Taking on teen drug use in St. Charles

In the darkness of St. Charles' Arcada Theater, the names of more than 300 Kane County residents who died from their heroin addiction scrolled across an illuminated screen.

Delaney Ellis could've easily been one of them. Instead, she lived to tell the crowd of parents and teens gathered that a growing teen drug problem locally should not be ignored.

Ellis' road to heroin started with her first experiment with marijuana while hanging out at a friend's house. That led to her first alcoholic beverage. The second time she joined friends to drink, the father of one of her friends found her passed out at 5 a.m. That was the summer after she graduated eighth grade.

“From the moment I tried smoking pot and drinking something clicked in my body, and I knew that I liked being altered,” Ellis said.

Freshman year saw a new school and new drugs to try: cocaine, acid and mushrooms.

“Then the lying and manipulating began, and that was it,” Ellis said. “The moment someone put heroin in front of me, I wanted to try it. From that moment on, my grades, I didn't care. Friends, didn't care. Family, I didn't care. It just takes everything in your thought process that you loved and cared about, and it throws it out the window.”

Soon she was arrested and expelled from school. Attempts to get treatment only led to trips to jail and life in a van because her parents kicked her out.

“I would take anyone down with me,” Ellis said. “If I knew you had money and a car I would get you to try it so you would come down with me. I didn't care if you were walking down the street and had kids with you, I would take something you had just so I could get my fix.”

Eventually Ellis found herself facing more serious check forgery charges. Two rehab programs later, the treatment finally stuck. Ellis has been clean and sober since 2007.

Experts Tom Hedrick, of The Partnership at Drugfree.org, and Professor Ken C. Winters of the University of Minnesota, delivered a message that parents must be more involved. They must learn about the new drug threats facing their children to avoid the path of destruction Ellis walked.

Hedrick said after 10 years of smoking, drinking and doing drugs being on the decline among teens, it's suddenly spiked in the past two years. The availability of prescription drugs in the medicine cabinets of baby boomer grandparents is leading to new forms of abuse not seen in large numbers before.

“There's this sense of medicine that because it's approved by the Food and Drug Administration that it's at least safer than street drugs,” Hedrick said. “Until we change that perception, we're not going to be able to change these increasing trends.”

High-potency marijuana has also become dangerously popular at teen parties, they said. More teens are in treatment for marijuana dependency than all other drugs combined, Hedrick said.

The reason isn't because programs like D.A.R.E. have failed in schools, they said. It's that the programs are too often only done in one grade level, which isn't enough, Winters said.

But beyond that, the most important lessons must be taught at home, Hedrick added. Most teens still view their parents as their heroes. Knowing that doing drugs will make their parents disappointed in them and that it's OK to confide in a parent when tempted by drugs is key to avoiding them becoming an addiction.

“Two-thirds of parents think the primary place kids are learning about drugs is at school not at home,” Hedrick said. “We have got to change that. Quite frankly, we haven't done a very good job of it. The homes are so important.”

Forum: Expert says teen drug use on the rise again