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The illegal use of alcohol and other drugs is all around us. It affects our youth at a younger and younger age. Twelve years old is the average age for first time alcohol consumption, and 14.11 is the average age for first time meth usage. By the time adolescents are in twelfth grade, 74.5 percent of them have tried alcohol and 6.6 percent have tried meth. Yet there is a portion of the population that still does not think that substance abuse affects them.

It does not matter how old your children are or even if you have children. Drugs affect all of us. They are in the work place, compromising the ability of those who use to make safe choices. They are in our schools, compromising the ability of the youth to make wise choices as well as affecting the brain’s ability to properly develop. They are on the streets and in the neighborhoods that we live in. They are in the parks, where our young children play and pass their time. They are in the stores, where we go to make our purchases and maybe sit with a cup of coffee. They affect the rich and the poor; there are no socio-economic limits that drugs won’t cross. The impact of substance abuse is pervasive.

Illegal drug use affects senior citizens by making our neighborhoods less safe. Identity theft (a common crime among drug addicts) threatens us all, while seniors are the most tragic victims. Drug use is responsible for 80 percent of crime, according to Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard. Most domestic violence occurs while the perpetrator is either drunk or high.

Young families struggle with the influence of drug use also. Meth addiction occurs most commonly between the ages of 18 and 30; the age of young parents. Alcohol abuse has become a cultural norm, and drug addiction is acceptable behavior among celebrities. Our children watch us, their older friends, television, etc., and they pick up on these not-so-subtle messages that drug and alcohol use is acceptable. Our young children will soon grow up, and in a very short time they will be walking the halls of the middle and high school, faced with the challenge of making wise choices and standing up to peer pressures.

Prevention does not occur over night. It takes years to increase awareness and decrease usage among both adults and youth. It is important that we act now, and continue to act, in order to create a prevention program throughout our community that is sustainable and will have a positive impact on the citizens of today and the youth that will reap its benefits 10 years from now. By working together we can make this impact. (Statistics in this article were gathered from The Arizona Youth Survey 2006 and the Arizona Meth Project.)

If you are interested in making a difference, then the M*A*S*H (Maricopa, Ak-Chin, Stanfield, Hidden Valley) Coalition is for you. The M*A*S*H Coalition is a group of your friends and neighbors who want to combat drug abuse, and we need your help!

Join us on the fourth Monday of every month at City Hall to explore how we can all work together to help fight drug use and addiction within our community. The next meeting is on March 23 at 6:30 p.m. For further information please contact Firouzeh Dittmar at [email protected] or 602-463-2650. United as a community, we will succeed.

Dittmar has a degree in psychology from Arizona State University and has been serving the youth of Maricopa for the past two years.

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