1. Keep healthy habits. Taking care of one’s self is one of the best ways to control cravings. Having a healthy diet, getting enough rest each day and being with friends who encourage you to stay healthy could make a big difference on how your life will turn out.

2. Always remind yourself of what you have learned. A relapse prevention plan always comes in handy when you want to stay clean and reach full recovery. Practice the steps that will help you deal with situations that can trigger a relapse. Following your plan religiously will one day lead you to become the healthy person you want to be.

3. Keep yourself busy. It’s best to find a safe new hobby or join activities that promote healthy living so that you won’t slip to boredom or loneliness. You can even find a job that will make you feel good about yourself again. Never hang out with the same people that led you to drugs or alcohol before.

4. Talk to your parents or school adviser especially in making decisions once you are out of the treatment facility. Express your feelings and let them know about any discomforts you might experience at anytime. You can enlist their help if you want to stay away from the same group that drove you to your addiction. They can also give you sound advices on how to stay sober at all times.

5. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself when you succumb to relapse, seek the guidance and assistance of the experts and discuss what happened and what triggered the act to prevent it from happening again.

This is why the Stevenson High School community took the responsibility of holding the “Saving Our Children” symposium which tackled issues on the use of illicit drugs. Aside from their own parents and students, families from Libertyville and Vernon Hills High schools were also present during the event.

Elisabeth Nelson from the Lake County Health Department said that the data gathered in 2010 failed to include the use of OTC drugs among kids but promised to include the subject in this year’s survey. “We have seen a slight increase in prescription drug abuse in the past year’s data,” Nelson added. “Cough medicine is higher than pain killers.”

According to Nelson, it has been recorded that children who start with the abuse of pain killers, such as Oxycontin and Percocet, ultimately go up the ladder towards heroin addiction. She added that the best sources of these pain medications are the home medicine cabinets where parents and grandparents store their prescriptions without proper security.

While alcohol remains the top drug choice among kids in Lake County, other household substances like inhalants are easily misused especially by middle school students.

Thus, Stevenson High School student assistance program coordinator Stephanie Elsass makes it a point to solicit the support of nearby schools in hosting the symposium every year. For the past seven years, schools in their area have taken turns as panel of experts during the forum.

In a report from the Sun Times, Nelson reminded parents to monitor their children especially in the coming summer season and that the talk on drugs and alcohol should be done at the earliest time possible.

Study author Michael Cleveland from the Penn State University said that while teens are learning to choose their set of friends, parents should not be far behind in making sure that their kids’ friends also have responsible parents. There is a relationship between a teen and the behavior and attitude of his friends’ parents.

“Among friendship groups with ‘good parents’ there’s a synergistic effect — if your parents are consistent and aware of your whereabouts, and your friends’ parents are also consistent and aware of their (children’s) whereabouts, then you are less likely to use substances,” Cleveland said.

Children with parents who refuse to deal with the issue of substance abuse and at the same time belonging in a circle with friends under the same condition will more likely to go the wrong way.

The study was done with about 9,000 students from rural school districts in the 9th grade. The research team were able to identify almost 900 groups from the participants classified as to who their friends are and the parents of their chosen peers. After a year, the groups were surveyed and allowed to answer questions on alcohol, cigarette and marijuana use.

It was found out that teens with parents who regularly check on them and know their activities were less likely to get involved in drugs or alcohol use. Yet having friends with parents that are not aware of their kids’ whereabouts and activities significantly influenced the teen’s decision on the said issues despite having “good parents.”

The complete results of the study can be found in the latest issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

The situation elevated due to the fact that most parents think that weed is just weed, no cause for alarm. Yet Partnership President Steve Pasierb said that parents should not take the issue of marijuana for granted. “Parents are talking about cocaine and heroin, things that scare them. Parents are not talking about prescription drugs and marijuana. They can’t wink and nod. They need to be stressing the message that this behavior is unhealthy.”

The report showed that marijuana use has increased from only 19% in 2008 to about 27% in 2011. Teens who smoked pot at least 20 times in a month also climbed from 5% in 2008 to last year’s 9%. That’s about 1.5 million teens who regularly light up marijuana.

Previous researches made also had parallel results, like that of a recent survey made by a team from the University of Michigan. The initiative was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse that claimed marijuana use is again on the rise after a decline in the last decade.

Results of the study have linked the use of pot and other drugs. It was suggested that teens who regularly use marijuana were also twice more likely to take cocaine or ecstasy.

