Hospital launches drug education school program

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November 20, 2009

By MIKE JAMES - The Independent The Daily Independent Fri Nov 20, 2009, 11:01 PM EST

IRONTON — Community health specialist Rachel Cooper spent her Friday talking to sixth-graders at Ironton Middle School about illegal drug use.

Even kids that young already know a lot about drugs, Cooper said. The trouble is, they know a lot of the wrong things and not enough of the right things.

For instance, ask a young adolescent for some street nicknames for methamphetamine and you’ll get a string of slang terms.

What they need to know, Cooper said, are the potential consequences of illicit drug use: ruined health, a criminal record, even death.

Cooper was presenting the first session of a new drug and alcohol education program developed by King’s Daughters Medical Center. The hospital put the program together in response to educators and students — who are hungry for the information, she said. “We tell them the truth about drugs.”

The program is modeled after other successful efforts like the tobacco academy that King’s Daughters takes to area schools. Cooper used multiple visual displays, videotaped testimonials and handouts to hammer home her message.

One of them was a glass candy dish half-full of pills and capsules. Actually vitamins, the pills represented the melange of drug choices teens are likely to encounter at parties, she said.

In fact, she said, a typical practice is to mix and match drugs indiscriminately, a practice called “pharming.”

The King’s Daughters program offers schools something they need but often can’t afford themselves, said sixth-grade teacher Christy McMaster. “We have a major issue. A lot of students are trying drugs at an earlier age,” she said.

Choices for drug education are shrinking, with such programs as D.A.R.E. — Drug Abuse Resistance Education — cutting back in some counties, Cooper said.

The King’s Daughters program was developed with materials from the Foundation for a Drug-Free World (www.drugfreeworld.org) and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (www.drugfree.org/parent).

Other schools may call King’s Daughters’ Health Connections Department at 408-4151 to schedule the program.

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