Published: May 18, 2009 09:25 pm      

A look at addiction

EDMOND — To our readers:

Today marks the beginning of a week-long public services series of reports by Edmond Sun reporter Mark Schlachtenhaufen and contributed to by reporter Patty Miller.

In 2002, reporter James Coburn first highlighted the often overlooked signs of alcohol and drug addiction plaguing the city’s youth. Seven years later, the problem remains just as great and often, just as greatly ignored.

Some of Schlach-tenhaufen’s findings for this series include:

• Nearly 47 percent of Edmond 12th-graders and 34.4 percent of 10th-graders statewide have imbibed alcohol during the past 30 days, according to the 2006 Oklahoma Prevention Needs Assessment Survey by the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. Some 32.4 percent of Edmond 12th-graders and 22.7 percent of 10th-graders reported binge drinking.

• Edmond Police report that juvenile bookings for drug-related offenses rose from 97 in 2007 to 114 in 2008, a 17.5 percent increase.

• Many Edmond teens have used drugs, according to the survey by the

ODMHSAS. Some 40.1 percent of 12th-graders and 26 percent of 10th-graders stated they have used marijuana, the survey shows.

• Some 76.2 percent of Edmond 12th-graders and 75.1 percent of 10th-graders have gambled during the past year, according to the survey. Furthermore, 46.7 percent of Edmond 12th-graders and 31.2 percent of 10th-graders played the lottery.

The statistics above are a small sampling of what readers will learn about this week, and not all of the problems highlighted in the series focus on teens. However, numerous experts will tell parents that drug and alcohol addiction starts in the teen years and that’s the time to make a stand against it invading your child’s life.

The Sun supports in many ways the numerous successes Edmondites achieve on a daily basis, but we believe we would be remiss if we did not shine some light on some of our problems, too. Admitting the problem is often the first step toward solving the problem. Our youth, in particular, are too precious and too important to not take the time and at least consider some of the bad habits we know they are exposed to by family and friends.

In addition to local stories, some of The Sun’s regular Opinion page columnists will address the topic of addiction in their writing this week.

We hope you will take the time to peruse all of the five-part series. If it raises questions or concerns for you about anyone in your family, The Sun and Parents Helping Parents have put together a local panel of experts who will be available to answer readers’ personal questions. We thank those experts for their willingness to take on this task for our community.

For readers who want a more interactive look at the issue, a two-part video will be available at www.edmondsun.com under the section heading of Addiction. The first video will be available today for viewers and the second part will be available Saturday.

The final component of this project will be the reproduction of the entire series into a booklet that will be made available for free to students in the Edmond and Deer Creek public school systems in the fall.

We thank our readers for supporting this type of in-depth journalism and we invite your feedback.

MANAGING EDITOR Lisa Shearer may be reached via e-mail at lshearer@edmondsun.com.