Posted on Mon, Feb. 19, 2007
Lap of luxury breeds higher rates of teen substance abuse
By Eric Louie
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
With high-performing schools and a lack of street violence, affluent areas may seem free of dangers many parents fear could befall their children.
But richer areas, more than poorer ones, often see teen alcohol and drug use at higher levels.
It's not just a matter of kids having more money to spend, though that is a factor. Disconnected families and pressures to succeed push youths to destructive behavior, say researchers, sociologists and the people trying to help these kids.
Adults in many wealthy areas often are loathe to acknowledge that such problems exist in their world.
"The amount of denial on this issue is phenomenal," said Madeline Levine, a Marin County psychologist and author of "The Price of Privilege."
"Perfection is very, very valued in affluent communities," Levine said.
Correlating state Healthy Kids Survey results for school districts in Alameda and Contra Costa counties with data on free lunches that indicates relative levels of wealth in school districts reveals youthful substance abuse is more common in the East Bay's richer areas.
More-affluent districts generally had higher rates of juniors who admitted to binge drinking or consumed alcohol within 30 days of the survey. They also had higher rates of juniors who admitted having been high from drugs.
Sad and sometimes tragic stories reflect the human toll.
Matt Zolnier was a promising San Ramon student, but drinking got the better of him, often getting him into trouble in high school. He died at 21 in a hotel room in Mexico, with alcohol the cause.
Cory MacDonald began drinking in the seventh grade and moved on to marijuana before a brief stint smoking methamphetamine. A barefoot flight from a late-night hallucination, which ended with her picked up by police, got her to stop.
Student and parent accounts portray common use of drugs and alcohol among teens.
A June graduate of San Ramon Valley High School told the Times he first smoked marijuana when he was in the sixth grade. Dax Treible, now a freshman at Southern Oregon University, said he mainly smoked but would sometimes drink or use ecstasy or psychedelic mushrooms.
The parties he attended were not the wild, raging ones seen in movies, but smaller, with about 10 people who knew one another. He would party every few weeks, usually when a friend's parents were out of town. Such parties, he said, were common.
Money and spare time made it possible, he said.
His observations hold true in the large (and largely affluent) Acalanes and San Ramon Valley school districts, the data show.
In the state health report, 29 percent of 11th-graders in the Acalanes high school district reported binge drinking in the previous 30 days. The district encompasses the area from Walnut Creek to Orinda. In the San Ramon Valley, 26 percent of 11th-graders reported the same.
In the less affluent Oakland and West Contra Costa districts, the number of juniors reporting binge drinking were 14 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
"You can make some general assessments that affluent areas have higher alcohol and marijuana use," said Sean Slade, regional manager for the California Healthy Kids Survey. He said he is confident the results are accurate: Studies show students answer truthfully when surveyed anonymously.
An Alameda County expert also said his experience affirms that alcohol and drugs are a more significant problem in affluent areas than in poorer ones.
"That's a huge difference," in the numbers for Oakland and the affluent Piedmont area, said Ralph Cantor, coordinator of drug, tobacco and violence prevention at the Alameda County Office of Education. "There's twice as many teens binge drinking (in Piedmont)."
Anomalies exist, he said, such as the high rates in Berkeley, but the numbers could reflect that community's tolerance of marijuana use. Berkeley also has some very affluent areas, which could affect the numbers.
The association of wealth and teen substance abuse holds true internationally, said Shirley Beckett Mikeel, deputy director for the Association for Addiction Professionals. She has worked with groups from France, England, Egypt and New Zealand.
More opportunities
Affluent communities are often more sheltered and, with more family and community support, have lower substance abuse rates in the lower grades, said Gregory Austin, director of the Healthy Kids Survey.
Why does that change with high school? Having more money to spend could be a cause, say many who work with youths and substance abuse.
Rates of alcohol use have been a constant over time, said Danville police Chief Chris Wenzel and Scott Gerbert, who heads the San Ramon Valley district's Safe and Drug-Free programs.
