Teen Drug Use on the Rise in VUSD Schools: What can you do?
Recently, the Vista Unified School District (VUSD) published information about a rise in drug use among student, during school hours within the district. According to VUSD, the district is taking steps to solve a rapid wave of teens boldly coming to their classes under the influence. What does this mean for Mission Vista High School?
According to a district email released to parents and students in December, “Within the last several weeks at our high schools, we have observed an increase of students that have been determined to be under the influence of controlled substances…” The same email message stated that the drugs included:. “controlled substances, such as Xanax and marijuana.”
This begs the question: where are students getting the confidence that makes them “determined” to come to school under the influence of these substances?
According to a junior at MVHS who spoke out about something that occurred during the 2016-2017 school year, “They just liked to talk about it at first, they seemed proud. Then second term sophomore year I started seeing Snapchats, and things on social media of them actually doing it.” What started as a "just talk" turned into a real situation that could have been serious.
Studies, by psychologist, at Temple University have found that when in the presence of their peers, and under the notion that their behavior will result in praise, teens will do the wrong thing more often than not.
To make matters more complicated, the source of the influx in drugs among the teenage community, has yet to be discovered. The district says they are looking into the situation.
One thing is for certain, although this drug activity is getting attention in school, it may be a much larger problem off campus or even at home. Most of the instances of teens using drugs outside of school have only been brought to attention by social media.
“Last year, these two girls posted a video of them smoking weed out of an apple on Instagram, and everyone found out,” one MVHS freshman reports of an experience she had at her previous school. "Everyone," she add "except school admin."
During the interviews conducted for this story, another student at MVHS who spoke about the subject pulled out her phone and produced a picture on social media, that had just been posted that day, showing what looked like drug paraphernalia.
It is hard to say exactly how widespread this problem is on our campus, specifically, but one thing is for sure: Everyone needs to take it seriously. Anyone who knows of or suspects drug use on campus is encouraged to access the anonymous tip line, which is available from the school website: PSSTWorld Report It!, and is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
In addition, the district is asking parents to take charge from home by monitoring their student's social media, as well as talking to their children to make sure they aware of the harmful effects both mentally, and physically, of teen drug abuse.