Long Island parents, police and school officials seek to curb teen drug use

By Staff Writer

Each month, parents of Long Island teenagers meet for Drug Free Massapequa meetings. The initiative is designed to curtail the number of teen overdoses and fatalities that are related to recreational drug use.

"One a day – we are losing one person a day to overdose. Not all cases are fatalities but still, they overdosed," Steven Chassman of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence told the news source.

With the introduction of Facebook and MySpace into teen culture, a new issue has arisen.

"When kids binge and smoke weed nowadays, those images end up on Facebook for thousands of people to see," Chassman added.

According to the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, 40 percent of those who start drinking and using drugs at age 13 or younger develop dependence later in life.

In order to help prevent these issues, the Nassau County Police Department recently introduced Too Good for Drugs, which is a narcotics prevention training program that encourages kids to make positive decisions.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine reports that early drinkers and experimenters were more likely than non-drinkers to report academic problems, substance abuse and delinquent behavior in both middle school and high school.