Substance Abuse Program - Alex

Do you think our school has a problem with drugs? Alcohol? Substance abuse in general?



On November 5th there was a meeting at the Therkildsen Center to discuss some recent substance abuse issues occurring amongst youth in the Shelby County area. This was a preliminary meeting and anyone wishing to voice an opinion, sit and listen or be a part of a solution was welcome to attend. In attendance were administrators, school board members, parents, teachers, guidance counselors, clergy, probation officers, law enforcement and concerned community members.

Our wonderful principal, Mr. Wagner, was the leader of the meeting, and lucky enough I was able to sit down with him yesterday and get a little more information about the program. One of the major things he emphasized was the fact that this program was open for anyone to attend, whether it be faculty, parents, or even students. He wants to program to be a community thing, where anyone and everyone can be involved.



The reason this program was started was because there have been a few cases in the school lately that have dealt with drug abuse. By having this program, the community is primarily trying to figure out if there is a problem with drugs in our school, and if there is, what are some things we can do to try to fix this problem. Mr. Wagner told me that drugs have always been a problem in the school, just like any other school, but just recently the problem has begun to increase immensely. In my opinion, I do think there is a problem with drugs in our school. I think a lot of kids turn to drugs because they’ve “heard” that it will make their problems better. And when they turn to drugs, they just can’t stop. A variety of things could contribute to the various problems kids have, whether it be insecurity, jealousness, or the fact that they’re bullied.

To attempt to fix this plausible problem, it is going to take a vast amount of courage, according to Mr. Wagner, and I totally agree with him. It’s going to require a lot of brainstorming to come up with possible solutions to the problem, and courage is going to be a factor in that. Courage is being fearless, brave, confident. It takes one courageous person to start standing up against the use of drugs. And like all us students have learned from Rachel’s challenge, you may just start a chain reaction.



Hopefully all you readers out there will be that one courageous person and stand up against the use and abuse of drugs. If anyone has any opinions on the substance abuse program, or the substance abuse problem in general, I’d love to hear it. Do you think we have a problem? Or not? For anyone wanting to attend, the next substance abuse meeting is Monday, November 23 at 7:00 in the High School Auditorium. Anyone is encouraged to come and voice your opinion!