Drugs' deadly kid-friendly face: is that really a sweet tart?

I was numb," Kate says. "The officers did their best to explain what Ecstasy was, but that night it was falling on deaf ears. This couldn't possibly have happened to my sweet Kelley. It had to be a mistake."

A drug-generated tsunami of devastating magnitude is surging through today's youth culture, sucking our children--yours, mine, our nieces and nephews--under its torrent. If we don't protect them, who will?

Drug abuse has a new face; a face "so sinister it's beyond scary," says Lee Benson, reporter for the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City, Utah. Illegal drugs, popularly known as "club drugs," (Ecstasy, Rohypnol, Ketamine, LSD) are widely available to our kids from friends and acquaintances at school or parties. But here's the new twist. Many dealers, attempting to lull teens into believing that drugs are an innocuous ticket to fun, are engraving these potentially deadly tablets with religious symbols, smiley faces, and popular logos like Calvin Klein and Mercedes Benz. Some--no doubt to attract even younger children--imprint cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, Tweety Bird, Pokemon, Bugs Bunny, and Teletubbies.

However, these club drugs are merely the foam floating on the surface of the churning water. The danger to our kids goes much deeper.

Prescription for Disaster

The abuse of prescription drugs among teens has skyrocketed. Between 1992 and 2003, abuse of prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax, Ritalin and Adderall jumped 212 percent among twelve- to seventeen-year-olds. Joseph A. Califano, Jr., chairman and president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, reports, "Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription drug abuse and addiction. While America has been congratulating itself in recent years on curbing increases in alcohol and illicit drug abuse, and in the decline in teen smoking, abuse of prescription drugs has been stealthily, but sharply, rising."

Stacy Hall of Mesa, Arizona, felt paralyzed with fear when she learned that her eighteen-year-old son Adam had overdosed on drugs. His final cocktail included the prescription medications Valium and other antidepressants. When she told her surviving children of Adam's death, his eight-year-old sister's eyes welled with tears and she asked why they "couldn't just take him to the hospital and fix him." Stacy said, "I had no answers for her. Our entire family was devastated."

Over-the-counter Dangers

Another drug sucking our kids into its undercurrent and catching parents by surprise is Dextro-methorphan (DXM). DXM is a cough-suppressing drug found in more than 125 over-the-counter cold and cough medications such as Coricidin, Robitussin, and Vicks Formula 44. When taken in excessive doses--some kids swallow as much as 30 times the safe dosage--DXM acts on the brain like heroin, codeine, or morphine. But unlike those addictive drugs, DXM is widely available to anyone with a couple of dollars to lay on the convenience-store counter.

A frightening innovation some drug dealers now offer is cocaine, methamphetamine (meth) and heroin in pills. These highly addictive and deadly drugs--once available only as a powder that had to be smoked, snorted or injected--now look like Sweet Tarts, Jolly Ranchers, or other candies. They even come in different flavors like grape, cherry, and vanilla. Kids think, It's just a pill. Mom and dad take pills all the time, right? Dealers know drugs like these make for good business, and our children stand squarely in their crosshairs. Meth, for example, has a 90 percent addiction rate.

Other Ways

When kids can't get a hold of drugs, some find other ways to get high like "bagging" or "huffing." Kids "bag" by pouring vapor-containing liquids (gasoline or paint) into a bag, and they inhale the fumes. Children "huff" by using those same vapors sprayed onto a rag.

Inhaling gasoline, paint, and other toxic fumes robs the brain of oxygen and creates a dizzy sensation. No one should be surprised to learn that huffing and bagging are equally deadly.

Fourteen-year-old Mike McCarty of West Hills, California, was already dead when his parents broke down the bathroom door. Mike had squirted spray paint into a plastic bag and inhaled the fumes. Mike's dad, Bob, says, "You think, why on earth would I take something that I could spray my motorcycle with and inhale it into my lungs? The answer is 14-year-old kids aren't that smart, and they don't have a sense of dying."

How Do They Do It?

Most parents are horrified to learn that their children can access drugs virtually anywhere--at school, the medicine cabinet, the corner convenience store, or the garage. With a rudimentary knowledge of how to search the Internet, anyone can find hundreds of online "pharmacies" offering a plethora of prescription narcotics, antidepressants, and other drugs. "Like predators in the forest," says Beau Dietl, chairman and chief executive officer of Beau Dietl and Associates, an international investigative and security corporation, "these vultures ... hide in the darkness of cyberspace, where they hunt down and feast on our children."

