South Florida AIDS workshop to focus on teens

There were no balloons or cigars for one birth at Plantation General Hospital last week. The mother is 14. The father is in his late 20s and not around. He gave the girl HIV, and she may have passed it to her baby.

An uncommon tragedy, but health officials said teens contracting HIV/AIDS through unprotected sex with older men and sexual abuse has become a persistent problem, especially in South Florida.

The men want underage partners, health officials said, while the teens -- usually girls but also some boys -- are drawn in by the attention, thrills or material things the men offer. Few men get caught and fewer get prosecuted, officials said, because teens seldom file charges against them.

"It's a tragedy," said Dr. Ana Puga, an HIV/AIDS specialist at the Children's Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Fort Lauderdale who will be treating the Plantation girl. "These guys take advantage of a child's mind and they get away with it. We had a girl 13 infected by a man who was 52."

At least 776 Florida teens ages 13 to 17 have been infected with the virus since mid-1997, about 2 percent of the statewide total of 37,250. About half of the teens come from South Florida, state figures show.

That doesn't count 809 Florida teens 13 to 19 living with AIDS -- 5,000 nationally -- the lion's share of whom inherited the virus from their mothers.

Teen infections take center stage today for National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, highlighted by a workshop open to the public in Pompano Beach focusing on showing females how to protect themselves better.

Men prowl for teens at malls, fast food restaurants, movie theaters, skating rinks, school events, street corners, flea markets, online and on telephone chat lines, health officials said.

Some teens can be talked into sex in return for cell phones, hair styling, jewelry, clothes, drugs or cash, said Katrina, 18, who got HIV at age 15 from a boyfriend in his 20s. She spoke on the condition that her full name not be used.

"She says, `I'm waiting for you to give me money,'" Katrina said. "They want what they see everyone else has. Some young girls, they don't have love at home. They look for the guys to show them love. She's willing to lay down with that person. While she's laying down with him, she thinks, `He loves me.'"

No one tracks how many teen cases were caused by adults, but health experts note a national report in the 1990s that found men over 25 fathered twice as many teen pregnancies as teen boys.

The picture has grown more hopeful for newborns. The number of Florida babies born with HIV has plunged 83 percent since 1992, thanks to drugs that prevent mothers from passing it via the womb. But at least three-fourths of Florida teens with HIV were infected through unsafe sex, 80 percent of them girls involved with males, state figures show. Many girls -- and young women -- do not feel the need or the strength to demand that their partners use condoms, HIV counselors say.

"They don't know how to negotiate safer sex because of lack of self-esteem, lack of education," said Yolette Bonnet, director of the Comprehensive AIDS Program of Palm Beach County. "They want to get their hair done and the guy on the corner has money."

Said Katrina: "They feel, `That's my boyfriend, why should we use a condom?'"

Some girls may engage in risky sex to rebel, to shock friends or to get attention, said Stephanie Moreau, a program manager for the CAP in Delray Beach.

Adult males who prey on teens may be pedophiles, or looking for someone free of disease or someone they can dominate, counselors said.

"These men are nasty," said Essie "Big Mama" Reed, a Fort Lauderdale neighborhood activist who preaches abstinence at her Team of Life program. "They say, `I can buy you this and I can buy you that, and come do this with me.'"

A few men get arrested under state laws that make it illegal to have sex with children under 16 or family members under 18.

In 2004, Miramar police busted Cosme Caballero, 32, in a van for having sex with a girl of 15. He didn't tell her he was HIV-positive and infected her, a prosecution report shows. He pleaded no contest to sexual battery and criminal transmission of the virus and was sentenced to 25 years in state prison. Florida forbids people with HIV to have sex unless they disclose their status.

But such cases are rare. Often, the teen views the man as a boyfriend and doesn't want to get him in trouble by filing charges, prosecutors said. Officials cannot test a suspect's DNA without probable cause, said Lanna Belohlavek, supervisor of crimes against children for the Palm Beach County state attorney.

"Sometimes they just want to move forward," said Vanice Rolle, an HIV/AIDS specialist at the Broward County Health Department.

HIV agencies are trying to reach out to teens with messages of safe sex and abstinence. Today's workshop for women, teens and parents will stress ways to say no to sex or insist on condoms, Rolle said.

In Palm Beach County, agencies will soon start a nationally recognized program called All-Stars that targets girls 11 to 14. It aims to prevent substance abuse, violence and sex by stressing self-esteem, ambitions, parental involvement, personal commitment and thinking about consequences before acting, said organizer Doris Carroll, of the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition.

Said "Big Mama" Reed: "We need to deal with it now and so they don't hurt anybody else."

Bob LaMendola can be reached at blamendola@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4526 or 561-243-6600, ext. 4526.

Take the first step against alcohol abuse

Thursday is National Alcohol Screening Day. While I am the last person to be impressed by national this and that days, alcoholism is a serious disease that often gets downplayed, sensationalized or glamorized.

