Susan, (Post #80), you might want to email Supt Richardson directly for your answers. (He’s answered emails from me.)

http://www.nfld.k12.mn.us/administration/superintendent.shtml

My reaction to the Falkowski radio show was the old saying, “to a carpenter every problem looks like a nail.” As I listened I had a mild whiplash. She had many good observations and suggestions followed by alarmist generalizations.

When we sit around the coffee shop and kvetch about what’s going on in town, it’s is fine to say that we’ve heard from “a number of people” that this or that is true. It’s fine to chatter about speculation from “unnamed sources.” But when a serious researcher singles out a specific community based on unspecified “additional information,” or when the chief of police trots out numbers dramatically different than the experience of other professionals and the available factual data, then I’d say the first burden of journalists, bloggers and even kvetchers in the coffee shop is to ask, is this factually accurate? If accurate, then we can respond, both to the news and to the underlying problem. But if the information is merely an individual’s opinion, unsupported by fact — however well intentioned — then it may warrant a very different, lower-key response. If that question had been asked a month ago, we would have had a very different, less inflammatory, debate.

Curt, you may think that focusing on the accuracy of the numbers misses the point of the dangers of drug use, abuse and addiction (by themselves three separate issues) to the young people of our community. I completely agree on an individual level. But if we’re talking about shaping public policy, about funding social services, or about tarnishing the reputation of a community, then accurate research and verifiable numbers are essential. If we can’t get all of the relevant players to agree about how we define (quantitatively) the problem, we won’t be focusing our energy and our resources as thoughtfully as we should. Instead we will find ourselves doing more, wihtout necessarily having a direct impact on the problems we want to diminish.

Randy

“….the downside to untreated addiction can be death…. It’s just a miracle to me that no one has overdosed in Northfield to date.”

Also, quoting–maybe answering the “is Northfield different?” question:

Falkowski talks about how she tracks drug trends, particularly heroin: “….it really didn’t show up until earlier this year when I started getting calls from treatment providers asking “what’s up with Northfield?” ….they said we’re getting some kids from Northfield and they’re addicted to heroin…this was the first discernible outbreak in Minnesota that I’ve become aware.”

David, I’m not sure what meaningful community action we can take either. Falkowski talked about St. Charles, Illinois. IIRC, she said St. Charles is an affluent town of 25,000, 25 miles west of Chicago. The young people were going to Chicago for heroin and other drugs. There were some 13 deaths around 2000. She said the community came up with some sort of plan, and that it succeeded in some way. The show didn’t go into any depth about what they did or how success was measured. (I put that last sentence in there for you, Anne.) Why not bring Ms. Falkowski to Northfield for a town meeting?

I’d like to hear other’s reactions to the Falkowski program. Anyone?

1. Does the number of 15 high school students referred this year for treatment for heroin or Oxycontin abuse come completely from Northfield High School, or does it include high school students who attend either the ALC or ArTech?

2. If the “15″ does NOT include ALC or ArTech students, does anyone know the parallel numbers for those schools?

3. On the Locally Grown radio show a couple of weeks ago, Chris Richardson described the process that is in place at the high school to identify kids who seem to be having serious problems and refer them for chemical dependency evaluations. Is the same process used at the ALC and ArTech? I have heard that Sara Shippy of Omada sees kids at the ALC, but I don’t know if she also goes to ArTech, or if someone else fulfills a similar function at that school.

These seem like important pieces of information, both for the community at large and for parents who are trying to find a relatively safe school setting for their children. I would greatly appreciate finding out specific information on any of these topics.

I am not sure what efforts were underway by the school district, other than having Sarah Shippy, a drug and alchohol abuse counselor on site part time.

I do know that the Northfield Mayor’s Task Force on Drug and Alchohol Abuse was stated in the spring of 2006 because of the data that was collected by the State of Minnesota and the PCN surveys. Both of these surveys were given to Northfield students.

The Rice County Public Health Services began the Rice County Chemical Health Coalition (Project Prevention) to address the problem. This coalition began in 2004.

More information on both of these efforts can be found on the HCI website.
http://www.northfieldhci.org/
(See second paragraph on home page to click on PDF or Word document.)

After being at one of their meetings and hearing representatives from the Mayor’s Task Force speak at the League of Women Voters meeting last night, I have been very impressed by their efforts to collaborate with multiple resources and their implementations thus far. The ZAP program is one example. If you do not know what the ZAP program is, I encourage you to visit the HCI website and links to find out more.

According to Griff, Chief Smith verified the heroin problem. The School Superintendent was not alone aware, and appears to have the only credible numbers to date.

So, let’s have them tell us what they were planning on doing before this story/non-story broke. They should have a much better perspective.

No overdoses yet? Did she really say that? I didn’t hear the program, so I don’t know what Ms. Falkowski was basing her statement on, but I at least remember rumors flying of a death due to overdose about a year and a half ago–I’m thinking sometime in January 2006. If there was no basis for the rumors, I apologize for bringing this up. But if there’s something to it, it would be courageous for someone with knowledge of what would surely have been a tragic death to shed some light on it.

The number fifteen (which I think we can agree is a real number) may seem low in light of the numbers Smith talked about in his press conference–but what’s the magic number before a community takes action? 16? 30? –when it’s your kid or someone you know’s kid?

I recall that the number “15″ came from Superintendent Richardson. This number appears not to not have been a surprise to him, nor to the police chief (15 was the reported treatment numbers, not usage numbers). Nor does it appear that the number was significant enough to cause any alarm prior to the report of the 150-250.

Consequently, it would appear that public officials thought that the matter was under control until Locally Grown aired the story here. It would be interesting to know what, if any, plan there was. There is no sense in developing a new plan if there was already a plan in place.

Randy, I don’t know if comparing Northfield to other cities or requiring more exact statistics on something that may be too slippery to quantify exactly is useful now. For me, 15 students treated for heroin/oxy at NHS in the 2006-2007 is really serious. You can put as not quite hysterical, but leaning that way.

P.S. Listen to the show:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/07/24/midday1/

Great question (#68). If you actually take the time to read the section of the Hazelden report titled Data Sources, you will see that the quantitative data cited in Ms. Falkowski’s study comes from metro area surveys or extrapolations of consortial studies. Unless I’ve missed something (which is always possible) there appear to be NO formal, quantitative data sources that include Rice County, much less Northfield. There is one comment that says “additional information” was collected through interviews with drug treatment workers, law enforcement and school officials. So it is entirely possible that Northfield was singled out for special mention because of ancedotal reports from one or more individuals, not from any systematic gathering of verifiable data that could be consistently compared to similar studies in other communities.

Obviously this does not mean we are free of drug-related issues. But it may mean that the hysteria has not been entirely justified.

Randy

The audio should be available later today on the above page, tho.

I think it’s fine to argue that this as not credible enough. But I don’t see how I’m being irresponsible by saying I think it is.

I think Strib columnist Nick Coleman was irresponsible for perpetuating the myths about heroin users:

I looked around. Just a sunny summer day in the city of cows, colleges and whatever the heck is happening. Not a syringe or a needle in sight. Nobody lying motionless on the sidewalk, either.

Everything we’ve been hearing since this began, including my interviews with users, teachers, and parents, says that it’s quite common for heroin users to appear normal and function as usual.

Why not take Coleman to task for this?

Outside of the Twin Cities metro area, heroin addiction emerged among high school students in Northfield, Minnesota…

Thanks, Curt!