medical procedures. He has given up drugs and plans to attend classes at Northern Virginia Community College, then transfer to a college in Florida in a few years. "This has helped me realize I can't just hope for something to happen in my life," he said. "I don't really hang out [with those friends] or go clubbing as much. I've matured." August marks SAFE's two-year anniversary in Fairfax County. Some 230 young people from 13 to 20 years old were referred to the program in the first year. The single largest age group, almost 40 percent, were 17. The most common charge was possession of alcohol, closely followed by marijuana offenses. Eight in 10 of the participants were white, and most were male, the same trends reflected in the school survey. For almost all of the teens -- 87 percent -- the arrest was their first for alcohol- or drug-related offenses. Cathcart, who works for ASAP, was a logical choice to work with the parents, who are asked to participate in order for their children to complete the course. Her son Jonathan, 23, died in 1987 while running from drug dealers. High on phencyclidine hydrochloride, or PCP, a powerful hallucinogen, he charged onto Interstate 295 in the District and was struck by a car. Jonathan started using drugs in the seventh grade and continued using into adulthood. Cathcart struggled unsuccessfully for years to change his habits and believes that an intervention program such as SAFE could have helped her recognize and control her son's problem before it killed him. "I absolutely did things wrong," Cathcart said, matter-of-factly. "I absolutely would have done things differently. Accountability and responsibility: Those would have been my passwords in attempting to help him negotiate this rite of passage." Now she teaches those passwords to others. Cathcart sees it all. Parents attending her workshops run the gamut from resentful to grateful. Some are users, making it that much harder to get the message of intervention across. The group packed tightly around her conference-room table last week seemed as if they'd rather be anywhere but there. Some complained about their children being required to take the class, suggesting that families who could afford lawyers did not have to participate. Cathcart assured them that was not true. The program is administered on a case-by-case basis by Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judges, most of whom feel it is important for first-time offenders, said Grodner, the juvenile court judge. Officials estimate that the recidivism rate for participants in the SAFE program is about 10 percent. At the class, each parent briefly gave details of the circumstances of the child's arrest. Some seemed upset that a teenage rite such as drinking should be punished so severely. Others were grateful, including one man whose son was caught drinking and driving. He said the program was just what his boy deserved. "I know it wasn't his first time drinking beer," he told the group, whose names could not be disclosed. "We don't live on Main Street," he continued, lamenting that he'd become his son's personal chauffeur. "Not only is it very inconvenient for him to get around now [without a license], but I will never let him forget the inconvenience he's put the family through." During his part of the program, Hauda, the medical examiner and an ER physician, explains to the teens what the consequences can be of using drugs or alcohol, plying them with the everyday tales of everyday people who make mistakes because they're impaired by beer and marijuana. He tells about the boys who paddled a canoe to the middle of a Reston lake to drink. One of them stood up to urinate, capsizing the wobbling boat and drowning one of them. Then there were the teens who put some food on the stove and went outside to smoke marijuana, forgetting about the food. The house burned down, killing the sleeping brother of one of the boys and a firefighter. "We could just show them a bunch of gross pictures, but then they'd think really bad things happen to other people," Hauda said. "They need to realize this could be their best friend or their mom or dad. That's what makes an impact. . . . How long it's going to last, we don't know. But it's certainly better than doing nothing." Source: Washington Post (DC) CannabisNews Articles - Diversion Progams Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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Comment #15 posted by kaptinemo on June 21, 2001 at 13:32:59 PT:
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| I've been saying for years, based upon my own experiences with my parents advising me concerning alcohol, that if no-nonsense drug awareness, sans scare tactics and bulls**t, were taught as part of home life while growing up, we'd have far less people residing in jails - not to mention cemetaries. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #14 posted by aocp on June 21, 2001 at 10:46:05 PT |
| You have got to be kidding me!!! Rational thought, let alone practice in this nation?!? We love the soundbite and kneejerk, feelgood reactions too much for that kind of filth! I say push for tobacco and/or alcohol to be Sch I [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #13 posted by Pontifex on June 21, 2001 at 09:28:54 PT:
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| "Someone's got the munchies... for a California cheeseburger!" --Chief Wiggum [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #12 posted by Sudaca on June 21, 2001 at 09:20:14 PT |
