LAKEPORT ? Lake County supervisor Anthony Farrington said in a Thursday meeting of the minds that he wants to bring the Montana Meth Project to Lake County. The popular ad campaign targets Montana youth between the ages of 12 and 17. Farrington said he wants to tailor the chilling statistics in the ads to Lake County.
In addition to discussing the graphic, cutting-edge ads Farrington showed in a video presentation, a large part of the discussion hinged around the possibility of having recovered methamphetamine addicts speak to students in that age group.
Representatives from Alcohol and Other Drug Services (AODS), Hilltop Recovery, the Lake County Child Protective Services, Lake Family Resource Center, the Lake County Office of Education and representatives from Lakeport, Kelseyville and Upper Lake school districts attended.
“Maybe the ads aren”t appropriate to show to fourth-graders, but some preventative action is appropriate,” Lake Family Resource Center director and United Way representative Gloria Flaherty said.
A DVD presentation of television, radio and billboard ads that are part of the Montana Meth Project showed graphic images of teens and preteens with bloody sores on their faces and bodies. Billboard ads depicted blood in the bottom of a sink drain, a dingy public restroom, a bare cot in a jail cell and a child lying on a gurney with an oxygen mask. Each image comes with a message pointing to the consequences of using methamphetamine and a statistic about methamphetamine use in the state.
“Maybe the ads are not appropriate for all schools, maybe not all classrooms, but I”m tired of trying to help kids through meth when I talk to the parents,” Lower Lake Elementary principal Rick Winer said.
Discussion of having a speaker”s bureau that would allow recovered methamphetamine addicts to speak to students between the ages of 12 and 17 included concerns about losing instruction time teachers need in order to meet state and federal standards.
“If you get rid of all that stuff going on every night at home, education becomes a whole lot easier. If a kid goes to a non-custodial parent”s house on the weekend and they are using meth and smoking it, you can”t tell me that”s not permeating their environment,” Winer said.
“They come to me, and you can see the difference sometimes on some students between Monday and Wednesday, depending on where they were for the weekend ? if we can get through to these kids and give up a small amount of instructional time, it”s going to pay back tenfold,” Winer said.
Farrington suggested taking a “core group” of the representatives present to a meeting in Palo Alto to discuss purchasing the Montana program”s materials and tailoring them to Lake County.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
