By NEIL ZOLOT
NORTH READING – Drug Free Communities Project Grant Director Amy Luckiewicz has briefed the School Committee on results of the Substance Abuse Coalition survey of students given in the spring and also provided an overview of the previous year’s engagements with students.
“I’m here every year to give good news or bad news,” she said.
Over the last year, the Playbook Program for athletes was instituted, focusing on the effects of caffeine and having positive, healthy relationships, and fifth-graders took the Catch My Breath course, a science course about vaping.
In addition, an education program about fentanyl was available to High School students and, in separate sessions, to their parents.
Eight-minute survey results
An eight-minute survey was given to Middle and High School students for anonymous responses to questions about perception and use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, vaping and the unnecessary use of prescription drugs last spring.
Parents can opt their children out of taking the survey and students can skip questions if they wish.
In 2023, 156 seventh-graders took the survey, an 81.25% response rate, which was the highest among all grades, although 131 sixth-graders also took it, a 77.98% response rate.
Participation decreased at each subsequent grade and age level. Among eighth-graders, 117 students took the survey (64.64%) while only 55 ninth-graders (31.25%) opted in, cutting the response rate down by more than half when compared with their younger peers.
Similarly, among 10th-graders, only 52 (31.9%) took the survey. The participation rate in the survey dropped even further among 11th graders, with 43 participants, (33.86%). A mere 16 students in the senior class (9.04%) bothered to take the survey.
Clearly disappointed in the 2023 participation rate, Luckiewicz said, “We need information from the higher grades. It’s tough to do with surveys alone. It will involve investigating social media.”
In data comparing trends from 2019–23, excluding 11th graders and 2020 due to the pandemic, overall self-reported alcohol use decreased from 13.5% in 2019 to 9.5% in 2021, crept up to 11% in 2022 and rose to a high of 18% in 2023.
Tobacco use increased from a low of 3.5% in 2019 to 4% in 2021, dipped to 3.4% in 2022 and rose precipitously to 15% in 2023.
Marijuana use decreased from 10% in 2019 to 7% in 2021 and 6.9% in 2022, but also rose by more than 8 percentage points to 15% in 2023.
Recreational prescription drug use was reduced from 4% in 2019 to 3% in 2021 and 3.1% in 2022 but had risen by nearly 11.5 percentage points to 14.5% in 2023.
Similarly, vaping dipped from 11% in 2019 to 6.5% in 2021 and 6.9% in 2022, then more than doubled, year over year, to 15% in 2023.
“It’s pretty stark and disappointing to see,” Luckiewicz admitted about the sharp rise in substance use between 2022 and 2023. “I’ll be looking at the root causes,” she promised the committee.
Casual perception surrounding alcohol may be to blame
Luckiewicz believes that a casual perception about alcohol use in North Reading might be one cause of the rise in substance use, with some parents believing that providing kids with alcohol in a controlled environment and taking away their car keys is acceptable.
Pot: “They don’t understand it’s illegal”
The legalization or decriminalization of marijuana may also be a contributing factor. “They think they can’t get in trouble and don’t understand it’s illegal until they’re 21,” Luckiewicz said. “Our advice is to wait.”
There’s also a perception that if adults are using marijuana it’s safe and the state wouldn’t legalize a substance that was unsafe, she said.
Although portions of the survey asked about substance use in the last 30 days, Luckiewicz cautioned that any survey should not be given near the date of a prom because this event can affect the numbers of uses with students drinking or experimenting with other substances during prom season.
A comparison of local trends against national averages
Data on past 30-day use in comparison to 2022 national averages from the University of Michigan was calculated for grades 8, 10 and 12 only.
North Reading students were above the national average in five categories. Among local eighth-graders, 16.38% reported using tobacco, which is higher than the national average of 6.1%, while 16.38% of local eighth-graders, sophomores and seniors also reported using marijuana, which is also higher than the national average of 11%.
A total of 17.39% of local students in these three grades reported using alcohol in the last 30 days compared to the national average of 23.1%, which is approximately 5.6 percentage points below the national average. However 16.38% of the town’s students in grades 8, 10 and 12 also reported use of prescription drugs, with no national data provided by Michigan for comparison.
Luckiewicz cautioned that some students might not have understood that the use of prescription drugs referred to those drugs not prescribed to them, thus skewing the numbers.
Among 10th graders, 19.23% reported using tobacco, which is higher than the national average of 10.2%. A total of 30.77% of sophomores who responded to the survey reported using alcohol in the past 30 days, compared to the national average of 41.1%, and 21.15% reported using marijuana, compared to the national average of 24.2%.
Prescription drug use among local sophomores stood at 19.61%, with no national data from Michigan.
Among seniors, 37.5% reported using tobacco, which is higher than the national average of 16.8%, and one-quarter of the 16 respondents reported use of prescription drugs, compared to the national average of 9.3%. A total of 43.75% of seniors reported using alcohol, compared to the national average of 61.6%, while 37.5% reported using marijuana, compared to the national average of 38.3%.
Last year, North Reading students only used substances above the Michigan average in two categories: 16.05% of North Reading sophomores (now in juniors) reported alcohol use compared to 13.1% nationally, and 3.17% of North Reading seniors (now college freshmen) reported use of prescription drugs compared to 2.1% nationally.
In 2023, Age of First Use reporting was 12 years for prescription drugs, two years younger than was reported in 2022; 14 years for alcohol, one year younger than reported in 2022; 16 years for vaping, which is two years older than was reported in 2022; 17 years for tobacco, which is one year older than self-reported in 2022, and 17 years for marijuana, an increase of two years on average older than the national average of 15 years in 2022.
Where do students use substances?
Although there is a perception that school bathrooms are the most common places for substance use, survey responses indicated students use substances mostly at a friend’s house or in their own homes, although there is some use on school grounds or in cars.
“We need to ask parents to keep an eye on things happening at home,” Luckiewicz said.
School Committee Chair Scott Buckley called the numbers “disappointing overall.”
“This is an epidemic across the country,” Superintendent Dr. Patrick Daly added. “It affects us.”