Buying fake IDs is more common in wealthier areas, said Kim Gallagher, director of San Ramon Valley Community Against Substance Abuse. Although "shoulder-tapping," in which minors ask adults to buy them alcohol, is relatively uncommon in the San Ramon Valley, youths with money can drive to where it's easier to find someone willing to make that purchase.
Alcohol and drug use were among the issues a youth board, part of the Tri-Valley Adolescent Health Initiative, addressed last year.
"If you want to party, it's just a phone call away," said Fred Young, 18, a senior at Pleasanton's Amador Valley High and a member of the youth board. Abuse occurs even at school, he said, when students bring water bottles with liquor or rest rooms reek of marijuana.
A part-time campus supervisor at Amador Valley said she did not consider drugs and alcohol an issue until her own daughter became involved.
Kelly MacDonald said parents are surprised when they hear of students being caught smoking pot in the bathrooms. She didn't think drugs and alcohol were an issue until she experienced it with her own daughter, which influenced her to take the campus job.
MacDonald and her daughter Cory were featured in a video produced by the Adolescent Health Initiative youth board.
Cory MacDonald, an Amador Valley junior, said she began drinking with friends at the end of seventh grade, but moved on to marijuana, using her allowance to get high three to five times a week.
Her parents did not know -- she was a good student and ran on the varsity cross country and track teams as a freshman.
Then she started smoking methamphetamine. It quickly led to an early morning hallucinatory encounter with her parents where she imagined seeing them as she sneaked back into her house. She thought she was running from soldiers who had come after her. Police picked her up barefoot in the street four hours later.
"I thought someone was trying to chase me," said Cory, who was hospitalized and went through a 90-day outpatient program.
Now sober, she stopped hanging out with "bad kids," but said even the "good kids" drink and smoke marijuana.
"A lot of people do it," she said, even the "'science nerds'... I'm in bio and I hear them talking about getting drunk."
Pushed to succeed
Others say wealth is just part of the problem. In more affluent areas, there is more pressure to succeed -- and not necessarily from parents, said Suniya Luthar, a professor at Columbia University's Teacher College, who has studied the link between affluence and substance abuse in the Northeast.
There is also more separation from parents, who often are busy with work and other activities. Even their children find themselves overextended with studies, sports, clubs and other obligations.
Luthar has found a close link between substance abuse and popularity in affluent areas -- particularly among boys. Alcohol and drugs have a less glamorous appeal in poorer communities with more direct exposure to the problems they create.
Levine, the psychologist and author, calls it the "culture of affluence." Residents of rich communities will miss the problem if they look for stereotypical abuse signs such as poor hygiene or failing grades. Many youths are good at hiding physical signs of problems, she said.
Fighting denial
Getting through the screen of denial is Lafayette resident Ellen Peterson. She taught peer counseling for seven years at Acalanes High, showing students how to help others. After leaving, she took up the drug and alcohol abuse issue.
She organized meetings with community leaders about substance problems. This continues with "The Acalanes Drug and Alcohol Task Force Update," a newsletter distributed throughout Contra Costa that carries news of trends, legislation and other drug and alcohol issues.
"People don't want to see problems," she said.
Drinking and drug use have been in the spotlight in that community since New Year's Eve 2005, when a parent who moved from Moraga to Orinda found an out-of-control party at her family's former home.
Sue Severson, president of the Miramonte High Parents' Club, said the parent distributed a letter through the club describing drugs, alcohol and vandalism at that party. That led to networking among district high schools and community meetings.
Now, Severson said, all high school parent clubs have "healthy choices" committees working with schools and the community to address substance abuse.
Sometimes, parents allow alcohol or drug use to happen -- looking the other way, giving permission or even supplying booze.
"One of the challenges we face is (the kids) do get that mixed message," said Gerbert. He said a significant number of San Ramon Valley parents see drinking as a rite of passage and would rather have their children do it safely at home.
Punishing adults
One new way for communities to address the issue is "social host" ordinances, such as one Marin County supervisors approved in October, said Gary Najarian, prevention coordinator for Marin County's alcohol, drug and tobacco programs.
