Parents pick up clues to help curb a crisis

The police were on site, and parents, picking through a teenager’s room in search of drug paraphernalia. Burnt spoons littered the floor and water bottles used as homemade bongs.

“It’s going to take a community to end this crisis,” said Kathy Kean, director of mental health alliance Health Awareness and Recovery Together (HART). Her group is giving presentations at high schools around Columbus to teach parents the warning signs of drug use and addiction.

On a recent weekday they set up a mock bedroom in a school auditorium and invited attendees to snoop. The initiative, Can You See Me Now?, was created in Northern Ohio to teach guardians of teenagers how to understand and protect them. Parents watched attentively as a video explained what the opioid crisis is about. 

Drugs are not a new problem here.

In the five years since Hilliard’s special investigative unit began to focus on the drug crisis, police have seized more than $262,000 in illicit money and charged more than 200 felons. Since 2014, they have apprehended nearly 85 guns.

Most of the busts come from citizen reports. But there was the restaurant owner who found meth in his bathroom and the stash discovered on an inmate during a jail transfer. As the drug problem has escalated, so has criminal activity, say officers.

It has also taken on a startling normalcy.  One officer on a routine traffic stop reported that a woman approached him to turn herself in, saying if she didn’t get help she was sure she would be dead.

“If that doesn’t tell you we have a problem ... I don’t know what does," said officer Hyda Sloane.

Some in attendance nodded their heads in recognition. Others wore looks of concern or furrowed their eyebrows. One woman took notes on her Blackberry.

Sloan tells those in attendance to check their children’s trash bins, keep an eye out for burn holes or suspicious behavior. The latest thing, she says, is Purple Drink, a combination of prescription cough syrup, soda and Jolly Ranchers.

“As parents, we have to start to look at the signs that will help us determine if our children are using,” said Judge Jodi Thomas.

A trained social worker, she has experience dealing with drug users and talks about changes in character and physical appearance. Most important, perhaps, is acknowledging that this problem affects everyone, every day, no matter their class or gender or ethnicity, she said.

There was a time when the typical image of an opioid addict was a poor, white, unemployed male. Oxycontin's very nickname was Hillbilly Heroin. Further back there were plenty who believed drugs weren't a white problem at all. Now, it's harder to forgive people who remain blind to the scale. In Ohio, it seems everyone knows someone who has been touched by addiction, regardless of where they live or their income.

Thomas believes society needs to address drug addiction and mental health problems as everyday issues -- because that is what they've become. “We have to change the stigma, because until we do we’re hiding the problem."

She also recommends that parents keep a closer eye on their teenagers, follow them on social media and learn the terms they’re using. Then she walks them through the process of recovery so they know what to expect if their child does require treatment.

Does it mean becoming more invasive? Probably. But it takes more than a snoop to stop a problem. It’s the very roots that need severing.

And that depends on more than just the courts, or the police or emergency services, Thomas said. “Gone are the days when the fridge just had a number for poison control."