There are few weeks in the school year as definitive as Spring Break.  It seems to take forever to arrive, but once the brief respite is here and gone, there comes the sudden realization that there are just a few short wisdom-imparting weeks left before summer will be squarely upon us.  All of us at Project ALERT hope your final stretch will be an exciting and productive one!

 

It’s difficult to turn on the news these days and not hear a story about the alarming rise in heroin use.  Among our staff at the Educator, just in the last several weeks, we’ve seen reports on 60 Minutes, PBS’s Frontline, and ABC’s World News Tonight.  New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Ohio have all been featured as just a few of the states facing serious public health and law enforcement challenges as heroin use increases.  We at Project ALERT would especially recommend watching the PBS Frontline special “Chasing Heroin” at your earliest opportunity, currently streaming for free on pbs.org. We found it quite interesting to see the link between a major pharmaceutical company and the recent street opiate surge. Note how one of the more progressive cities in the Pacific Northwest is taking on the problem with a novel approach called the LEAD program.

 

Has this issue affected your communities and/or schools?  Are you seeing or hearing about more cases of student experimentation and use?  Please let us know, as we are in the early stages of preparing a heroin and opiate guide to supplement the Project ALERT curriculum and would like to hear your thoughts from “ground zero.”  Thank you!

In the PBS Frontline special, Chasing Heroin, Seattle takes center stage as a city in distress.  But rather than seeing the rise in heroin use and addiction as solely a criminal problem, an innovative harm reduction program called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) takes a different tack, and acknowledges that their city is in the grips of an unprecedented public health catastrophe.

 

LEAD's multimedia page contains several interviews with case managers and program clients. Hear how some former addicts are praising this new approach that got them out of the "system" and helped them finally get clean.

 

Other related recent articles to check out:

 

22 News (WWLP) in Westfield, MA reports that heroin use is becoming more common among teenagers.

 

The Baltimore Sun reports how Harford County, MD law enforcement, education, and government leaders have recently started a new round of community events to get the word out to county residents, especially the youth, about the dangers of heroin addiction.

 

Heroin discussion draws a full house. Clifton Park, NY. A community conversation recently on heroin addiction, its use, consequences, and impacts, was driven home by riveting first person accounts from recovering addicts and family members dealing with loved ones’ addictions. Real Talk: Heroin, was a two-hour panel discussion on Feb. 24, 2016 that included three first person accounts, followed by a question and answer session.

Project ALERT is very excited to announce that all of the videos that accompany many of the core and booster lessons are now available via iTunes Podcast!  If the lack of online access in your teaching setting has been an issue, you now have an additional way to download and store video content on personal and classroom computers.  And in true Project ALERT style, the videos are available at no charge to users!

 

Getting Started (you will need online access to begin)

 

You will need online access to start the process, and you will have the choice either to stream the videos online or download the videos to your iTunes library for offline viewing. Once you download and save the videos, and as long as you keep a version of iTunes on your computer, online access will not be needed to play the videos. 

 

If you already have an Apple ID and an iTunes account, you can log in and go straight to our Podcast page.

 

If you do not already have it, please follow this link to download iTunes onto your computer. If you do not have an Apple ID, it takes just a few minutes to create one.  Initially, you will need to enter a credit card when you create your profile, but after your account is set up, you can opt to edit or remove your credit card information by following the instructions on this page.

 

Locating, Viewing (or “Streaming”), and Downloading the Videos in iTunes

 

Initially, you will need Internet access to either view (“stream”) and/or download the videos.

 

1. Follow this link to the Project ALERT iTunes Podcast.

 

2. When the Podcast page appears, click on the blue “View in iTunes” button.

 

3. The Podcast will appear in iTunes, displaying the 16 videos you can either view or download.

 

4. To stream a video, hover your cursor over title of the video you want; a blue arrow will appear to the left of the title; simply click on the arrow to watch/stream the video.

 

5. To download and save a video, click on the “Get” button in the far right column (click on the actual word “Get” and not on the little drop-down arrow next to it).

 

The video(s) will download and become a permanent part of your own iTunes library.

 

Playing Downloaded and Saved Videos

 

Next time you’re teaching one of the lessons in a setting without online access:

 

1. Launch iTunes on your computer.

 

2. Click on Podcasts in the left navigation bar of your iTunes library.

 

3. Select the video(s) that accompany a particular lesson that you’d like to show.

 

It’s that easy!  We encourage you to give it a try, and send us some feedback to let us know how it’s going.

 

“Old School” Methods Are Still Available

 

If you prefer, the lesson videos are still available for online streaming via the Project ALERT website, and via our You Tube page.  

Project ALERT has just published a new supplement on marijuana.  It includes some of the basics (e.g., what forms does marijuana come in?; why does it make you “high”?) to more complex information and current issues (e.g., is marijuana addictive?; what is medical marijuana?).  As issues surrounding the legalization of both recreational and medical marijuana are increasingly present in the culture and on the news, we encourage Project ALERT facilitators to incorporate this up-to-date information into one or more lessons. 

 

We suggest reviewing the marijuana supplement prior to implementing Core Lesson 2, Consequences of Smoking Cigarettes and Marijuana.  You may find some helpful answers to common FAQs that students might ask during this session. 

 

We hope you find this new supplement useful as you talk to students and other colleagues who are teaching Project ALERT.

 

The University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future national survey of substance use among students in U.S. middle schools and high schools has released results from 2015.

Overall, for 8th graders, use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and a number of other illicit drugs remained steady or declined slightly since the last survey in 2014. Overall trends for all students indicated that both alcohol and cigarette use in this most recent survey were at their lowest points since the study began back in 1975. E-cigarette use has surpassed cigarette use among 8th graders and rates grew slightly from 2014.

Here are some statistics for 8th graders assessed in 2015:

In the past month:

- 9.7% used alcohol

- 9.5% used e-cigarettes

- 6.5% used marijuana

- 3.6% smoked cigarettes

- 3.1% have been drunk

- 2.0% used inhalants

For a full list of results from 2015, see the full report.

Is all the talking in code making you wonder what you're missing?  If you need a lesson in heroin lingo, check out some of the latest urban slang and find out when chocolate chip cookies aren't really chocolate chip cookies.