An audience of about 200 parents got an eye-opening look Thursday night in Sebastopol at the wide array of commonly abused drugs that are readily available to local teens and even younger kids.
From over-the-counter cough and cold remedies, to nitrous oxide used to dispense whipped cream, to locally made hash oil marketed on Facebook, Sebastopol police officers laid it all out so community members could be up-to-date on current trends and fully understand: Teen drug abuse is not just happening somewhere else.
Police Sgt. David Ginn and Officer David Edney used videotapes of hash oil production and a young person smoking methamphetamine, as well as photographs of drug paraphernalia taken during local arrests to drive home the point.
Referring to a videotape police once seized as evidence that showed a 15-year-old student smoking hallucinogenic dimethyltriptamine, or DMT, it was "right here at the skate park in Sebastopol."
The presentation at Analy High School was, according to several parents, enlightening.
"I'm amazed at how naive I feel after seeing this," said Ann Sterin, who has two kids in high school.
The list of local favorites, police said, included cough and cold syrups kids sometimes mix in sweet drinks, nitrous oxide canisters intended for food preparation, and heroin, whose popularity spiked over the past two years as a replacement for reformulated Oxycontin, an opiate-based painkiller that was in high demand until it no longer provided the high users wanted, police said.
There's Ecstasy, or MDMA, linked nationally to rising incidence of medical emergencies, and the hallucinogenic DMT, made from plant substances.
Arrests for possession of methamphetamine -#8212; now much easier to make, thanks to a new recipe circulating for the past several years -#8212; have risen exponentially: 50 last year compared to four in 2007, police said. It's even cropping up colored blue, inspired by "Breaking Bad," a popular TV show about a chemistry teacher-turned-drug manufacturer, Edney said.
E-cigarettes and vaporizers introduced initially to aid smoking cessation are the latest delivery system for hash oil, concentrated cannabis sometimes called honey or wax. Even a dab of the sticky substance is intoxicating, given that it is pure THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, they said.
Marijuana itself, perhaps the most commonly used drug among local teens, now has three to five times the potency that would have been around when most kids' parents were young, Analy Principal Chris Heller said.
You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.
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