| right on target, I remember being dumbfounded by the almost hysterical hunger for getting "plastered" that my fellow college freshmen had when I got to college. I then realized that all these little idiots had cars and oh no, they were out to buy more cases even when they were obviously blind drunk. I remember telling my parents about the insanity of having kids driving before they even learned how to enjoy a drink instead of going for wasted as soon as possible. Eventually they did learn but it took a couple of years. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #11 posted by Morgan on June 21, 2001 at 08:55:51 PT |
| Ah, a new and improved drug education program for the kiddies. DARE doesn't work, let's try SAFE. "Straight up, straight facts, straight information." (I'd I'm reminded of an episode of 'The Simpsons' where Chief They come to the 'drug education' area where the chief pulls Too funny. ***************************************************** [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #10 posted by Juan Costo on June 21, 2001 at 08:52:17 PT |
| European youth do not fill up large funnels AKA beer bongs with cheap alcohol for the express purpose of getting wasted as quickly as possible. I was pretty shocked at the drinking patterns of American college students when I first moved here. Cheap, awful tasting American beer is produced for one reason -- and it ain't responsible social drinking. I've been to Muslim countries with better brews. I'm not sure about alcoholism rates, but I do know that the stigma and social control efforts that exist in the U.S. are not to be found in Europe. And despite drinking ages ranging from 16 to 18, European youth are not stumbling around drunk all the time. The good doctor is right about the forbidden fruit appeal in the U.S. If Americans learned to drink BEFORE they learned to drive there would be less drunk driving accidents, especially when you consider that so much drinking among American youth takes place in cars, for obvious reasons. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #9 posted by J.R. Bob Dobbs on June 21, 2001 at 07:50:35 PT |
| The best urban-legend site is Snopes.com - they not only have an extensive collection, but they try to figure out if there is in fact any truth to the story. Read the page below for more on this specific story, or simply do a search for marijuana for a lot of interesting reading... http://www.snopes.com/ (the main page) [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #8 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on June 21, 2001 at 07:32:49 PT:
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| Let us compare the USA to Europe. There is a lot of social drinking there, but most countries do not have rates of alcoholism worse than ours. There is probably much less of a problem with youth alcoholism, for in many countries, alcohol is used in moderation in the home from a young age. In essence, alcohol is no big deal, and not the "forbidden fruit" so attractive to young Adam and Eve's. However, most European countries have extremely strict rules about drunk driving, and seem to have fewer problems than Amerika. They also have much better public transportation. A similar scenario pertains to cannabis in Holland (and increasingly most other European countries). Cannabis is available to youth above 18, and they do less of it than American kids. Let's see now: Repression leads to substance abuse. Prohibition leads to crime, disease and degradation. Respect leads to responsibility. Maybe we should change our policies. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #7 posted by kaptinemo on June 21, 2001 at 06:04:35 PT:
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| Particularly, one very absolutely glaring ommission? Considering the seeming ubiquity of DARE, why was it that there was simply no mention of it in the article? Surely these kids, given the near universality of DARE the entire time they've been attending school, would have been exposed to it's DrugWarrior cant. Amazing, isn't it? I've brought this up before: An entire generation has heard nothing but the Reaganite sheep-bleat of "Juh-uhst sa-ay No-oh-oh! Juh-uhst sa-ay No-oh-oh! literally the whole of their lives to date. And some of them wind up in this 'class'. Yet the article makes no mention of the mind-numbing obviousness that practically screams to be mentioned: DARE doesn't work, and if anything, is not just hopelessly ineffectual, but literally counter-productive. The kids went and tried anyway...out of curiosity. Children, can you say "boondoggle"? Sure you can! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by SWAMPIE on June 21, 2001 at 02:16:40 PT |
| I just have one question,even though I believe that what your mom told you not to be true,if that babysitter did actually cook the baby,what seasonings did she use,and how did she stuff it?I heard of a babysitter high on LSD that dried a wet baby in the microwave too...I guess that some anti's will resort to anything to scare you tonot do something they feel is wrong.When my son,who is now 25,was 15,we sat down and had a talk,and he said that he knew I smoked pot,and asked me what it did.I went to the store,got a 6-pack,a pack of Camels and sat down with him to have a talk.He drank 1 beer,smoked a cigarette(he already smoked before),and then we smoked a doobie,and had a long talk about drugs,alcohol,and cigarettes.He told me he didn't like the beer very much,already smoked cigs,and we had a damn good time together!To this day,he only has a beer once in awhile,and only smokes cigs then,and maybe smokes a joint a week.He has a productive life,a good wife,and is great with the kids.Because his parents cared about him enough to be REAL parents,he now has a decent life!I'm pretty proud of that! A question about this article,though,why did this counselor"breathalyze"a parent?If this person had a drink before going there,and the only indication wa the smell of alcohol,was this person doing anything wrong?Was ot illegal to have a drink after a hard day?After all,wasn't this a public affair?Just curious! SWAMPIE [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by observer on June 21, 2001 at 02:02:50 PT |
