DRUG USE ON RISE: HEED THE WARNING

A Community-Wide Effort To Change Attitudes Is Required

Three years ago, Peterborough got a wake-up call when public health
officials quadrupled their budget for a needle exchange program.

So many local drug users were injecting themselves with cocaine that
the program to fight the spread of AIDS and other infectious diseases
through dirty needles was overwhelmed.

Police in the city and region confirmed what the needle program
numbers indicated: they were making more drug arrests and seizures
and the cocaine problem had been getting worse for several years.

The other problem, police said, was that most people weren't aware
drug use was on the rise again.

Three years later that frightening trend continues. Police see it in
the number of arrests they make for trafficking and the quantity of
drugs they find. From June to September, the OPP's Kawartha Combined
Forces Drug Unit seized $44 million worth of illegal drugs. Most of
it was marijuana about to be harvested from area fields, but police
said seizures of crack cocaine have doubled in the past year.

In a recent three-part Examiner series, reporter Trevor Wilhelm
documented those concerns and similar trends in area schools. Drugs
are widely available and many young students coming into high school
from Grade 8 have already used marijuana, cocaine and other drugs.

Students' drug stories are backed up by the findings of the Ontario
Student Drug Use Survey, one of the longest running measures of
adolescent use of drugs. In 2001, that survey found 3.8 per cent of
Grade 7 to 12 students had used cocaine at least once in the past 12
months, up from a low of 1.5 per cent in 1993 and approaching the
record high of 5.1 per cent in 1979.

But despite the alarms raised in 2002, cocaine use in Ontario schools
continued to climb. The 2003 survey found 4.8 per cent of students
were at least occasional users, and everything police, educators and
students are saying suggests cocaine could now be as common as it was
in the snowed-out days of the late 1970s.

During the same period marijuana use has also gone up dramatically.
It fell from a high of 25 per cent of students in 1979 to just 10 per
cent in 1991, but it now up to 30 per cent. And parents who remember
their own cannabis days as a period of harmless fun should be aware
that today's marijuana is six to eight times as potent as what they
were smoking.

No one is under the impression that drug use can be completely wiped
out. However, we have reached a stage in the cyclical ebb and flow
where a strong public message about the real costs and dangers is required.

Police say they need more officers to stem the flow, yet municipal,
provincial, federal and international agencies are already spending
billions of dollars a year. Shifting of police priorities may help,
but it is just as important that our young people in particular get
the message that drugs are not harmless fun.

Parents must play a key role by paying attention to what their
children are up to. Discussions about drugs should start when kids
are 10 or 11, because that's when the temptations at school begin.
Schools and public health agencies do focus on drug awareness
already, but more needs to be done.

And the public can help police. When drugs are being sold and
consumed more openly, people become more aware of what is going on.
Peterborough Crimestoppers takes anonymous tips at 745-9000 or 1-800-222-8477.

Marijuana is potentially harmful enough on its own, but the pendulum
is also swinging back to harder drug use. Highly addictive crack
cocaine is becoming more common. And local police are seeing the
first signs of crystal meth, which is less expensive, even more
addictive and has become a huge problem in Western Canada.

The message that "recreational" drugs aren't harmless and getting
high can come with a terrible price needs to be spread. The police
can't do it alone.