Troubled Teens Resources

The fight against teen age drug abuse is not fought only by law enforcement and school officials. It is fought first by conscientious and informed parents taking a pro-active role in their school and community.

Those familiar with recent research released on the ’state of the war’ on drugs is also aware that these reports cite parents as the most critical influence in their troubled teens‘ decisions on drug use. Recent news reports also reveal that parents are not taking that role too seriously. Some think it’s just dandy for their teens to do drugs - “hey, they’ll get over it” - and some parents prefer to put their head in the sands and ignore local teen drug problems completely.

This battle can’t be fought without ongoing small community efforts such as the national non-profit,’Mothers Against Methamphetamine’ (MAMa). Unfortunately, the ostrich parents in one community had the audacity to suggest that the efforts of the local chapter of MAMa was giving the town a bad name by revealing the depth of that community’s meth problem.

“Fulghum said the nonprofit activist group, which reaches out to parents and their teens who experiment with drugs, has not been well-received by some members of the Walton County and Gwinnett sides of Loganville.

“In the beginning I was told, ‘You are giving Loganville a bad name. I can’t believe you started this organization,’” said Fulghum, who started the Loganville branch”

And now Loganville might get their wish since Filgham will be relocating and no parent has stepped forward to take her place. Don’t be the ostrich in your community. For the sake of your teen, be pre-active.

Teen crisis intervention, in one form or another, is a necessity for our nation’s youth. As recently released studies have indicated, the war on drugs is, at best, holding the line against the constant threat of illegal drugs but failing tho thwart the growing abuse of legal prescriptions.

Funding for schools for troubled teens,rehab programs and other juvenile programs is one of the biggest obstacles in obtaining help for teens at risk.Some of the most effective programs are locally grown and privately funded through businesses and a network of volunteers. So it is sad to read of an invitation issued for volunteer mentors and not one person in this small community responded.

“A call to help troubled teens turn their life around fell on deaf ears Saturday. Actually, it fell on no ears at all.

The Youth Hope Foundation and the Department of Juvenile Justice kicked off its Life Coach Initiative at Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church.

They hoped to sign up people to help mentor kids from the time they are detained until long after they are released, but no one showed up to volunteer.

“There’s a lot of kids that are alone on the weekends and nobody comes to visit them. They feel like nobody cares and no body wants to help them and what kind of message are we giving them when the community does not respond to an issue like this its like telling them we don’t care about you, just stay where you are,” said Susan Bowman.”

(Source)

Teen crisis intervention by taxation? A new study suggests that prohibiting drug abuse isn’t sufficient and recent statistics and the interminable war on drugs seem to support that conclusion.

“More than 300,000 people worldwide between the ages of 15 and 29 died from the use of alcohol or illicit drugs in 2000, numbers that University of Victoria researcher Dr. Tim Stockwell called “substantial.”
[..]
In the developed world, the deaths of 31 per cent of people between the ages of 15 and 29 could be linked to drugs and alcohol in 2000.

“It’s by any account a large number of people dying prematurely from totally preventable causes…”

The study suggests that a perhaps a more effective method of discouraging troubled teens from drug use is a combination of “taxes, nagging and creative thinking”. The suggestion is that if you make drugs such as pot and heroin cost prohibitive through a system of regulation, as opposed to prohibition, that teens will be far more discouraged in their pursuit of a “high”.

“The Lancet study found that regulating the use and sale of drugs works the best in preventing further abuse — if it’s expensive and harder to get, teens won’t use it.

“Controls on price, usually through taxation, are among the interventions with the highest evidence for effectiveness in reducing levels of harm in the population, especially for young people,” the study said. The conclusion has led Stockwell to wonder if a similar model is necessary for the sale of cannabis in Canada.”
(Source)