| I am certain that it is not true, simply an urban legend (one of many) designed to frighten people from smoking the "demon weed." Yes, reminds me too much of the 60s(?) Dragnet episode where the hip newlyweds are warned of their marihuana smoking. Later, "drug-related" tragedy strikes when they put their baby in the bath, turn the water on ... then forget the baby's there (due to marihuana abuse, of course), thereby drowing the infant. Moral: marihuana is wicked evil bad bad, and leads to the drowning of innocent infants, if not leading directly to "the harder stuff." (And since people saw it on T.V., they also knew it had to be true. Marihuana kills babies, proved once again, before the T.V. viewer's T.V.-eyes.) "I need you to get him out and 'breathalize' him," Cathcart tells a colleague behind closed doors. Translaton: The "colleague," probably a FFPD officer, is to wait for this man on some stretch of public road ("get him out"), so they can slap him with a DUI. (Another cash cow for county and city.) [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #4 posted by Dan B on June 21, 2001 at 01:50:16 PT:
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| Here's a link to an Urban Legend site with a remarkably similar version of the story I just related: http://www.warphead.com/urbanlegends/babies.htm Dan B [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #3 posted by Dan B on June 21, 2001 at 01:17:01 PT:
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| As I said, I figured out on my own that it is not a true story, but I appreciate the affirmation that I was, indeed, correct. By the way, my Mom has since softened quite a bit when it comes to her views on drug policy. I think that my talking to her about it has helped her to see that what she has been taught is not necessarily correct, and that there are valid arguments for ending the drug war. Also, please pardon the "they/the" spelling error in my previous message and any others that may have appeared in my comments. Dan B [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Mark on June 21, 2001 at 00:51:14 PT |
| thats one of the oldest drug myth's about pot there is. of course its not real. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by Dan B on June 21, 2001 at 00:43:28 PT:
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| At least the one about the kids whose house burned down when they forgot about food on the stove is plausible. Here's a horror story my Mom told me in an attempt to keep me from smoking the herb when I was a teenager: A couple hired a babysitter to watch their baby. The babysitter came over, they gave her instructions, and all was well, so they went out for dinner and a movie. While the couple was gone, the babysitter invited some friends over, and they smoked some marijuana. Near the end of dinner (mind you, this is maybe 1 1/2 hours into the evening), the wife/mother felt unsure about something, so she decided to call home to see how everything was going. The babysitter answered the phone and said that everything was okay and, oh yes, "the turkey is in the oven." They couple, now sure that something was wrong, rushed home to find that the babysitter and her friends were stoned, and because they were stoned they had put the baby in a pot and cooked it in the oven. My initial reaction to this story was a horrified sadness, but after I got over the shock and had a chance to mull over my own experiences with pot, I realized that she had to be lying. I had tried some good stuff several times by then (the stuff available in Texas pales in comparison), and not once did it make me feel out of control of my decisions, nor did it make me hallucinate that anything was anything other than what it was (that is, I could think of no experience that would even remotely suggest I could have possibly mistaken a baby for a turkey, even at my highest moments), nor did it cause me to become violent (quite the contrary). I came to the conclusion that it was not, in fact, true. Of course, Mom offered no corroborating evidence, and in several conversations since then about drugs, she has never again mentioned the story. I never read about this story in any medium, and I have yet to see any evidence to support it. Surely, such a horrific story would have made the national news, and surely the prohibitionists would use it at every opportunity if it were true. I am certain that it is not true, simply an urban legend (one of many) designed to frighten people from smoking the "demon weed." But I find it strange that such a similar story would end up in this article. I do find the above story more plausible, but I think it raises some important questions: Where were the parents when these teenage kids burned down the house? Why were these not supervised? Were these kids responsible enough to have been cooking food on the stove had they not been high? And (most importantly), would similar tragedies decrease if we simply taught kids in this country how to avoid harm when they do use drugs, including pointing out that almost all of the harms associated with marijuana use are caused by accidents in the home when high, not the marijuana itself? Wouldn't it make sense to teach kids that if they want hot food while they are high, prepare it ahead of time, then use the microwave to reheat it? Dan B [ Post Comment ] |
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