The truth is that one in every 13 adults suffers from alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence and approximately half of U.S. adults report a family history of alcoholism or problem drinking, according to Screening for Mental Health Inc., www.mentalhealthscreening.org. "Research indicates that brief interventions - such as talking about your drinking with a health professional - can help resolve mild to moderate alcohol problems as well as encourage those with more serious problems to seek treatment," says Dr. Douglas G. Jacobs, president and CEO of Screening for Mental Health and an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

"There's no excuse not to have treatment," adds Doris Carroll, community coordinator for the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition in West Palm Beach.

Reach them at www.pbcsac.org or (561) 689-2535. "If a family member is deep into alcoholism, they could be placed somewhere and have treatment for free if they're over 18 and are at the poverty level. We're in touch with the people who do alcohol treatment in our community."

Both groups agree prevention is the key to stopping the growth of this disease.

"Alcoholism is a complex family disease and it needs treatment of not only the individual, but family members," says Carroll, "to stop the cycle of alcoholism in their family. Prevention programs can do that." When Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps was charged with driving while intoxicated in 2004, Carroll used that example to speak out. "Pay attention," she said. "Even the best of our young people come of age in a culture that fails to demand adherence to healthy standards when it comes to alcohol use."

And not everyone has a clue when a family member is overusing alcohol. Or even if they, themselves, are caught up in the drinking game. There are yardsticks, though, that can be used to assess drinking habits.

Are you drinking to calm nerves, forget worries or boost a sad mood?
Do you have guilt about drinking?
Have you made unsuccessful attempts to cut down or stop drinking? Are you lying about or hiding drinking habits, causing harm to yourself or someone else as a result of drinking?
Are you needing to drink increasingly greater amounts, feeling irritable, resentful or unreasonable when not drinking, or causing medical, social, family, or financial problems by drinking?

There are a variety of programs nationally that can help get drinking problems under control. But first, you, your family member, or your friend has to make that step toward recovery.

Today is a good day to do that.

The Watershed Treatment Program at 1 Watershed Way, Boynton Beach, at the Care Center will be offering free alcohol screenings.Call (877) 416-9566, Ext. 8382, for more information. Hours are noon to 8 p.m.

New Gardens center reaches out to kids

Teenagers in Gardens, and all over the county will have a new place to get together, hang out and most of all educate themselves later this month with the opening of a new youth activity and education center.

The Cabana Colony Youth Center in Palm Beach Gardens is a new multi-sponsored activity center that's looking to educate the county's youth on the dangers of drug addiction and substance abuse. Aimed at teenagers, the center mixes that message with a relatively down-to-earth approach in getting the county's young people to involve themselves more and more with community affairs, among them, drug prevention. "We're working on strengthening families and communities," says Doris Carroll, the center's community coordinator, echoing the center's slogan and purpose. Coming from a background of drug abuse education, Carroll worked with the United Way's Partnership for a Drug Free Community until 1999. Drug education and prevention for the community's children is the center's primary goal, explains Carroll, enthusiastic for the center's opening and its possible impact. Having worked within the county for years on topics concerning drug use, prevention and counseling, Carroll sees the center as an extension of those goals.

Relocated from offices in West Palm Beach to the much more spacious and equipped location in Gardens, the center's opening is also coming in what many are saying is a time of need. In the last five years Palm Beach County has seen a rise in the number of prescription-drug overdoses and cocaine and alcohol addictions in young people. In Cabana Colony itself, several teenagers died of OxyContin overdoses, prompting Carroll to focus on community efforts which helped form the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition (PBCSAC) as non-profit drug prevention organization that works off federal funding.

Inside what was formerly the Palm Beach Gardens Fire House, the organization has converted several rooms with the help of donations, the Sheriff's office and other participants into what is an average teenager's version of bare essentials. Visitors swipe an assigned keycard at the front desk, sign in, and can use available video games, watch some TV or attend a scheduled movie night or get online access at one of several computers. Not as routine as school, as quiet as a library, the center is like a recreation center with a purpose in informing kids what they need to know the most during formative years. "It's a place for kids in the community to come together," says staff organizer Chris Poggil, who explained that counselors and staff are aiming to work with the teens to gain input on what they think is important to the community. "A lot of decisions for the community are made by those who don't see at the average teen's level," he said.

As word spreads and visitation grows, the center is hoping their new approach will help give kids more of a hands-on approach to solving some of the issues in their city's, whatever those issues might be. It seems part of the organization's purpose is to determine how and where it could be most useful.

A boy's life: A matter of substance

I was about 13 or 14 the first time I got puke-drunk. An unpleasant experience in so many ways. And yet, despite the unbelievable embarrassment, I felt ... well ... a strange sense of crossing a hurdle. As if I had stepped into a different person. And I knew the family and friends who were at the New Year's Eve party where I lost control would forever see me differently.

Little Ralph was gone. I was a man.

"It's that age-old phenomenon of trying to be more adult-like," said Jim Hall. "And what do we associate with being an adult? Sex. Drinking. Smoking."

Hall, the director of Nova Southeastern's Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse, may be one of the few people who knows what he's talking about when it comes to kids' choices about reality-altering substances.

