Discussing Substance Abuse Prevention at the Republican National Convention

Despite the fact that it wasn’t a major topic of discussion, or part of the party’s main platform, we managed to interject questions on youth substance abuse into our interviews at the recent Republican National Convention. Being a youth journalism bureau we identified substance abuse as one of our main issues to cover at the convention. Republicans and attendees in St. Paul had varying opinions on substance abuse prevention, and the role of the government in prevention.

Convention guest Jonathon Gaworski, fifteen, of St. Paul, MN believes that family plays an extremely important part of keeping kids off drugs.

“Politicians can do as much as they can, and it’s good for them to do as much as they can to prevent substance abuse and alcoholism, but the most effective way for that to stop is if children are raised in families that teach them to do this. Nothing ultimately can replace that,” he said. “The reform needs to happen with the family. Once we get the families straightened out all these other issues will fall into place.”

Enjoying the convention proceedings in the halls of the Exel Center with Gaworski was Avery Platter, fifteen, of Apple Valley, MN. Platter agreed it begins with the family and in many cases an involved father.

“Statistics show that kids that are without a father are more likely to get pregnant, more likely to do substance abuse, more likely to be alcoholics, more likely to have all the things that degrade society,” he explained. “If the government puts a bigger stance on fathers staying with their families and being responsible that would really help everything associated with teens.”

Some youth feel that there isn’t enough attention focused on substance abuse prevention. John Moen, sixteen, and Alex Friedman, eighteen, of Eden Prairie, MN said that schools and police don’t give the subject the awareness it deserves.

“I don’t think that in schools’ health classes that teachers are doing enough to really say, ‘Drugs are bad,’ and all that,” Moen said. “Police should crack down more. People shouldn’t be let off with warnings ever. Higher crackdowns from the police is what we really need.”

“Possibly enforce harsher penalties of abusers of substances. I think that would be a good one to get the message across,” Friedman said. “Make an example of kids who are abusing it, and hopefully fewer will abuse it.”

Another young person we spoke to at the convention was Adam Kiihr of Charlotte, NC, who was there with the National Junior Statesman Program. He too feels awareness of the problem leads to prevention.

“If you were to tell more people about it I think that could help some. But you need to start that at younger ages, when you’re seven or eight-years-old,” Kiihr said. “You want it lodged in your brain about what drugs can do to you.”

The politicians we spoke with were in agreement that the government’s primary role in substance abuse prevention was awarding grants and funds. Michigan’s Attorney General Mike Cox says public service advertising also plays a big role in preventing substance abuse.

“The primary thing the federal government has been doing is advertising in the media, on TV and radio, on shows that teenagers and preteens would watch, and also in helping to fund programs like DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education,” Cox said. “Education is really the best weapon to fight the problem of substance abuse, and that’s what the federal government has been doing.”

The Sheriff of downstate Oakland County, Mike Bouchard, (who in the past ran unsuccessfully against Democratic U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow) agrees with Cox, but says the most important way to lower substance abuse is to involve communities and parents.

“The federal government’s vast role is to help give grants that help promote public policy and health policy, to do things that relate to advertisement, (deciding) what kind of (tobacco or alcohol) advertising can be allowed that doesn’t draw in young people and doesn’t make it attractive--doesn’t make it look like it’s cool or sexy or all the things that they try to do,” Bouchard said. “So there’s a number of things, but the grassroots activities are best handled by states, their community coalitions, and moms and dads that take an active role in making sure that they keep their kids away from substances that clearly will harm them.”

Bouchard also feels, as many do, that solving the substance abuse problem will also affect the prison population. He says that substance abuse and the inability to attain educational goals are the two reasons the majority of inmates are in prison.

“If you take away those two things you take about 80 percent (of inmates) out of the prisons and jails of America. So that’s how important it is. That’s why the correlation is so important. The federal government educates people and has programs in place to rehabilitate and to get them off of any substance they may have been involved with and move them back in the direction that gets them opportunities in the future. That’s really the best role for the federal government, not prosecuting. That can be handled on a state or local level.”

The outcome of our discussions ended with one common opinion being held by all – everyone is needed to help prevent youth substance abuse, from parents all the way up to the federal government. Even youth can play a part in preventing their peers from making the wrong choice.

Muskogee, Oklahoma Delegate John Hammons, eighteen, says that he founded a program in high school that has high school students talking about the dangerous effects of drugs with elementary school children.

“It’s something I’ve been involved in before I got into politics. You have to go and touch someone’s life,” he explained. “You have to go and place your hand on them and say, “I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can do it.”

Editor’s Note: This story was written by Chelsea Parrish, 17, with contributions by Andrew LaCombe, 18, Hayley Maskus, 15, Connor Stulz, 14 and Maggie Guter, 11.