Mountain View High School principal Jill Atlas sounded a wake-up call to Marana parents last Wednesday as she rattled off what she called "frightening statistics" gathered in their own back yard.
A two-hour presentation held at Mountain View, "Take Action! An Evening of Substance Awareness Education" highlighted the ills of tobacco, marijuana and methamphetamine — drugs most commonly abused by teens.
The night kicked off with a free community dinner provided by the school's culinary arts students before the crowd of about 150 parents, teachers and teenagers filed into the school auditorium to hear about the reality of drug use.
According to surveys of Mountain View and Marana High School ninth- and 11th-graders, 25 percent of ninth-grade respondents and 21 percent of 11th-grade respondents had smoked marijuana at least once in the previous 30 days, Atlas said.
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Also in those 30 days, 22 percent of ninth-graders and nearly 12 percent of high-school juniors said they'd used cocaine, Ecstasy or other drugs that are not marijuana, alcohol or tobacco, she said.
"If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye or make your pulse go up a little bit, then I don't know why you're sitting here," she said.
Teen tells others her story
One teen, Lauren Reade, 16, was there to share her story.
Over spaghetti dinner, Lauren and her mom, Karen, 46, talked about Lauren's slide into meth addiction last year and why Lauren was addressing the crowd that night.
Lauren began drinking alcohol and smoking pot in ninth grade, she said.
A year later, she was snorting and smoking meth — also known as ice, crystal or speed.
Though she lives in Chandler, Lauren came to Tucson for treatment, and she came to Mountain View to talk about how real the meth epidemic is and how it can affect anybody, regardless of demographics.
With blond, wispy hair framing her delicate face, Lauren spoke about how she was an honor student taking several advanced placement classes and was captain of her school's varsity volleyball team before she started using meth.
"It definitely never was a path I thought I'd go down," she said.
Then in June, she did too much of the drug — which increases the heart rate and dehydrates its users — before heading outside to play sand volleyball in the desert heat.
She had the equivalent of a mini stroke and ended up in the hospital, paralyzed and barely able to speak.
Her mother thought it was heatstroke.
"She's my perfect child that never would do anything wrong, I thought. Everything was perfect. I thought," said Karen Reade.
Now clean almost eight months and fully able to move her body, Lauren said her biggest hope in talking publicly about what she went through is to raise awareness that regardless of how much they have going for them, young people are exposed to and have access to drugs.
She was high on cocaine the night she was inducted into the National Honor Society, Lauren said. "It's not just the weird kids in class."
It can happen in middle school
One middle-schooler who attended the dinner and presentation said he knows kids his age who smoke marijuana.
"It's important to get teens aware about this stuff," said Tortolita Middle School student Zander Shami, 13, who serves on a student advisory council that combats drug use by young people.
He wanted to find out how, why and where kids are doing illegal drugs so people can better understand the problem, he said.
"It's tough to see someone you've known a long time fall into it, and then you don't become friends anymore," Zander said. "Children do it because their parents don't know how to prevent it."
The ensuing presentation didn't offer a lot in the way of prevention advice, but the presenters went into much detail about what to look for if you want to know whether your kids are using.
"If you're not looking for it, you're not going to find it. Youth these days are smart," said Sgt. Joseph Ramirez, who spoke at length about tobacco addiction and marijuana use. Ramirez is with the Arizona Air National Guard Drug Demand Reduction Team.
The most obvious things that adults will notice with pot use in teens, he said, is sudden lack of motivation and bloodshot eyes.
"If you're an athlete, this stuff will destroy you in your sport," he said.
Much crime tied to meth
Tucson Police Department Officer Maria Cabrera took the stage and described her experience with meth addicts and meth labs as part of her work with the Counter Narcotic Alliance.
In 2004, "no less than 50 percent of property crime in the Tucson area was directly related to meth," she said. Similarly, at least 40 percent of violent crimes were meth-related, she said.
"There is literally no other drug out there that grabs people as quickly as meth."
Part of the reason for that, she said, is that meth affects all 13 pleasure centers in the brain at the same time.
"There is no law-enforcement solution to this," Cabrera said.
Rather, communities need to bond together, get to know their neighbors and report suspicious activity to police. Also, it's important to talk to children as early as possible about the far-reaching effects of meth addiction, she said.
Principal Atlas said she is proud of the student advisory councils that have formed at Tortolita and at Mountain View. The council students plan to talk to their friends to teach them about substance abuse and prevention.
"Some people have their heads in the sand, that it might not happen here," she said. "Most adults think we can solve the problem, and that's not true."
Signs of teen meth use:
● High energy — a formerly shy or otherwise reserved person is suddenly the life of the party.
● Increased sexuality, desire, promiscuity.
● More productive.
● Excessively active before "crashing" and sleeping for excessively long periods of time
Source: Tucson Police Department Counter-Narcotic Alliance
