By Summer Crawford

News Editor

@summercrawfordd

Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines, ecstasy, hydrocodone: these are all drugs that have become norms for society members to abuse. Not only are these drugs affecting high school students, but they are also targeting college students.

Coppell is no exception to this drug plague. As a result of a seminar held last spring, Assistant Special Agent Calvin Bond in the Dallas Field Division lead a drug awareness seminar on Oct. 28. Bond is in charge of four enforcement groups in Dallas that are made up of police officers and Drug Enforcement Agency members. This event was brought to the community by the Coppell Independent School District, City of Coppell and the DEA in order to inform both students and parents of drug use, abuse and its consequences.

“We want to make sure that the students have the armor that they need to fend off and deal with issues that might be related to drugs and alcohol,” Assistant Superintendent Brad Hunt said. “It’s really important that at first we have an awareness and an understanding of what is going, and a realization that talking about drugs and alcohol is the first step to helping us empower ourselves with how to deal with it. If one student, one family, is affected by drugs and alcohol, then yes, we have a drug and alcohol problem in our community.”

Bond discussed not only a large variety of popular drugs being trafficked throughout Texas and supplied to teenagers, but also informed parents of the most common diversion methods. These methods include prescription forgeries, internet pharmacies, “doctor shopping,” pharmacy thefts and adolescents stealing prescription drugs from household medicine cabinets. According to Bond, the biggest threat to anyone in the room is prescription drugs.

A big issue that was stressed upon was the age at which students are affected by drugs for the first time.

“Across the U.S. the statistic for when kids are first ever offered any type of drug is the fifth grade,” Bond said. “For younger aged kids, it’s alcohol, marijuana and then if they go further it is a decision: is it pills, is it meth, is it heroine.”

Another common problem is that students think they do not need to tell anyone about what they are seeing or hearing. Hunt stressed upon the idea that it is vital for students to come to others for help because this could be the difference between life and death.

“Kids are very good at covering up and for each other, that’s a problem,” Hunt said. “We do have crime stoppers and other parents and anonymous tips through parent link, and we follow up on every single tip that we are given. It is a big high school there are lots of kids [who] don’t always like to tell on their friends, even when they are in crisis.

“People are trying to help each other, they are trying to help a friend, so we have to work through that so that people realize you have to come tell someone so kids can get help.”

Bond shared common signs of drug use in order to inform and warn any parents who attended of what to be looking for.

“The first thing you want to look for is a change in their character and their behavior,” Bond said. “Also you will see a change in friends and a change in times where they are either away from you or they are quitting their extracurricular activities. You can see it in the eyes in the dilatation [and] you need to be going through their vehicle, in their backpack, in their room, looking at the texts on their phone, and then their bathroom.”

Drugs are in almost every state, in any town. Bond discussed how drugs can follow people no matter where they move to.

“It doesn’t matter where you live, there are drugs available,” Bond said. “They are available in the most affluent neighborhood in the Dallas Fort Worth area and they are available in the poorest neighborhood in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Education and communication from the parents and the teachers and the coaches, that is the critical thing.”

Living in Texas, students have a high chance of running across any type of drug, due to the primary source of drugs being right next door.

“Where we live is a springboard where there is not only a lot of drugs coming to this area to stay, but it is going across the entire U.S. from here,” Bond said. “Mexico is our primary source country: heroin, meth, marijuana. We are right next to the biggest source country in the world because we live in Texas.”

Although there is an undeniable amount of drugs being offered anywhere, Bond reminded parents and students that they have the power to choose not to be involved. Parents have the power to see signs in their children and find them help, and students have the power to stay drug and alcohol free. Hunt and Bond ended the seminar by encouraging everyone to submit an anonymous tip to Coppell Crime Stoppers if they see or hear about any suspicious activity involving drugs or alcohol.