The ordinance sets civil fines -- $750 for a first offense, $1,500 for a second and $2,500 for any others -- for hosts whose parties are a nuisance and involve underage drinking. Hosts may be held liable for police, medical or other emergency services costs. If the host is younger than 18, the county would fine the parents even if they were unaware of the activity.
Najarian said such ordinances close loopholes for underage drinking in residences -- parties he said are more common in affluent areas, where parents tend to take more out-of-town trips.
The wide acceptance of teen drinking and drug use was a factor in her son's death, said Kathy Zolnier.
Matt Zolnier was a good kid, his parents said. He played soccer, earned average grades at San Ramon Valley High in Danville, teachers liked him and he planned to transfer from community college to a university.
But at times alcohol got him into trouble. .
He was caught drunk at a high school dance, then expelled after coming to school inebriated. Before he graduated, he was caught driving under the influence.
Drinking led to his 2004 death in a Tijuana motel room. He was celebrating a friend's 21st birthday, a milestone he had reached himself not long before, and was found dead the next morning by a cleaning crew. An autopsy showed his pancreas had given out.
"I don't want to say Matt didn't play a part (in his problems), but I do think it had something to do with where he grew up," said his mother.
He often argued that drinking was common, she said "That was Matt's big thing. He'd say, 'Everybody does it. I just got caught.'"
She said she and Matt's father, Jim, tried to help -- she quit drinking after Matt was drunk at school -- but they could have done more. They raised Matt's two older brothers without tolerating drinking but suspected that some social drinking happened when the teenagers went out.
"We didn't network enough," she said. "Maybe if we made a united front, this wouldn't have happened."
Now, she talks about her son's death at events through the San Ramon Valley Community Against Substance Abuse. Parents have told her that her experience could just as easily have happened to them.
Jim Zolnier said his son was a typical San Ramon Valley kid. He liked to drink at parties but was not a habitual drunk.
"The bottom line is, I think, had Matthew not died, had he graduated from college and gotten a job ... we would have said he lived the life of any other San Ramon High student."
Reach Eric Louie at [email protected] or 925-847-2123.
Lap of luxury breeds higher rates of teen substance abuse
By Eric Louie
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
With high-performing schools and a lack of street violence, affluent areas may seem free of dangers many parents fear could befall their children.
But richer areas, more than poorer ones, often see teen alcohol and drug use at higher levels.
It's not just a matter of kids having more money to spend, though that is a factor. Disconnected families and pressures to succeed push youths to destructive behavior, say researchers, sociologists and the people trying to help these kids.
Adults in many wealthy areas often are loathe to acknowledge that such problems exist in their world.
"The amount of denial on this issue is phenomenal," said Madeline Levine, a Marin County psychologist and author of "The Price of Privilege."
"Perfection is very, very valued in affluent communities," Levine said.
Correlating state Healthy Kids Survey results for school districts in Alameda and Contra Costa counties with data on free lunches that indicates relative levels of wealth in school districts reveals youthful substance abuse is more common in the East Bay's richer areas.
More-affluent districts generally had higher rates of juniors who admitted to binge drinking or consumed alcohol within 30 days of the survey. They also had higher rates of juniors who admitted having been high from drugs.
Sad and sometimes tragic stories reflect the human toll.
Matt Zolnier was a promising San Ramon student, but drinking got the better of him, often getting him into trouble in high school. He died at 21 in a hotel room in Mexico, with alcohol the cause.
Cory MacDonald began drinking in the seventh grade and moved on to marijuana before a brief stint smoking methamphetamine. A barefoot flight from a late-night hallucination, which ended with her picked up by police, got her to stop.
Student and parent accounts portray common use of drugs and alcohol among teens.
A June graduate of San Ramon Valley High School told the Times he first smoked marijuana when he was in the sixth grade. Dax Treible, now a freshman at Southern Oregon University, said he mainly smoked but would sometimes drink or use ecstasy or psychedelic mushrooms.
The parties he attended were not the wild, raging ones seen in movies, but smaller, with about 10 people who knew one another. He would party every few weeks, usually when a friend's parents were out of town. Such parties, he said, were common.
