When Do Kids Start Using Drugs?

Members of Behavioral Health Services of Pickens County know that children are exposed to drugs at early ages.

The coalition has been awarded a $625,000 federal Drug-Free Communities grant to broaden prevention messages and activities to explicitly include marijuana and prescription drugs.

As part of that effort, the coalition will be surveying students in Pickens County, to learn what drugs children are exposed to and when experimenting with drugs or regular drug use begins.

Cathy Breazeale, BHSPC Director of Prevention, said the coalition is looking at the SC Communities That Care Survey.

“I want to pool some middle school students as well as high schoolers,” Breazeale said.

The anonymous surveys asks questions such as how old respondents were when they first tried marijuana, cigarettes and alcohol, how easy it is to get ahold of those things in their communities, their attitudes on drug use and parental involvement in their lives.

Breazeale said surveys will look at four core areas: past 30 day drug use, perception of risk, perception of parental disapproval and perception of peer disapproval.

Coalition member Captain Chad Brooks with the Pickens County Sheriff's Office said he'd like to restructure the survey a bit.

“There was question on there about marijuana abuse and things of that nature, but I wanted to add the prescription drugs in,” Brooks said. “That's not on there.”

Brooks said adding prescription drugs to the survey will help the coalition “see who's abusing prescription medicine, at what age, and their access to it.”

“We've got a much bigger problem with those drugs than we do for say, heroin,” Brooks said. “Loritab and all those things – they're out there by the bushel baskets.”

Dr. Jim Mahanes, who heads up the Prescription Drug Abuse Alliance, agreed and spoke about the prescription drug abuse problem in this county.

“Pickens County, South Carolina sits on the top of the list as far as drugs are concerned,” Mahanes said. “Just like law enforcement, we in the medical community have repeat offenders. The people who continually come back to the emergency rooms and put demands on our physicians down there to prescribe.”

And that problems trickles down to young people when adults in their lives are careless with their medication.

“We know that that's the resource for a lot of the medicines for younger people, through the medicine cabinet or where ever they can,” Mahanes said. “People are not taking care of their medication if they need it.”

The coalition had discussed surveying 8^th graders and juniors.

“That way, you can see how it's trending,” Brooks said.

“Why wait until eighth grade?” said retired educator and coalition member Kathy Brazinski. “If you really want to stop it, you've got to hit it head on at the earliest possible age that you can, to know where they're getting it and what they're doing. I can't tell you how many kids are involved in drugs in third-fifth grade.”

“That scares me,” Breazeale said.

“It's very scary,” Brazinski replied. “Sixth graders are going to be more honest with you, than eighth graders.”

The coalition agreed sixth graders should also be surveyed.

Breazeale said it wouldn't be difficult to restructure the survey.

The coalition also plans to have former NFL Coach Sam Wyche to speak to students and adults “to create awareness of the coalition's activities, provide information on community risk and protective factors and to educate the audience on underage drinking laws and consequences,” Breazeale said.