He has the words that seem to elude so many parents.

"Seems to me," I made my pitch to Hall, "that drinking/doing drugs/smoking cigarettes has become a rite of passage."

Particularly in the boy culture, I added. Look at Animal House. Or Friday. Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. I could have gin-n-juiced Hall to death with song titles and musician mythology.

"You know," I continued, "it's just that kids get curious. Want to test boundaries. It's almost as if they have to make bad choices. It's a natural part of growing up. Everybody goes through it."

"That's an interesting statement," Hall countered. "Because let's say 30 percent of Broward students use some type of drug. That means 70 percent don't. That's a real important beginning to this conversation: the fact that everybody doesn't make the choice to use. The real standard is non-use."

He was on a roll.

"One of the key findings of a 2003 National Academy of Sciences report was that the No. 1 issue in reversing under-age drinking is changing adult attitudes," Hall continued.

As for the rite-of-passage thing, he offered sobering statistics and analysis that trump any reminiscences.

"Here's the critical issue when it comes to under-age drinking: It's not so much about the substances themselves, or the immediate consequence of drinking," Hall said. "It's about the impact to the young, undeveloped brain."

Hall says early use of drugs and alcohol actually chemically alters the developing brain, making it more likely for kids to become adult addicts.

"It's a 21st century discussion," he said. "We don't have all the neurological reasons but we do have the epidemiology. We know, for instance, that 47 percent of adults who drank by the age of 13 went on to have alcohol dependency problems at some point in their lives. And we know that percent decreases every year you can keep a kid from drinking, until it's all the way down to just 9 percent for those who started at age 21."

"But," I pleaded, "I, uh, know people who drank at 13 and 14 and now, at let's say 48, they rarely drink."

"They're the lucky ones," Hall said. "Think about it. Statistically, there's a 50-50 chance."

Startling statistics

A 2004 survey found that almost a quarter of Broward middle-schoolers drank alcohol within the previous 30 days. In Broward, 28 percent of high-school students reported having their first drink before 13.

"The No. 1 problem most boys have is alcohol," said Doris Carroll of the Palm Beach Substance Abuse Coalition.

There's easy access. When was the last time you counted the beers in your fridge or locked the liquor cabinet? And it's legal for adults, which gives both kids and adults a rationale for under-age drinking.

Which might explain the shifting attitudes found in a study of Palm Beach County middle- and high-school students.

The 2004 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey found that "disapproval of alcohol abuse seems to have weakened over time. The percentage of students reporting that it would be wrong or very wrong for someone their age to drink alcohol regularly decreased from 67.9 percent in 2000 to 60.3 percent in 2004."

Among middle-schoolers, the percentage who thought it was wrong to drink alcohol regularly had decreased from 80.8 percent to 78 percent. Using Hall's method of reversing stats, that means 22 percent -- almost a quarter -- don't think it's wrong.

Carroll said that kids' attitudes about drinking are generally linked to what they see adults model.

"If it looks like a normal activity, if that's what they see, then that's what they're going to do," Carroll said.

On the day I met with Carroll, she was getting ready for a town hall meeting at a high school in rural northwestern Palm Beach County. The topic of discussion: the shooting deaths of two high-schoolers at a kegger.

"In that area, there's a very permissive attitude about keg parties," Carroll said. "Many times parents feel that if their kid is going to drink, they might as well do it at home. They'll have these big keg parties out in a field and kids up into their early 20s will camp out in pup tents."

Other substances

But alcohol is certainly not the only problem. The use of inhalants -- often household chemicals that, at the request of the folks in prevention programs, I will not list -- is rising.

And kids are still smoking marijuana, which experts say is probably the second-most popular drug.

"Somebody told on me," one 12-year-old recalled of the day he was busted in middle school. "They came into the room and patted me down. I was shaking. Then they asked if I had anything that shouldn't be in school. I admitted that I did. And then they put me in handcuffs and took me to the juvenile assessment center. They took a mug shot and fingerprinted me."

The youngster said he had just begun to experiment with pot when he was caught.

His mother's reaction was even more dramatic.

"Surprise is not ... I could never have imagined anything like this happening," she said, adding, "I lost some of my hair from the shock."

Neither she nor her husband smoke or drink (her husband quit drinking 10 years ago). And she said her older son, now in college, never had any substance-abuse problem.

"It was a wake-up call for the whole family," the mom said.

Which is exactly what the people who developed the Face It program wanted.

Face It is a Palm Beach Schools program for kids who have been suspended because of drug use. A night in the program equals one day of suspension.

Like the 12-year-old, most of the 57 kids in Face It are marijuana users/experimenters.

"I don't know if marijuana's easier to get into school, but with its smoke and pungent odor, it's certainly easier to catch," said Linda Salzman, who oversees Face It.

Acknowledging the powerful role of adults, Face It works with both the student and parents. The students hear about the impact of drug use. The parents hear about ways to improve communication.

"At our house, it was always: It's my way or the highway," the 12-year-old's mom said. They were among three kids and three moms in the program with whom I chatted. Some asked that their names not be used.