Money and spare time made it possible, he said.
His observations hold true in the large (and largely affluent) Acalanes and San Ramon Valley school districts, the data show.
In the state health report, 29 percent of 11th-graders in the Acalanes high school district reported binge drinking in the previous 30 days. The district encompasses the area from Walnut Creek to Orinda. In the San Ramon Valley, 26 percent of 11th-graders reported the same.
In the less affluent Oakland and West Contra Costa districts, the number of juniors reporting binge drinking were 14 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
"You can make some general assessments that affluent areas have higher alcohol and marijuana use," said Sean Slade, regional manager for the California Healthy Kids Survey. He said he is confident the results are accurate: Studies show students answer truthfully when surveyed anonymously.
An Alameda County expert also said his experience affirms that alcohol and drugs are a more significant problem in affluent areas than in poorer ones.
"That's a huge difference," in the numbers for Oakland and the affluent Piedmont area, said Ralph Cantor, coordinator of drug, tobacco and violence prevention at the Alameda County Office of Education. "There's twice as many teens binge drinking (in Piedmont)."
Anomalies exist, he said, such as the high rates in Berkeley, but the numbers could reflect that community's tolerance of marijuana use. Berkeley also has some very affluent areas, which could affect the numbers.
The association of wealth and teen substance abuse holds true internationally, said Shirley Beckett Mikeel, deputy director for the Association for Addiction Professionals. She has worked with groups from France, England, Egypt and New Zealand.
More opportunities
Affluent communities are often more sheltered and, with more family and community support, have lower substance abuse rates in the lower grades, said Gregory Austin, director of the Healthy Kids Survey.
Why does that change with high school? Having more money to spend could be a cause, say many who work with youths and substance abuse.
Rates of alcohol use have been a constant over time, said Danville police Chief Chris Wenzel and Scott Gerbert, who heads the San Ramon Valley district's Safe and Drug-Free programs.
Buying fake IDs is more common in wealthier areas, said Kim Gallagher, director of San Ramon Valley Community Against Substance Abuse. Although "shoulder-tapping," in which minors ask adults to buy them alcohol, is relatively uncommon in the San Ramon Valley, youths with money can drive to where it's easier to find someone willing to make that purchase.
Alcohol and drug use were among the issues a youth board, part of the Tri-Valley Adolescent Health Initiative, addressed last year.
"If you want to party, it's just a phone call away," said Fred Young, 18, a senior at Pleasanton's Amador Valley High and a member of the youth board. Abuse occurs even at school, he said, when students bring water bottles with liquor or rest rooms reek of marijuana.
A part-time campus supervisor at Amador Valley said she did not consider drugs and alcohol an issue until her own daughter became involved.
Kelly MacDonald said parents are surprised when they hear of students being caught smoking pot in the bathrooms. She didn't think drugs and alcohol were an issue until she experienced it with her own daughter, which influenced her to take the campus job.
MacDonald and her daughter Cory were featured in a video produced by the Adolescent Health Initiative youth board.
Cory MacDonald, an Amador Valley junior, said she began drinking with friends at the end of seventh grade, but moved on to marijuana, using her allowance to get high three to five times a week.
Her parents did not know -- she was a good student and ran on the varsity cross country and track teams as a freshman.
Then she started smoking methamphetamine. It quickly led to an early morning hallucinatory encounter with her parents where she imagined seeing them as she sneaked back into her house. She thought she was running from soldiers who had come after her. Police picked her up barefoot in the street four hours later.
"I thought someone was trying to chase me," said Cory, who was hospitalized and went through a 90-day outpatient program.
Now sober, she stopped hanging out with "bad kids," but said even the "good kids" drink and smoke marijuana.
"A lot of people do it," she said, even the "'science nerds'... I'm in bio and I hear them talking about getting drunk."
Pushed to succeed
Others say wealth is just part of the problem. In more affluent areas, there is more pressure to succeed -- and not necessarily from parents, said Suniya Luthar, a professor at Columbia University's Teacher College, who has studied the link between affluence and substance abuse in the Northeast.
