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EDITORIAL: Substance Abuse Prevention in the 9th Essex District

There is a drug problem in the 9th Essex District.

Data compiled by the Department of Public Health and presented to the Saugus School Committee in November is stunning. When compared to surrounding communities- Lynn, Malden, Melrose, Revere, Salem, and Wakefield- Saugus had the highest per capita hospitalization rate for heroin abuse and other substance abuse. Lynn had the most individuals hospitalized for heroin and other substance abuse. In addition, two heroin dealers have been arrested in Wakefield over the past few weeks. This is not the problem of a single city or town. It is not localized to Lynn, Saugus, and Wakefield. This is a community problem, one that takes a joint partnership between community activists, municipal leaders, and our state legislators to solve, and one that must start with prevention.

Greg Nickolas, the Saugus Youth and Recreation Department Director, has been on the forefront of addressing this issue and has proposed the creation of a peer mentoring program. High school students would pair with middle school students to focus on life skills. Targeting students in middle school is critical, as a majority of students’ first exposure to drug use is during these years. The State should provide assistance in this endeavor. Scholarships to our public higher educational institutions should be available to all high school students willing to donate a certain number of hours to mentoring their peers in middle school. These scholarships would be an incentive for our students to participate in a program like this and would provide much needed relief to the costs of higher education. Further, the middle school mentee would learn by example, watching their mentors go to college, inspired to do the same.

A second idea is one that has already been drafted by the Wakefield School Committee: tax credits for school user fees. Numerous studies have shown that there is a negative correlation among individuals who participate in extra-curricular activities and the use of illicit substances. Therefore, the more students in Lynn, Lynnfield, Saugus, and Wakefield who participate in extra-curricular programs, the fewer students we expect to have substance abuse problems.

School user fees have increased at a dramatic rate. As recently as 2003, a student in Wakefield could pay as little as $50 a sport and be charged no user fees for any non-sport activities. Now, a student in Wakefield pays $260 per sport, with a $780 per family cap. Students in Saugus pay $250 for most sports and up to $1,000 a family.

Under the legislation proposed a family with a student participating in after school activities would be eligible for tax credits of up to $500 to help offset those costs. Hopefully, with these tax credits those students who want to participate in extra-curricular activities will never be turned away because of cost.

When this idea was presented to our legislative delegation of Rep. Mark Falzone, Rep. Katherine Clark, and Sen. Richard Tisei, Rep. Clark and Sen. Tisei agreed to sponsor the legislation and Rep. Clark even spoke on its behalf. When elected I will be a strong advocate for these two proposals. They are ideas that began in our communities, exemplifying the creativity and talent of the 9th Essex District. While it would be naïve to believe that these two ideas alone would stop all substance abuse in our cities and towns, it is a start at preventing a problem that we need to take on together.

EDITORIAL: Substance Abuse Prevention in the 9th Essex District

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