"He was feeling like his voice wasn't being heard. That his opinion didn't count. We had to agree to meet in the middle."

Making things even tougher for the 12-year-old was that he was new to the school and trying to make friends. He got in with a wilder crowd than his parents would've liked.

Just some of the many realities facing middle-schoolers as they make these difficult choices.

The 12-year-old and his mother found it so fruitful that after their required sessions were over, they volunteered for three more. Unfortunately, Face It is scrambling for funding after its start-up grant expired this summer.

Eleven-year-old Trevor was caught with a pack of cigarettes in the sixth grade and is now halfway through his Face It time. "Trevor's really, really against drugs," his mom said. "But alcohol and tobacco are so socially acceptable. My dad smoked. And [Trevor's] dad smoked. It just seemed to happen."

Mom stopped smoking for six years, then started again a year-and-a-half ago. The day she quit again, Trevor got caught.

"I thought about smoking because my family kind of smoked," Trevor said. "I don't know why I went ahead and did it. Some weird reason. Acting stupid, I guess."

For her part, Mom is feeling a lot of guilt. A common emotion among the parents.

She's a single, working mom who worries about the 45 minutes in the morning and hour in the afternoon that she has to leave him alone.

"I feel the need to protect him," she said.

A dangerous combination

All the kids I spoke with had similar stories: They used because of a combination of curiosity and peer pressure. They wanted better communication with parents. And seeing how much pain their actions had caused others was a strong motivator to quit.

"I've seen how it hurt my mom and everybody else in the family," the 12-year-old said. "And I don't feel like I need [to smoke pot] anymore. I felt like I needed it before because I was just always in my room. Isolated. Now, we communicate more.

"And the experience was really scary," he added, "especially in the Juvenile Assessment Center. The doors are all sealed in there. They open them with these buttons. And it smells like pee."

"Curiosity, that's what it was for me," said Omar, 14, who was caught with paraphernalia during a random search at his school. The school in Belle Glades is for students who had been in trouble at other schools.

"I didn't get into fights, I was just kind of a bad kid," he said. Disregarding rules and directions, that type of thing.

A year ago, he got into smoking weed.

"Other relatives had smelled him smoking it outside the house," his mother said.

But it was getting busted at school that convinced Omar to give it up. A decision, he says, that has been reinforced by watching his mother struggling to make her own changes.

"I wasn't so much angry as sad," Omar's mom said. "I want the best for my children. Want them on the right path. Rather than argue or punish him, I wanted to get help for him."

She didn't want to attend the first class. "But it surprised me. They taught me that if I handed out a punishment, I had to follow through. No matter how long it took. And I also realized that maybe I'm not the only one who has this problem. There are so many other parents like me."

For Omar, it's been a growing up process. For the first time in years, he's doing well in school.

"Hey, why keep doing bad stuff?" he said. "There's a time for everything.

"And I'm almost 15."

Ralph De La Cruz can be reached at rdelacruz@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4727.

With the latest state figures showing Palm Beach County leading the state in cocaine-related deaths, local politicians, law enforcement officials and drug abuse prevention workers are pushing harder than ever to draw attention to the unrelenting problem and get help from state and federal agencies. The response has been slow, but local and state leaders are finally talking about cocaine again, said Doris Carroll, who heads the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition.

"We're not sweeping it under the rug as much as we used to," Carroll said of the cocaine problem. "Now, we're getting ready to vacuum." The renewed interest in cocaine's influence on Palm Beach County follows a series of Palm Beach Post stories in May that examined cocaine's deadly effects locally and across the state and the subsequent release of a state report showing that Palm Beach County reported the most cocaine-related deaths in Florida in 2005.

The number of people in the county who died with cocaine in their system last year was so high that deaths linked to the drug almost outnumbered traffic deaths. The county medical examiner's office counted 197 cocaine-related deaths last year; the Florida Highway Patrol recorded 200 traffic deaths. Despite the grim statistics, local law enforcement agencies are struggling to get money from a federally funded regional task force that oversees $12.8 million for major drug investigations. The task force, called HIDTA, for "high intensity drug trafficking area," receives money from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The county has yet to receive a dime from the task force, even though the amount the group gets is based partly on illegal drug activity reports from Palm Beach County.

Task force leaders have said that they thought they would receive more money when Palm Beach County joined, but that they have not. Still, local law enforcement agencies want their share and are threatening to pull out of the program. "We don't want that to happen," said U. S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, one of the politicians who urged county officials to join the task force, promising $2 million to $3 million in extra money for drug investigations. Foley whose district includes parts of northern Palm Beach County, said he is discussing the issue with task force officials and is trying to convince them to give money to Palm Beach County, using county statistics and the Post stories as evidence of the county's major drug problem.

The state's new drug czar, Bill Janes, said he hopes to travel to Palm Beach County soon to learn more about the area's struggles with cocaine and prescription drugs. He has spent his first four months on the job travelling to other parts of the state. "Your statistics are a concern to me," Janes said, referring to The Post's reporting. The county drug coalition, which falls under the Office of National Drug Control Policy, plans to arrange a community forum about cocaine in the coming months to encourage discussion about the drug, which is claiming lives mostly in the 35-and-older age group. "These are people who are parents," Carroll said, pointing out that many people assume that it's mostly young people who are dying after using cocaine.