Then there's e-mail. Internet-savvy drug dealers obtain e-mail addresses from a variety of sources and then send unsolicited messages offering discount drugs to anyone with access to a credit card. If your child has an e-mail account, it's likely he or she routinely receives unsolicited offers for drugs (as well as pornography).

Parents Hold the Key

DrugTALK (an organization dedicated to combating youth drug abuse) chairman, Brian Charlesworth, says it takes most parents more than two years to realize their kids are using drugs. Two years!

None of our kids can afford two years on drugs. That's why it's imperative to take action now, today, to protect them from the flood of drugs washing through our culture. "Drug addiction can permeate any home and affect any family," warns Dave Broadhead, a narcotics officer with 20 years on the police force, "no matter the age, religious affiliation, ethnic background, and social sums." Research suggests as many as 84 percent of families with kids in school face a moderate- to high-risk threat from drugs. But there is hope. Here are some ways parents can significantly reduce that threat:

1. Be your kid's parent. Margo Austin, prevention coordinator for the Burlington, Vermont, school district and a licensed alcohol and drug counselor, tells parents, "It's not a matter of whether your child will choose to use drugs in this culture, it's just a matter of when they will be faced with the decision." She adds, "I think parents nowadays are so afraid of getting their kids angry at them that they shy away from a lot of issues. Kids don't need more friends; they need parents who are willing to take a stand."

2. Talk to them about drugs. Become an information junkie about club drugs, narcotics, inhalants, and other substances that kids (and adults) use to get high. A 2004 national study indicates that teens who have regular, open communication with their parents about important issues are more likely to try to live up to their parents' expectations and less likely to drink, use drugs, or engage in early sexual behavior.

Kelley's mother, Kate Patton, says, "I'll be asking [my younger daughter] over and over who she's hanging out with, what she's doing, and where she's going. I've already told her I plan to be so involved in her life over the next several years that she may well hate me." Then Kate adds, "That's all right. I only wish I could have had Kelley hate me."

3. Involve the family in spiritual activities. A 2000 report in The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, indicates that teens with high levels of personal devotion to God are 41 percent less likely to abuse drugs and 35 percent less likely to abuse alcohol. Perhaps this suggests that when kids believe that a loving God is watching over them, and that He expects them to do right, they're better able to resist peer pressure and do what they know intuitively is wrong.

4. Know the signs of possible drug abuse (see sidebar on page 8). The earlier you pick up on those signs, the earlier you can move to protect your child from continuing along that dangerous path.

5. Don't think it can't happen to your child. It can!

"Open your mind," urge the experts at DrugTALK.org, "to the possibility that, no matter how great your kids are, your family faces a very real and dangerous threat of drugs." Then they add, "Recognize that you, as a parent, are the key to your child's protection."

That's why this article is in your hands--to help you recognize the threat to your children and to acquire the tools to rescue them. After all, if you don't protect them, who will?

Kate Patton will never forget the night her daughter Kelley died. Police officers knocked on the door and told her that Kelley had overclosed on Ecstasy. As Kate tried to absorb the horrific news, Kelley's younger sister fell hysterically into her mother's arms.

WARNING SIGNS OF POSSIBLE DRUG ABUSE

* Avoids contact with family

* Rapid mood swings

* Personality changes

* New friends are older or less acceptable to the family

* School conduct worsens

* Dilated pupils, red eyes, slurred speech, lethargy, apathy

* Hyperactivity followed by drowsiness

Loss of appetite, absentmindedness

Source: www.drugfree.org/Parent/SpotDrug Use/How_to_Tell_if_Your_Teenager _is_Using

How to Become More Involved With Your Teen

1. Compliment your kids about their strength of character, maturity, and individuality.

2. Get to know their friends and their friends' parents.

3. Set standards of behavior for your teens. Let them know what you expect of them, and what discipline they can expect from you if they fail to behave properly.

4. Set curfews, and enforce them.

5. Encourage open dialogue with your children. Let them know they can ask you anything, and you'll give them honest answers. No subject should be "off limits."

Richard Maffeo writes from Gig Harbor, Washington.