Program targets rural Hispanic meth, inhalant use

In many surveys, says Dr. Eric Dubow, a Bowling Green State University psychology professor, up to 10 percent of students in grades 6-12 admit to using inhalants or "designer drugs" such as methamphetamine or Ecstasy that can be manufactured in makeshift laboratories. The figure, he adds, is on the high side of the range among Hispanic youth-the focus of a grant-funded program in which he and Dr. Dara Musher-Eizenman, an associate professor of psychology, are participating.

Their job is to evaluate the effectiveness of education and prevention efforts coordinated by Lucas County's Community Partnership, which has received funding from the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. The dollar amount is $350,000 per year for three years; the BGSU portion is about $90,000 over the three-year period.

The program being piloted locally this summer is aimed especially at migrant farm workers, although urban Hispanics will also be included.

Young migrants usually aren't exposed to prevention programs in school because of their transient lifestyle, but are still being exposed to drugs in the rural areas where they work, Dubow and Musher-Eizenman point out. The researchers note that clandestine meth labs are often set up in the country, and because inhalants can include common household items, they may be more easily obtained in rural areas than other drugs.

Rural Opportunities Inc., a Bowling Green-based assistance program for farm workers, and the Ohio Migrant Education Council are among the agencies coordinating the partnership grant, along with the Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services Board of Lucas County and Adelante Inc., a Toledo social service agency.

A major part of the new project is presentation of drug abuse prevention curricula at the Migrant Rest Center in Liberty Center and in schools run by the migrant education council. Focusing on meth and inhalants, but with attention to general drug resistance skills as well, retired University of Toledo faculty member Martha Carroll is writing the curricula-one for students and one for parents to support what their children are learning about drugs, resistance and related topics.

The idea is to support Hispanic families not only in Lucas and Wood counties, but also in the four counties-Defiance, Fulton, Henry and Williams-that are the destinations of the bulk of migrant workers who come to northwest Ohio, Dubow says.

"There's a lot of potential in this project to do a lot of good things," says Musher-Eizenman, noting that its success depends upon the participating agencies' cooperation. In addition to targeting about 400 youth and 150 families over three years, the program will train community members such as law enforcement officers, hospital workers and bus drivers to look for signs of meth labs and meth and inhalant use.

As the program attempts to build community awareness of the problem, including how and where to refer a user for help, the BGSU researchers will try to evaluate how effective the efforts are in changing attitudes about drug use. Collected data will be reported to the federal government.

Most prevention efforts focus on "gateway" drugs like alcohol, tobacco and marijuana, "but we know there's a growing problem of designer drugs," Dubow says.

Among the dangers that need to be recognized are the long-term risks, which many people don't even think exist in the case of inhalants, according to Musher-Eizenman.

Sniffing items such as glue, gasoline, and cleaning and correction fluids can cause not only nausea and vomiting, but also seizures, heart palpitations, permanent brain damage and even death. In the recent Partnership for a Drug-Free America sample, however, only 63 percent of the surveyed eighth-graders believed inhalants could kill them, down from 73 percent only two years ago.

"It's a different type of problem," says Musher-Eizenman, noting that inhalants are as close as a walk to a grocery store. But as with other drugs, prevention is preferable to treatment, so "the more you can get out ahead of this, the better," she says.

(Posted June 25, 2004 )