Instead, the statistics show that people who were part of the generation that experienced crack and powder cocaine's surge in popularity in the 1980s are the ones who are dying today after years of chronic cocaine use. "It's the Baby Boomers and the Generation Xers that we are still seeing using the drug," said Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Capt. Karl Durr, who oversees narcotics investigations.

The sheriff's office is adding three narcotics detectives to its organized crime bureau, one of whom will focus on prescription drug fraud, Durr said. He added that the latest drug-related death statistics reflect the extent of the drug market in the county. Cocaine is the most prevalent and deadliest drug in the county and state, with nearly 3,000 overdoses involving the drug reported statewide from 2000 to 2005. There were 1,943 cocaine-related deaths in Florida in 2005, and 732 of them were overdoses. Also, prescription drug-related overdoses appear to be on the rise statewide and locally. FDLE statistics show that oxycodone (OxyContin), methadone and morphine were detected in overdoses more often in Palm Beach County than anywhere else in the state. Because many overdoses involved more than one drug, it's unclear from state statistics exactly how many people died in the county or statewide of prescription drug overdoses.

These local and state drug issues were the focus in Tallahassee June 7 when Gov. Jeb Bush hosted the state's annual daylong drug summit, an invitation-only event for law enforcement officials and experts in the drug treatment and prevention fields. After the summit, Bush called prescription drug abuse a greater problem than cocaine abuse because pain killers and other addictive prescription drugs are becoming easier to get, legally and illegally. But, Bush said, "You can't let up on cocaine use.... You have to hit it on all fronts," he said of the state's drug problems.

Tell your child to watch that first sip

Pat Kenny described the DUIs with the matter-of-factness you might expect from someone who, in his 26-year law-enforcement career, now commands the Palm Beach County sheriff's traffic division.

"She was probably a good, professional, working alcoholic by the time she was 20." Married five times, sometimes to alcoholics. Spent six months in jail for seriously hurting another driver in a head-on collision. Eight DUI arrests. "Back then, it was a $250 fine and move on."

A medical doctor, an alcoholic as a teenager but functional until age 40, when he was diagnosed as bipolar. He committed suicide.

Speaking Tuesday in West Palm Beach at a Town Hall Meeting on Underage Drinking, Capt. Kenny ran out of time before he got to tell about another who, driving drunk, died in a wreck he caused.

Capt. Kenny can recite the statistics - three teens die each day in the United States from personally drinking and driving; teens are more likely to commit rapes, assaults and other crimes when they've been drinking.

But he implores his son to not drink alcohol by recalling his own alcoholic mother who, 15 years after that head-on crash, died of complications with her pancreas; his own alcoholic cousin, the doctor who shot himself; and his own alcoholic brother, the drunk driver who crashed and died. "Shane, in our family, we cannot afford to even take that test," Capt. Kenny said, recounting a conversation he's had more than once with his 6-year-old son. "Nobody survives alcoholism in our family."

If you think your kindergartner or first-grader is too young to be warned about the dangers of alcohol, consider that it is the most commonly used drug among kids in Palm Beach County, and the average age that a child takes his first drink - more than a sip - is 11. Worse, as Dr. Jason Jerry, medical director of the Watershed Treatment Centers of the Palm Beaches pointed out, the young brain is more susceptible to the damage of alcohol, particularly the part of the brain responsible for memory. The younger a person starts to drink, the more likely that person will become an alcoholic.

The Legislature, as it has with prevention efforts in general, cut the financing for an educational program aimed at parents and their 2- to 5-year-olds - even as studies show that the prevalence of advertising for alcohol has been harmful. By ages 3 and 4, said Carol Owsiany, district supervisor of the state Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, children expect alcohol to make people sick, mean and argumentative. By fifth and sixth grade, they have "positive alcohol expectations."

According to the 2005 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, Palm Beach County's teenagers drink alcohol at a higher rate than high-schoolers elsewhere in the state. By the time teens reach eighth grade, almost a fourth say they have been drunk.

With anecdotes about students in class sipping water bottles filled with vodka and Coke bottles filled with rum, the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition's town hall held at the Hanley Center was part horror and part lament. But there also were suggestions for moving from "awareness to advocacy," including asking store owners to remove prominent displays of clothing that promotes beer and liquor, speaking less casually about liquor (think "kiddie cocktails" and "champagne brunch"), and donating to high schools as they plan sober prom and graduation parties.

Palm Beach County schools will more than quadruple the number of substance-abuse intervention specialists on campuses next year. And there is proposed legislation (House Bill 1049 and Senate Bill 1322) that would suspend or revoke the driver license of anyone who "sells, gives, serves or permits to be served alcoholic beverages to a person under age 21" or lets an underage person drink on the premises. Most children reportedly get alcohol from their families.

