Is the ‘War on Drugs’ still on?

Editor’s note: The following story is part of reporter Caitlin Skvorc’s yearlong “Digging in the Archives” series. Each month, Skvorc will look back 25 years in the Frontiersman archives and update readers on stories from 1991.

WASILLA — Since at least the early 1990s, Mat-Su educators and school staff have tried to stem the tide of illicit drugs and alcohol flowing through the hallways of their schools.

Even now, teachers, legislators and substance abuse treatment advocates acknowledge that the local education system plays a key role in the decrease of drug and alcohol problems among youth.

“When we educate the youth of Alaska on the risks (of drug abuse) and the road to recovery, that’s really one of most important things we can do,” said Sen. Dan Sulllivan (R-Alaska) in a phone interview earlier this month.

As a senator, Sullivan said he recognizes his role in creating local change comes more from the top down. As an Alaskan, he noted that the solution to the state’s drug problems won’t — and shouldn’t — come only from lawmakers.

“The federal government’s not gonna solve this, the state government’s not solve this, the local government’s not gonna solve this — it’s really up to the community,” he said.

Perhaps that’s why former Frontiersman reporter Debra McGhan committed to a three-part series in April, 1991 titled, “The War is On: Schools vs. Drugs.”

Getting to know you: students and teachers

In a story published on April 19, 1991, McGhan wrote that the “war” on drugs was being addressed by Mat-Su Borough School District employees, through programming, and in personal testimonies from students. Talk of Teen Alcoholics Anonymous and alternatives to out-of-school suspensions as well as role-playing games wove through McGhan’s stories, which praised the school district’s efforts.

“If you are a student in the Mat-Su Valley with a drug or alcohol problem, help is all around you,” her first story began.

In one 1991 Wasilla High School class, several students spoke highly of teacher Andrea Gavlak and her ways of helping students open up and be honest with themselves and others.

“Mrs. G is always there when you need her. She really cares and she’ll get right in your face and make you see when you’re lying to yourself,” said a student at the time.

Back then, helping students maintain healthy, drug-free lifestyles by developing empathy and positive relationships seemed to be just beginning to gain ground as standard procedure. A 1989 amendment to the Drug Free Schools and Community Act — which still informs the school district’s student handbook drug policy — also included an amendment to the National Narcotics Leadership Act of 1988 to provide before- and after-school programs for unsupervised children, including athletic activities and “other programs designed to reduce the risk of drug abuse.” Other awareness-raising efforts like the national “Just Say No” and Red Ribbon Week campaigns also cropped up in schools in the late 1980s.

However, there was no specific language legislating the basic relationship building in the classroom that teachers and students were saying helped decrease drug abuse by youth.

In September of 2014, though, the district implemented the national Capturing Kids’ Hearts program, which is designed to bring those same kind of student-teacher bonds referred to in 1991 to all Mat-Su classrooms.

“You end up having closer relationships with kids and find out their issues that way, and you can be more proactive,” about solutions, said Mike Vrvilo with the district’s Office of Instruction.

Peer-to-peer support

Even as teachers strive to be more for their students than textbook instructors, students and young adults are saying their peers are the ones who most influence their decisions.

“It’s easier to listen to someone my age,” said junior Mat-Su Central student Dannial Beaty after a teen forum on substance abuse hosted at Wasilla High School earlier this month.

Local homeless youth outreach coordinator Jay Dagenhart spoke at the forum.Though Dagenhart is now grown with teenage children of his own, he remembered what it was like to struggle with alcohol as a kid.

“By the time I was 13, I started drinking, and by the time I was 16 or 17, I was an alcoholic,” Dagenhart said.

For him, being an alcoholic meant drinking four days a week, stealing alcohol from his parents and taking it to school, drinking and driving, and drinking to the point where he couldn’t remember how he got home or where he was when he woke up.

“Luckily, I survived. Some of my classmates that I went to school with didn’t,” he said.

While his stories inspired applause from the dozens of students in the audience, it didn’t quite compare to the attentive silence held during the testimonies of former Mat-Su students and recovering meth addicts Mason and Jazzmyne Balison.

“After I realized that getting high or getting drunk wasn’t helping me, my life just, it changed,” said 20-year-old Mason. “I can’t even explain …how good it feels to break free from something like that.”

Surveying the student climate

Though many Valley residents might perceive a high amount of drug use among youth today, recent statistics point to the contrary.

According to the 2015 Alaska results from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which is administered to middle and high school students across the country every two years, there was no change in the percentage of traditional high school students who have ever used heroin (2.2 percent), methamphetamine (2.6) or non-prescribed prescription drugs (14.6) since 2013. Marijuana use among high school students also had not changed significantly since the previous test, and there was actually a decrease in moderate consumption of alcohol and binge drinking. Ecstasy, cocaine and inhalants, too, have become less popular, as reported by high school students. (Middle school students have not been surveyed in Alaska since 1999.)

However, the results also revealed that fewer students see binge drinking as harmful than they did in 2013, and 7.5 percent of Alaska students report having used spice, or synthetic marijuana. Alternative high schools reported higher percentages of drug use than traditional high schools, though the general trends (no change or decrease) were the same. For example, 75 percent of alternative high school students reported having used marijuana one or more times during their lives (down from 77.7 percent in 2013) compared to 41.8 percent (up from 39.5 in 2013, but trending down from 49.1 in 2009) of traditional high school students.

From a parent’s perspective

Outside of school and friend groups, students may have church groups or sports teams that influence their lifestyles, but none of these relationships are likely as important as that of children and their parents.

Wasilla resident Liberty Samples-Niesen was attending Mat-Su College when she got in a serious car accident that put her on opioid painkillers for a decade. When she lost her Medicaid, the pills ran out and she shopped for hydrocodone, Percocet and methadone on the streets. What she bought most often, though, was heroin. Four years ago, Samples-Niesen lost her 11-year-old daughter to the state. Instead of encouraging her to quit, the incident enabled Samples-Nielsen to fall further into addiction.

In 2015, Samples-Niesen said she started to miss her kid more than she wanted to get high. She said she’s now almost a year sober, and hopes she can set a good example for her daughter. And, she said, if she can encourage parents to set good examples for their kids and get their children involved in things others than partying, maybe there will be some hope for future generations.

“These parents need to be educated about the fact that their kids need to have something to do all the time,” Samples-Niesen said. “Put them in sports, go to the sports with them. You have to be an active parent.”

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.