PERRYSBURG – Drug use among students in the school district is going down.
Sections of the Wood County Youth Survey of Alcohol and Other Drug Use, presented by
Dr. William Ivoska, bore out that students in Perrysburg are using drugs at
lower rates, by and large – some of them dramatic.
More than 2,300 students in the district, in grades 5 through 12, were surveyed.
In Perrysburg, 14.9 percent of high school seniors reported using cigarettes in the
past year, compared with 37.1 percent in 2004. Smokeless tobacco use was also
reduced, from 7.3 percent to 4.6 percent in 2012.
Ivoska chalked this change up to a number of factors, including an increased number
of commercials depicting, sometimes in gruesome fashion, the harms of smoking,
and also the fact that, due to state laws, there are fewer places where smoking
is allowed in public, and that cigarettes are increasingly expensive. Aggressive
prevention programs could also be credited, he said.
Alcohol use over the past year decreased among seniors from 72.8 percent to 61.3
percent, while alcohol use in the past month stayed relatively steady, reducing
from 46.7 percent to 45.4 percent.
"Drinking is declining in Perrysburg, just like it’s declining in Wood
County," said Ivoska.
Marijuana use among high school seniors also declined, from 31.1 percent in 2004 to
14.2 percent.
Surprisingly, by these statistics, Ivoska said, it’s more likely that a student would
be caught smoking a marijuana joint than a regular cigarette.
"Marijuana is making a return" on the national stage, he said. Some of this
could be traced to a more permissive climate for the drug, with pushes for
legalization in states such as Michigan.
Use of inhalants among seniors rose slightly, from 2.6 percent to 4.6 percent, and
use of the psychedelic drug Ecstasy has increased from 2 percent to 8.8 percent,
which reflects a national trend as that drug stages a comeback.
Ivoska also reported the sobering statistic that nearly 41 percent of seniors had
been a passenger in a vehicle when the driver had just had an alcoholic drink or
smoked marijuana.
In other matters, the board heard from Superintendent Tom Hosler that nearly 170 new
students have enrolled in the district in the past week, and more are expected.
This number, he said, did not reflect the number of students that have left the
district, which has yet to be determined.
However, the influx of students in to the district is problematic, especially because
many of the elementary schools are already facing a space crunch.
"So that’s creating a concern for us as far as" class sizes, said Hosler.
He noted that adding teachers to allay the space issue is a challenge in the
district’s present budgetary climate.