The state also has a toll-free hot line to report sales of alcohol to minors: 866-540-SUDS (7837). And a national advertising campaign urges parents to "start talking before they start drinking."

"I just don't want him to make that fatal mistake," Capt. Kenny said of why he continually talks to his son about drinking.
It's a message children never are too young to hear.

Elisa Cramer is an editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post.
Her e-mail address is elisa_cramer@pbpost.com

Inhalant abuse rising among S. Florida middle school students, survey shows

They're doing it right under their parents' noses.Middle school students in Palm Beach and Broward counties increasingly are taking sniffs of computer keyboard cleaner, lighter fluid and other household products to get high, according to the most recent state survey of youth substance abuse.This disturbing surge of inhalant use, coming after a decade of decline nationally, is prompting social service agencies in both counties to retool prevention programs and try to raise community awareness.

They face a tough challenge because adolescents surf the Internet to chat and learn about vapor-producing products, go anywhere to buy and obtain them on the cheap -- all while their parents often are too busy or naive to realize it.

Evangelia Sarris, whose son is an eighth-grade student at Spanish River Christian School in Boca Raton, said she brought him to a recent community forum because "I want him to be educated. My parents never taught me about drugs, and I had to learn on my own."

George Sarris, 14, already knows that inhalants are "kind of stupid." "Most of the kids who do it know [the dangers] and they do it anyway,"he said.

According to the 2004 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, 7.4 percent of Palm Beach County middle school students reported using inhalants in the previous 30 days, up from 3.4 percent in the 2002 survey. In Broward County, 7.8 percent of middle school students claimed to use inhalants, up from 5.9 percent just two years earlier. In both counties, inhalant use is higher than the statewide average of 6.6 percent of middle school students.

"This is the No. 1 middle school drug," said Doris Carroll of the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition. An annual study by the National Institute on Drug Abuse tracks inhalant use among eighth-graders. The 2005 Monitoring the Future report, released in late December, found 4.2 percent of eighth-grade studentsused inhalants in the prior 30 days. But 9.5 percent of eighth-graders used them at some time during the year, up from 7.7 percent in 2002.

"It certainly warrants attention," said Jim Hall, who leads the Center for the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse based at Nova Southeastern University's Fort Lauderdale campus. "Unfortunately, that usually occurs only when there is a sudden death. These really aren't drugs, they are poisons."

Inhalants are so dangerous because the risk of a fatal episode is the same for the first or 50th use. There's even a term for it: Sudden Sniffing Death Syndrome. However, the Alliance for Consumer Education in Washington, D.C., says statistics aren't available because inhalant-related deaths often are attributed to other causes.

No inhalant fatalities have been reported in Palm Beach and Broward counties in the past 10 years, according to newspaper reports and local officials. In 1994, a 15-year-old girl from west of Jupiter died from inhaling Freon, a case later recognized in a state proclamation signed by then-Gov. Lawton Chiles. In 1995, a 16-year-old Boynton Beach boy died after sniffing butane, a gas used as lighter fuel.

Inhalant activity traditionally peaks in the middle school years because substance abusers in high school can more easily obtain alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and "club drugs" such as Ecstasy, prevention advocates say.

Civic activist Len Turesky from west of Boca Raton, chairman of the group Together Against Gangs, says middle school students who use inhalants are more likely to become dope users as they grow up. "They start off on this and it grows into larger problems," he said. The United Way of Broward County Commission on Substance Abuse reacted to the upward trend of inhalant abuse by adding the topic to a drug-prevention program offered at about two dozen middle and high schools, said David Choate, vice president and executive director.

Palm Beach County school administrators say they are attacking inhalant abuse through a series of classroom, television and community anti-drug programs. "We're being proactive," said Kim Williams, assistant director of the school district's prevention center. But social-service professionals in South Florida worry the community at large is failing to take action. Few parents attended an informational forum about inhalants in Boca Raton in early December. They missed out on tips to spot inhalant abuse by their children, such as slurred speech, stained hands and unusual odors.

"What can we do to take the community out of the malls and into these chairs?" asked Omar Aleman, a former agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Miami. Carroll, the substance abuse coalition's community coordinator, worries inhalants aren't on enough parents' radars. "Most parents don't say, `Don't do inhalants.' They say, `Don't smoke pot,'" she said.

Jamie Cook, 21, is sorry she ever turned to inhalants to get high. Three years ago, the former Boca Raton resident was critically injured in a car wreck after using "whippets," tiny canisters of nitrous oxide, with a girlfriend. She told her story at the community forum with the hope of deterring others.

"As good as you feel when you are doing it, the risk isn't worth it," said Cook, who recovered from a brain injury and now attends Daytona Beach Community College. "I feel soblessed to be alive."

Marc Freeman can be reached at mjfreeman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6642.
Copyright (c) 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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Typical inhalant abuser: A girl, 12

BOCA RATON — It used to be that the typical inhalant abuser was white, 12 years old and male. That profile is changing, like so many other things associated with the act of inhaling everyday household products for a fleeting and potentially fatal high.

Now the typical abuser is a white 12-year-old girl.

