Pastor: Drugs hook kids earlier

By Virginia Ross

Teens are using common household products to get ‘a quick high,’ a speaker said.

NORTH LIMA — All the speakers at a local drug-use update agreed that the younger kids are when they start using drugs the more likely they are to become addicted to them.

“That’s why it’s so important to be with your kids,” said the Rev. Ralph Edwards. “Spend time with them and know what they’re doing. It makes a difference.”

Drug Update 2008 was sponsored by R.O.C.K., which stands for Reclaim Our Community Kids. The event Thursday night at Good Hope Lutheran Church, Beaver Township, where the Rev. Mr. Edwards serves as pastor, was the Christian-based organization’s second outreach within the past week. Last Friday, R.O.C.K. sponsored its annual prayer vigil and rally in New Middletown.

“It’s not that addiction is anything new,” Mr. Edwards told the crowd of nearly 50 people. “But it’s getting to our kids earlier and earlier, younger and younger. There are more and more kids who just don’t get that they can die from it.”

Beaver Township Police Officer Brian Hartman, who serves as the Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer for South Range School District, focused his presentation on familiar household products commonly used by adolescents for “quick, easy highs.”

He noted kids have inhaled aerosol sprays, white correction liquid, nonstick cooking sprays and cleaning substances, among other common household products, to get high for years. But now local law enforcement officials are seeing this type of drug abuse among younger children, he said.

“We’re talking fourth-graders, even younger,” Hartman said. “They have easy access to these products in their own homes, at school, all around them, and many of them are using them.”

Hartman recommended keeping cleaning supplies and other products used as inhalants in a safe place away from easy access to children. He also advised parents and other adults to become as educated as possible and to know the signs of abuse.

As far as use of household cleaning supplies to get high — more and more common around middle-school-age children — he advised looking for soreness, redness and blisters around the mouth and nose, an unexplained cough and scarring that could occur from frequent use.

Hartman explained that any substance put into our bodies that is not a food can change us physically or mentally and is considered a drug.

“Again, none of this is new,” he said. “It’s been around for a long, long time. The thing is it just seems to be more and more prevalent among younger kids all the time.”

Patricia Sciaretta, outreach specialist with Neil Kennedy Recovery Clinic, Youngstown, also spoke about area drug abuse concerns including cocaine and heroin, which she called an epidemic in Mahoning County.

“It’s a big business,” she said. “There’s money to be made.”

R.O.C.K., established in 2005, is dedicated to glorifying God by bringing awareness to drug and alcohol problems. The organization works to provide support and hope for hurting individuals and their families by providing them an avenue to find help.

For more information about R.O.C.K. or the organization’s events, contact Becky Minamyer, director, at (330) 549-2844 or minamyer1@zoominternet.net.