Authorities say the use of opiates — which include Oxycontin, Fentanyl, Vicodin, Soma, Ritalin, cough syrups and any medication ending in “pam” — are on the increase among Butte County youth.

Shelby Boston, with Butte County Children’s Services Division, noted that in 2003 only 1 percent of children in foster care had or were endangered by opiate addictions.

In 2008 that number jumped to 4.3 percent. About half the children she sees with oxycodone problems also drink, Boston said.

About 9 percent of seniors in local high schools have tried opiates.

Retired chief probation officer Helen Harberts, now working with the District Attorney’s Office, noted that “Addiction is a disease of the brain, and with youth, just about everything is about the brain.”

Harberts, the lead-off speaker at a Chico forum Wednesday night discussing prescription drug use by adolescents, noted the brains of people under 25 aren’t wired to always “think through potential outcomes.”

When what Harberts referred to as “common sense deficit disorder” is combined with drugs, the outcome can be tragic and life-altering.

“Oxy is perhaps the most powerful prescription drug; it can take over the adolescent brain very quickly,” she said. “The enemy is in your home, and in your medicine cabinets,”

Harberts told parents in the audience.Reports of people missing prescribed medications, especially oxycodone, are common to police departments, but adults rarely suspect their children or grandchildren.

“We’re seeing that 75 percent of prescription drugs used illegally by children are coming from their homes,” said Chico police Sgt. Ford Porter. “They bring drugs to school to either use them, trade them, sell them or give them away,” Porter said.

A small percentage of drugs children abuse have been legally prescribed to them by physicians.

Even when children are caught with drugs at school, Porter said parents usually seem puzzled about where they got them.

Porter mentioned a kind of underground exchange of drugs that was taking place recently between students at Pleasant Valley High in Chico and Paradise High. He said it wasn’t discovered until a buyer at one of the schools became very ill from drug use.

Kellee Rhoades, a 17-year-old who now talks openly about a prescription drug habit that began when she was about 14, said she reacted typically to an opiate addition. “I kept it all inside, and it wasn’t good for me,” Rhoades said. “If I wasn’t high, I was alone in my room.”

Experts call the behavior “isolating.”

“I think all I really needed at that point in my addiction was somebody to compassionately ask if I needed help,” she said. “I didn’t have anybody in my family in my home life, which was very dysfunctional, to do that for me,” Rhoades said.

“When I turned 15 I was on a good number of substances. I broke into a house, and that ruined by teenage years,” she said. “I’d do anything to get that time back.”

Rhoades decided to seek help on her own, has been sober for a year, and is now enrolled at Butte College.

Cyla Nelson, a drug rehabilitation expert and assessor for a program called California Access to Recovery Effort, said she’s seeing a third generation of prescription drug abusers in Butte County.

She noted parents often need help and support themselves, before they can help their children.

Rhoades said Nelson was among a handful of people to give her an encouraging word when she needed it most. Nelson and Rhoades have become friends outside of a clinical setting.

Chico police street crimes officer Kevin Hass observed that methamphetamine is still the drug of choice in Chico. “But if meth is the king, Oxycontin is the queen,” he said.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey said he often gets calls from parents who ask him to be the heavy in trying to influence children they suspect of doing drugs. “I don’t mind being the bogey man,” he told his audience. “Please use me.”

Ramsey explained the key to explaining law enforcement’s role in drug abuse prevention is not to frighten people so much that they don’t seek help.

Wednesday’s forum was organized by Butte County Juvenile Court Judge Tamara Mosbarger and the Chico Unified School District.

Resources for help

If you suspect prescription drug abuse in your family, the following resources are among those available:

www.jointogether.org

www.teens.drugabuse.gov

www.drugabuse.gov

California Access to Recovery Effort, 864-2952, or prevention/intervention specialists with your local school district.One big piece of advice drug-addicted teens have for parents is: “Don’t try to be our friend, we have our own friends. Be our parents.”

http://www.orovillemr.com