Other changes include what's being used — one of the most recent additions has been computer-keyboard dusting sprays, said experts who spoke to a small group of parents Thursday at Spanish River Church.

One factor remains constant: One of the most popular drugs among Palm Beach County students remains easy to get and hard to detect.

Kids find the stuff at supermarkets, convenience stores, office supply stores and piercing parlors, as well as in their parents' kitchen cupboards in cans of air deodorizers, solvents, cooking-oil sprays and the little canisters of nitrous oxide used to make whipped cream.

The last is what Jamie Cook had gotten at an adult-video store with a friend one night three years ago before the two were involved in a car crash that nearly killed her.

Cook was 18 and had just earned her GED after figuring out that she could complete her education quicker that way. The Boca Raton resident had been accepted into a radiology training program at a local hospital.

"I thought I had all my stuff together," she said.

The advantages of nitrous oxide, she said, suited her respectable lifestyle: She not only could pass a drug test but walk into her parents' home with no one suspecting she had spent the evening getting high. She also could buy the drug with no questions asked and no risk of being arrested.

Cook agreed to speak to the gathering — organized by the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition, the Hanley Center and the Alliance for Consumer Education — because, she said, "the problem is out of control and no one's doing anything about it."

She remembers only pieces of the night of the crash. She realized her friend, who was driving, was losing consciousness after inhaling the "whippets" they had bought, and she remembers planning to get out of the car as soon as it slowed.

"But that never happened," she said.

The car didn't even leave skid marks as it plowed into another car. Cook remembers little of what happened next but has photos to tell the story of the weeks that followed as she remained semi-comatose with brain injuries and broken bones.

The ease with which life-threatening propellants can be bought has helped fuel their use in Palm Beach County, where the numbers of middle school students surveyed who reported using them jumped from 3.9 percent in 2000 to 7.4 percent last year, said Doris Carroll, coordinator of the substance abuse coalition.

Jupiter Farms parents advised to take care with common drugs

In the wrong hands, over-the-counter medications can be lethal

By Michelle Sheldone
staff writer
September 21, 2005

Numerous cold and flu medication packages and vanilla extract bottles turned up during a Jupiter Farms Great American Spring Cleanup this past April, according to event coordinator Jim Spillman, and so the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition will participate in a similar effort in the rural area on Nov. 5.

"The same neighborhood isn't going to have a cold at the same time," said Jupiter Farms resident Terri Carrasco.Rather, over the counter medicines designed to relieve coughs and stuffy noses are providing a high among youngsters that can prove lethal, according to Substance Abuse Coalition community coordinator Doris Carroll.

"Many are becoming hooked on and getting high off cold and cough medicines," she said during last week's Jupiter Farms Residents association meeting. "The one thing we can say as a community is, 'Put them behind the shelf.'"

Carroll encouraged meeting attendees to participate in "Family Day 2005" on Monday, Sept. 26, by enjoying a family dinner and encouraging their children not to do drugs.

Those who are most at risk of prescription drug abuse these days are in the age 12-17 bracket and are abusing opiates, narcotics and pain relievers they obtain from friends and family members, she said. Ecstasy is most widespread among upper class white youths, she said, ketamine is among the most common date rape drugs, and psychedelics — such as mushrooms plucked from rural communities and then boiled, dried out and ingested — are experiencing a slight rise in Palm Beach County, Carroll noted.

"We can't stick our heads in the ground," said Spillman. "This is a real problem."

Jupiter Farms Residents also:

• Announced that the organization is accepting collections for a Missionary Flights hurricane relief effort and will soon establish a drop-off location.

• Heard that Janco Nurseries has agreed to provide second-year college tuition funds to existing Jupiter Farms Horsemen's Association scholarship recipients who do well during their second year of higher education.

• Announced that a Christmas parade and craft fair this year will include a home decorating contest and that volunteers and sponsors are needed.

- michelle.sheldone@scripps.com

Deaths from prescription drug overdoses on the rise, Florida study cites

June 13, 2005

Doctors diagnosed Sean Cass with attention deficit disorder in first grade.

By middle school, he said, he was selling his Ritalin for $4 a pill to friends who wanted to get high and, by 17, he was mourning a friend who branched out to other prescription drugs and overdosed on OxyContin and Xanax.

"Kids take prescription drugs because they are easy to get," said Cass, 19, of Boca Raton, who no longer uses or sells pills and works at the Galleria mall in Fort Lauderdale. "The way the kids see [overdoses], they say, 'Oh, he just didn't know what he was doing.' But it only takes one time when you're not thinking clearly."

A report released Wednesday by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirms Cass' warning: In Florida, more people die each year from prescription drugs than illegal drugs, and the number keeps growing. In 2004, Florida medical examiners reported 1,850 deaths from doses of seven types of prescription medications, up nearly a quarter from the year before. Of those, 30 fatalities occurred in people younger than 18, and 263 were 18 to 25 years old.

Overall, deaths by oxycodone and hydrocodone were up 14 percent and 27 percent, respectively, from the year before. Deaths of those under 18 were down slightly; they rose 14 percent for ages 18 to 25.

