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| Mayor's Youth Task Force talks heroin |
By: STEPHANIE SOUCHERAY
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NORTHFIELD - The Mayor's Task Force on Youth Alcohol & Drug Use met Tuesday night and talked about heroin use among Northfield youth.
With reporters and television crews in attendance, residents and members of the task force drafted a list of suggestions about how to deal with the much-reported drug problem. The task force, co-chaired by Joan Janusz and Susan Sanderson, works with the the Rice County Chemical Health Coalition. Sanderson was absent Tuesday.
"Tonight we're among a group of parents and citizens who have the goodness of Northfield in their minds and hearts," said Mayor Lee Lansing at the beginning of the meeting.
"Heroin has brought people together to do action," said Janusz.
Throughout Tuesday night's discussion, Janusz and other members of the task force, along with Kathy Sandberg and Zach Pruitt of the coalition, several times reiterated that the task force had been working on drug prevention since its inception in the spring of 2006.
"This is how we do business every meeting," said Lansing.
Members of the coalition spoke of prevention and action. Heroin is a drug often preceded by the use of gateway drugs like tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol, said Sandberg.
"Few if any people begin chemical use with heroin," she said.
Roger Jenni, the Northfield school district's assessment/testing coordinator, shared with the task force his findings from Northfield High School surveys taken between 2003 and 2006.
The surveys, conducted by the Healthy Community Initiative, asked sixth, eighth, ninth and 11th graders when they began using tobacco, alcohol, marijuana or hard drugs.
The "Onset Data" collected showed that very few students reported trying hard drugs, which were listed as cocaine, heroin, crack, and Xtasy.
According to survey results, only 2.2 percent of 11th graders reported trying hard drugs in February 2006. But 15.9 percent of ninth graders reported having tried hard drugs in the same year, an anomaly according to Jenni.
Jenni said that a 2006 survey showed that 33 percent of 9th graders claimed prescription drugs that were not prescribed to them were easy to obtain.
Together, the task force and parents who were at the meeting generated a brainstormed list of suggestions to attack the heroin problem.
Dog-sniffing in schools, better communication between law enforcement and school superintendent Chris Richardson, and an increase in healthy alternative activities for teens were all suggested to help fight and prevent drug use in Northfield.
"We're spinning our wheels until you get a handle of the numbers," said Al Roder, city administrator.
Some suggested that Northfield could only move forward from the heroin news when more complete numbers of users were known. Others thought this missed the point.
"We're talking people, not numbers," said Lansing.
- Stephanie Soucheray can be reached at 645-1114 or ssoucheray@northfieldnews.com.
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