There is also more separation from parents, who often are busy with work and other activities. Even their children find themselves overextended with studies, sports, clubs and other obligations.
Luthar has found a close link between substance abuse and popularity in affluent areas -- particularly among boys. Alcohol and drugs have a less glamorous appeal in poorer communities with more direct exposure to the problems they create.
Levine, the psychologist and author, calls it the "culture of affluence." Residents of rich communities will miss the problem if they look for stereotypical abuse signs such as poor hygiene or failing grades. Many youths are good at hiding physical signs of problems, she said.
Fighting denial
Getting through the screen of denial is Lafayette resident Ellen Peterson. She taught peer counseling for seven years at Acalanes High, showing students how to help others. After leaving, she took up the drug and alcohol abuse issue.
She organized meetings with community leaders about substance problems. This continues with "The Acalanes Drug and Alcohol Task Force Update," a newsletter distributed throughout Contra Costa that carries news of trends, legislation and other drug and alcohol issues.
"People don't want to see problems," she said.
Drinking and drug use have been in the spotlight in that community since New Year's Eve 2005, when a parent who moved from Moraga to Orinda found an out-of-control party at her family's former home.
Sue Severson, president of the Miramonte High Parents' Club, said the parent distributed a letter through the club describing drugs, alcohol and vandalism at that party. That led to networking among district high schools and community meetings.
Now, Severson said, all high school parent clubs have "healthy choices" committees working with schools and the community to address substance abuse.
Sometimes, parents allow alcohol or drug use to happen -- looking the other way, giving permission or even supplying booze.
"One of the challenges we face is (the kids) do get that mixed message," said Gerbert. He said a significant number of San Ramon Valley parents see drinking as a rite of passage and would rather have their children do it safely at home.
Punishing adults
One new way for communities to address the issue is "social host" ordinances, such as one Marin County supervisors approved in October, said Gary Najarian, prevention coordinator for Marin County's alcohol, drug and tobacco programs.
The ordinance sets civil fines -- $750 for a first offense, $1,500 for a second and $2,500 for any others -- for hosts whose parties are a nuisance and involve underage drinking. Hosts may be held liable for police, medical or other emergency services costs. If the host is younger than 18, the county would fine the parents even if they were unaware of the activity.
Najarian said such ordinances close loopholes for underage drinking in residences -- parties he said are more common in affluent areas, where parents tend to take more out-of-town trips.
The wide acceptance of teen drinking and drug use was a factor in her son's death, said Kathy Zolnier.
Matt Zolnier was a good kid, his parents said. He played soccer, earned average grades at San Ramon Valley High in Danville, teachers liked him and he planned to transfer from community college to a university.
But at times alcohol got him into trouble. .
He was caught drunk at a high school dance, then expelled after coming to school inebriated. Before he graduated, he was caught driving under the influence.
Drinking led to his 2004 death in a Tijuana motel room. He was celebrating a friend's 21st birthday, a milestone he had reached himself not long before, and was found dead the next morning by a cleaning crew. An autopsy showed his pancreas had given out.
"I don't want to say Matt didn't play a part (in his problems), but I do think it had something to do with where he grew up," said his mother.
He often argued that drinking was common, she said "That was Matt's big thing. He'd say, 'Everybody does it. I just got caught.'"
She said she and Matt's father, Jim, tried to help -- she quit drinking after Matt was drunk at school -- but they could have done more. They raised Matt's two older brothers without tolerating drinking but suspected that some social drinking happened when the teenagers went out.
"We didn't network enough," she said. "Maybe if we made a united front, this wouldn't have happened."
Now, she talks about her son's death at events through the San Ramon Valley Community Against Substance Abuse. Parents have told her that her experience could just as easily have happened to them.
Jim Zolnier said his son was a typical San Ramon Valley kid. He liked to drink at parties but was not a habitual drunk.
"The bottom line is, I think, had Matthew not died, had he graduated from college and gotten a job ... we would have said he lived the life of any other San Ramon High student."
Reach Eric Louie at [email protected] or 925-847-2123.
~k.
