Posted by Tony Bylsma on August 1, 2011 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education | 
A man just left my office with a plan to speak to students in chapters of his old fraternity around the nation regarding the drug problems being found in the various chapters.
He had come to me for suggestions on how to approach the administration in the fraternities home office so they would support his efforts with at least travel expenses, he is willing to do work for free, but can’t run all over the US without at least expense money.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on October 13, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
I was asked in a high school class again today, “What is the war against drugs?” It seems an easy question to field, but I found myself stumbling on my answer.
The phrase itself is an obvious misnomer, The War on Drugs? What do they do, line the drugs up against a wall and machine-gun them down?
Or do we declare war on anything we feel unable to overcome? The war on poverty, the war on illiteracy, and the war on just about anything you really can’t face. It doesn’t make much sense.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on August 9, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
Energy drinks have been a phenomenal popular trend for years. Red Bull, Rockstar, Monster and Amp, are constant caffeine and sugar charged companions to every grocery and convenience store check-out line.
The exploding popularity of energy drinks is not something the alcoholic beverage producers could ignore for long. Several years ago, energy drinks with alcohol added began to show up in stores, most with packaging that made them hard to distinguish from the ‘regular’ energy drinks.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on July 19, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
A kid asked me in school today if he was going to become addicted to alcohol. I was a bit shaken by this question. I was in a very affluent area of South Pasadena and saw unusually few signs of drug abuse in the class. (Unusually few for a California public high school, anyway.)
I asked if he thought he was going have a drinking problem & he said yes, his father and uncles are heavy drinkers and his grandfather died of alcoholism.
It was pretty clear that the entire class was waiting for an answer and I wanted to not screw this one up.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on March 24, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
This morning I was in a continuation school’s continuation school.
A continuation school is a place for students who have been found to need special attention to keep up in high school, or middle school and been sent to the “alternative education center”. They aren’t necessarily sent there because of drugs, or behavior problems, but often that is the case.
The school today was for students who were expelled completely from their district’s school system. While a couple of them were booted because of behavior problems, and because of attendance records that were so bad they were just wasting everyone’s time, the largest percentage of these kids were there as a result of substance abuse. Even the usual “last chance” school is a step above this one. I have attended this type of facility so many times that I really have gotten to know the kids and I have to say I really like them.
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A man just left my office with a plan to speak to students in chapters of his old fraternity around the nation regarding the drug problems being found in the various chapters.
