GPD to sponsor parental Drug Awareness Seminar

The Griffin Police Department will on Monday, June 13, will sponsor a Drug Awareness Seminar – the first in a series of educational programs – designed to provide parents with information regarding illicit and prescription drug abuse.

Monday’s inaugural seminar will focus on the most common local street drugs including marijuana, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as a growing nationwide and local problem – the adolescent abuse of prescribed pharmaceuticals.

“What we’ll also be doing is advising parents that when youth begin using drugs, they may not be obtaining them illegally,” said GPD Capt. Dwayne Jones. “There’s a growing problem of kids abusing drugs that may have been legally prescribed, perhaps for a family member, that they have access to.”

Jones said the Drug Awareness Seminar is not geared toward parents of children in any specific age group, but added, “The end of elementary school or beginning of middle school is the age at which children may typically begin feeling the peer pressure to experiment with drugs, around the age of 10 or 11. We don’t really have a target age, though. We’re just targeting parents.”

In addition to informing parents of the common signs of drug abuse, there will be practical information presented, such as how to identify various common drugs.

“Parents will have the opportunity to see some of the drugs we’re discussing and learn how to identify them,” Jones said. “If you’ve never been around drugs, you might not know how to recognize crack cocaine, meth or even marijuana. I keep going back to this – and I want to stress this again – it’s educational. It’s about awareness. We’re not pointing fingers at anyone or telling parents they need to turn their children in to law enforcement agencies. This is to educate parents and raise awareness.”

Subsequent series topics will include such issues as bullying, social networking and eventually, a seminar on gangs.

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there and we want to clarify these issues by sponsoring these seminars,” Jones said.