The study also tackled the issue of pain medications abuse, putting Vicodin and Oxycontin as the drug of choice among teens. It was also noted that ecstasy or cocaine use is highest among Hispanic teens (almost 50%). African American teens followed suit with almost 42% hooked on prescription medications while that of Caucasian teens reached 39%.

1. Drinking too much water before giving urine samples. This is probably the oldest method used not only by kids but for adults too. According to Sharon Levy, a pediatrician from the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program at the Children’s Hospital in Boston, kids consume water to flush out the drugs in their system.

2. Destroying samples. When kids get desperate, they will find ways to tamper with the samples. A few drops of bleach, detergent, vinegar or cleaners are added to mess up samples that would have tested positive for drugs.

3. Using another person’s clean urine samples. When kids know they are about to be tested, they sometimes resort to using other urine samples that are clean or even purchase freeze-dried urine samples online to use as their own.

4. Taking vitamins. To aid in the body’s metabolism, kids take Vitamin B3 in the hopes of getting rid of any drug traces in the body. What they don’t know is that this could lead to complicated conditions and even death. There have been previous reports of kids rushed to ERs due to a sudden drop in blood sugar levels or “liver toxicity” caused by an overdose of niacin.

5. Changing the drug of choice. Before the drug testing procedure, kids can switch to other types of drugs that will give them the same euphoric effect but remain clean upon testing. Inhalants are the best examples of alternative drugs that give the same “high” but do not yield positive drug results.

While these methods cannot guarantee a negative drug test, as most drug testing laboratories already have cheat detection tools in place, it is still best to be observant on the practices above.

The Tennessee Prescription Safety Act will require all prescribers and dispensers of drugs under schedule II, III, IV, or V of the Food and Drug Authority to register in a database.

Tennessee health commissioner John Dreyzehner said that Tennessee has been battling prescription drug abuse and that they are doing their best to discourage people from getting hold of unwanted medications through the newly approved act.

The Tennessee Drug Diversion Task Force has previously ranked medications such as hydrocodone, alprazolam, and oxycodone as the top controlled substances that doctors instruct their patients to take for relief of any pain discomforts.

Commissioner Dreyzehner warned that although prescription painkillers are a big help to patients, the improper use and abuse of the said medications could lead to disastrous results. “It’s part of the human condition, really. Some of the same things that make us successful as a species … those are some of the same pathways that get stimulated when people abuse certain substances.”

In 2002, the Controlled Substances Database was initially used to identify prescriptions used by patients, and by 2013, all prescribers and dispensers will be ordered to use the database under the Tennessee Prescription Safety Act.

In a feature from the Daily Herald, exceptions to the rule are those under medication from surgery, prescriptions of less than 7 days, and those put in hospice care.

The new legislation will serve as a safety net against prescription drug abuse. It can be remembered that in 2010, drug overdose claimed 1059 lives in the state.

“(As a doctor,) I really want to know if you are already taking (certain medications), because I would not want to harm you inadvertently,” Dreyzehner said.

This is the third time that the council had the event where the latest survey and reviews with regards to teen substance abuse was tackled.

Board of Education member and director of the Partnership for Success Grant at Positive Directions Lory Rothstein presented the most recent results of the online survey participated in by 883 students from the 7th to 12th grades and 446 parents from the 6th to 12th grades.

So far, this is their largest sample ever handled with the number of students accounting for 45% of the total population in the respective levels.

The report put the spotlight on alcohol, drugs, and tobacco and marijuana use among students. It was noted that there was a decrease in the use of the said substances yet the average for alcohol use is still a little over than the national average; 12th graders who admit to alcohol intake within the past 30 days was below 50%.

The relationship between alcohol and marijuana use was also discussed. The Youth Council has long named alcohol as a “gateway drug” and statistics seem to agree with them. An alarming 27.9% of students confess to drinking and smoking marijuana with only 0.7% saying they never tried any of the two substances. From the teen drinking population, 35% also owned up to pot use.

Guest Speaker for the forum Chris Brown said that a teen’s brain is not at all the same as an adult’s brain. Brown, who is a school psychologist and licensed professional counselor, made it clear to everybody that a teen’s brain’s reward center is extra sensitive compared to adults’ which makes them more vulnerable to addiction.

Mr. Brown also added that teens are not fully prepared to make the right decisions and acknowledge the consequences of their actions all the time as their brains aren’t fully developed yet.