Youth deaths caused by methadone, a painkiller increasingly used as an alternative to oxycodone, almost doubled since 2002.

Such information is particularly timely, said Doris Carroll, community coordinator for the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition. She warns parents that summer is often a season of drug use "initiation" for many young people, who find themselves out of school and home alone with time on their hands.

"There is a big denial problem," Carroll said, referring to parents who don't suspect their children are pilfering pills. "One of the kids I've talked to was 14 years old. Her mother had been in a car accident and she had been taking her pain pills. Another was taking her grandmother's [cancer] medicine."

In direct contrast to death statistics, most students who report experimenting with prescription drugs don't consider them a "great risk," according to another study released in April by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The national report found that a growing number of teenagers -- one in five -- have tried prescription painkillers.

Local teens agree that prescription drug use is on the rise. Mandy Loren, 16, who attends Cardinal Gibbons High in Fort Lauderdale, said she doesn't use them, but has friends who pop prescription pills and don't think they are dangerous.

"They do it, but it's not like it's addictive," Loren said. "They get it from their parents' [medicine cabinets]. It's whatever is there: painkillers, muscle relaxants."

Dustin Smith, 23, of Fort Lauderdale said he occasionally takes Adderall, a prescription drug for people with attention deficit disorder, to stay up all night either to study or party. He is a junior at Florida Atlantic University, but recently transferred from Florida State University, where he said the drug is commonly used.

"It was big in Tallahassee. You do it before you drink and you don't get sick. You can drink a lot longer," he said, adding that students get the pills either from friends who have valid prescriptions or from doctors, by faking symptoms.

"I know a lot of guys that had to go to rehab," Smith said. "You start feeling your heart pounding. It's like drinking two pots of coffee."

To combat the problem, Carroll's organization is hosting a prescription drug abuse forum on Tuesday at the Palm Beach Gardens Marriott.

Carroll advises parents to talk to their children about the dangers of prescription drugs and to keep track of their own medications, as well as the prescriptions of other siblings or older family members living in the home.

"We're not locking our medicine cabinets," she said. "It's access. It's readily available. The number one thing they take is a prescription."

One bit of good news: The 2004 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey shows Broward and Palm Beach County teens are less likely than the average Florida teen to have used prescription drugs.

Carol Kifner, a Hollywood mother whose daughter died in 2002 from an overdose of alprazolam, the generic name for Xanax, wants to wipe out the use entirely. She will be visiting Broward schools in the fall to spread her message of warning and prevention.

"Kids say, 'Oh, it's not going to happen to me. One little pill won't hurt me.' But you do one thing and then move on. They are looking for a different kind of high, a better high," Kifner said. "The parents are usually oblivious to everything. Nobody wants to admit it. I was the same."

For more information on the prescription drug forum, call Doris Carroll at 561-689-2535.

Jamie Malernee can be reached at jmalernee@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4849.

Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The following letter to the editor, written by Doris Carroll, Community Coordinator of the PBCSAC, appeared in the 11/30/04 edition of the Palm Beach Post.

Even an Olympian can slip; help youth stay sober

A year in jail. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps could spend a year in jail for his arrest and reckless behavior (Nov. 9 article). This 19-year-old, who made us proud in Athens, was apprehended and charged with driving while intoxicated. Pay attention, communities; even the best of our young people come of age in a culture that fails to demand adherence to healthy standards when it comes to alcohol use.

Anyone who has been pulled over for this type of infraction should have his or her life assessed for other problem behaviors. Young people between the ages of 18 and 23 are as susceptible to alcoholism as older adults. As a member of the Florida Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking, we have as one of our goals to gain more control of alcohol access.

At the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition, our research shows that a gap in prevention services for those between the ages of 18 and 23 exists in the county. Young adults need programs and services. By working together, we can address this public health problem as a community. Join the Palm Beach County Substance Abuse Coalition by calling (561) 689-2535 or online at www.PBCSAC.org

Doris Carrol
Royal Palm Beach

By Jill Taylor, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 7, 2004

Prevention grants were awarded Tuesday to Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties to steer children away from drugs and alcohol.

The $4.3 million grant program will provide money to 30 counties from the Florida Department of Children and Families through the Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership.

Palm Beach County was awarded $475,000 for four programs, the second highest grant total in the state behind Miami-Dade County.

Martin County was awarded $115,885 for a school-based education effort run by the school system and St. Lucie County won a $125,000 grant for a program that serves four elementary and one middle school through the Drug Abuse Treatment Association, also known as DATA.

DATA is also one of the grant recipients in Palm Beach County.

Chief Executive Officer Pam Middleton said DATA has provided the programs for three years and has a proven record of influencing young children away from substance abuse.

She said the organization would like to expand to more schools, but there isn't enough money. "It's great we have these grants," Middleton said. "But there's no way we can keep up."

The other Palm Beach County grants were awarded to Hanley-Hazelden, Oakwood Center and Partnership for a Drug Free Community.

jill_taylor@pbpost.com