RE-1 focused on educating students
MTF tracks trends in substance use by surveying over 40,000 eighth, 10th and 12th grade students each year located in about 400 public and private secondary schools across the contiguous 48 states. Now in its 41st year, MTF is conducted by a team of research professors at the University of Michigan and is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
According to the 2015 survey, which was released in December, over the past 10 years the percent seeing a great risk in regular marijuana use has fallen among eighth graders from 74 percent to 58 percent, among 10th graders from 66 percent to 43 percent and among 12th graders from 58 percent to 32 percent.
While marijuana use is illegal in Colorado for those under the age of 21, the survey found that 12 percent of eighth graders, 25 percent of 10th graders and 35 percent of 12th graders reported using marijuana at least once in the prior 12 months and 1.1 percent of eighth graders, 3.0 percent of 10th graders and 6.0 percent of 12th graders reported smoking marijuana on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days.
Concern about the growing marijuana use among students was among the topics discussed at a Safe Schools Summit conference attended by around 350 school officials, teachers and law enforcement officials last fall. The conference, which was sponsored by the Colorado School Safety Resource Center, included a presentation focusing on the concern around edible marijuana products, which are filled with high amounts of THC.
Wally Beardsley, principal at Sterling High School, said he can't say if the school has noticed any more or less issues with it since Colorado's legalization of marijuana in 2012. However, he did say it seems to be a little more acceptable and accepted now.
RE-1 Valley School District as a whole is trying to tackle marijuana use in a number of ways. Last school year, they hosted a free educational program on marijuana for parents put on by the Colorado Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. The program, sponsored by the Logan County Interagency Oversight Group, addressed the different methods of using marijuana, the dangers marijuana use poses to the developing brain and how parents can educate their children about marijuana use.
Sterling Police Department also gave a presentation to Campbell Elementary students last year regarding marijuana awareness and Glock, the department's K9 officer, and they visited Sterling Middle School last semester to give "Strong Kids, Safe Kids, Smart Kids" assemblies, with information on Glock and the High On Life program.
The district is also using its new character education program, Random Acts of Kindness, to try to educate students on making good choices.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, research has shown that marijuana's negative effects on attention, memory, and learning can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of the drug wear off, depending on the user's history with the drug. It also reports that considerable evidence suggests that students who smoke marijuana have poorer educational outcomes that their nonsmoking peers (i.e. lower graduation rates).
A "How Marijuana Harms Youth" brochure on the Colorado Department of Education's website, www.cde.state.co.us, notes long-term, regular users who started smoking the drug before the age of 18 often cause changes in their brain's structure and functioning that result in permanent cognitive deficits.
Essentially, they can create for themselves a level of "normal" performance that is lower functioning than the level of normal performance they may have achieved had they not used marijuana.
The brochure states that if teens didn't use marijuana before age 18 there would be 17 percent less high school dropouts, 5 percent less college non-attendance and 3 percent less college dropouts. It also points out that marijuana is addictive, and one in six people who try it before the age of 18 develop a clinical diagnosis of marijuana abuse or dependence.
At SHS, Beardsley said he's trying to get the message out that, "I don't want drugs here."
The school doesn't have any specific programs geared toward marijuana use — "We're dealing with it like we do everything else," the principal said. Marijuana use, along with alcohol and other drug use, is addressed in health classes. The school tries to educate students on some of the positives and negatives and let them know the legalities of it.
SHS does use SPD's canine officer to do random searches, not only for drugs but weapons as well, a practice that has been in place for many years "to make sure our students, our staff and our school is safe," Beardsley said.
He noted the school's main focus is to educate students on some of the choices they may have to make as young adults and to get them thinking about, "What is the reputation you want to have? How do you want to be viewed yourself? How do you want other students in the building to view you?"
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