In a study done by the researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health using magnetic resonance imaging, it was found out that the brain reaches its vital development stages during the teenage years. This is when the frontal lobes, which directs decision-making, emotion, self-control, judgment, and processing consequences, goes into a lot of changes until it reaches full development.

Dr. Aaron White from the Duke University Medical Center explains that a teenager’s brain is not comparable to that of an adult. “Available research suggests that adolescents are more vulnerable than adults to the effects of alcohol on learning and memory.”

It has been noted that an adolescent’s brain is clearly more susceptible to the effects of alcohol and drugs which could lead to abnormalities due to tissue and nerve damages.

Teenagers should realize that taking alcohol at their age could cause irreversible damages to the brain. While it may be true that more and more kids are hooked on drinking and that alcohol remains the top drug of choice amongst US teens, children should be equipped with the necessary ammunition to resist the temptation of alcohol in their lives.

As the brain continues to grow, teenagers will find it hard to make the right decisions. If the element of alcohol or drugs is added, the brains capacity to process logical and more reasonable decisions will be overpowered thus results to risky behaviors and decisions of teenagers.

Dr. Judith Newman puts an interesting analogy into the discussion of brain development. “The teenage brain is like a Ferrari: It’s sleek, shiny, sexy, and fast, and it corners really well. But it also has really crappy brakes.”

Although smoking has not been clearly associated with numerous forms of autism in children, subtypes of the condition may exhibit the same symptoms but other forms could be affected differently as far as environment and genetic factors are concerned.

Study author and assistant professor from the University Of Wisconsin- Milwaukee Zilber School Of Public Health Amy Kalkbrenner explained how autism and tobacco could be linked. “We know ‘autism spectrum disorders’ is an umbrella term. What we’re showing is the response to an environmental toxin may differ by the subtype of autism a child has.”

In the United States, one in every 88 children are affected with the disorder which is defined as a neuro-developmental abnormality particularly manifested by problems in social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and constrained interests and behavior in kids.

The researchers gathered 634,000 birth records of US children born in 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1998. It was noted that approximately 13% of the mothers smoked while pregnant, and about 11% of them gave birth to babies affected with autism spectrum disorder.

Researchers further claimed that a child’s risk for high-functioning autism is raised by 25%, such as that of Asperger’s syndrome, upon further analysis of data.

Director for environmental research for Autism Speaks Alycia Halladay added that while the study yielded similar results from earlier researches done, this particular paper took into account a large sample of kids and was able to open the idea that various types of autism can be influenced by different contributing factors.

Tobacco can specifically promote risks of autism by disrupting the flow of oxygen to the baby while inside the mother’s womb. The nicotine is absorbed in the placenta and reaches all the way to the fetus’ nervous system. “There are many potential biological pathways for which tobacco can harm the developing baby,” Kalkbrenner said.

The proposed ordinance penalizes adults who allow teenagers to drink in their parties by up to $5,000.

Thru the initiative of the Barron County Safe and Stable Families Coalition, the rule under review is now in the hands of the Ordinance Committee, according to public health nurse Laura Sauve and public health program manager Kelli Engen from the county’s own Department of Health and Human Services.

Sauve confirmed that the coalition began campaigning against teen pregnancy but has taken the issue of teen substance abuse and as such, is making it their advocacy to keep kids safe. The group is headed by Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald and conducts their weekly meeting on Wednesdays at the Barron County Government Center.

It was just last April 9 that members of the coalition submitted their proposal to the Barron City County Police Committee which they patterned after other Wisconsin cities like Oregon and Wausau and from Fond du Lac County that have implemented similar rules in their own area.

The ordinance puts the responsibility of controlling underage drinking on adults, and should any adult go against the guidelines for serving alcohol to kids especially during parties, a corresponding fine of $1,000 to $5,000 will be collected as a consequence of their irresponsible acts.

“Cities can use their discretion to set penalties. We are suggesting a fine of $1,000 to $5,000 – enough to make you think twice about hosting a party where teens may drink,” Sauve commented. “This is our first attempt at passing it (in Barron).”

The said proposed rule is also supported by Mayor Dave Vruwink who, as a driver’s education instructor, knows how alcohol can damage or take away a life in an instant. “….Wisconsin is among the top states in the country for drunk driving – and northwestern Wisconsin, especially, is a problem area.”