Recent Lapeer West grads share stories of drug abuse at school (From the 10-30 Lapeer County Press)

[William Gavette]

Principal: “When we get a hint of something, we go at it full-bore”

BY KRYSTAL JOHNS

810-452-2601 • [e-mail]'s the story?2 Points Mentioned

Melanie Badour (left) and Rachel Pfeiffer, both 2012 Lapeer West graduates, say they saw drug use by students during school hours. Pfeiffer, 19, who has been personally affected by her own brother’s heroin addiction, wants to help spread awareness about drug abuse and its repercussions in hopes of keeping students from trying drugs in the first place. “It ruins kids’ lives,” she said. Photo by Krystal Johns LAPEER — Two Lapeer graduates have come forward to The County Press with stories that would make any parent’s hair stand on end. The topic: Drug use, not only among local high school students, but in the school. It’s an alarming topic that hits close to home for Rachel Pfeiffer, as her older brother struggles with heroin addiction.

Pfeiffer and Melanie Badour, both 19, graduated from Lapeer West in 2012. Both young women claim to have seen drugs being abused regularly during school hours while they were attending high school.

“Prescription drugs and weed was everywhere, like it was nothing,” Pfeiffer said. “Even things like Adderall, people were passing it around school.”

Badour said students would obtain the stimulant, traditionally prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, by going to their doctor and saying they had trouble paying attention in class. Both Badour and Pfeiffer said Adderall was one of the drugs they saw most commonly shared in school, along with Vicodin and Xanax.

“The eighth-grade hallway, the downstairs bathrooms and the end wings. That’s where it all happens,” Pfeiffer said. “The principals aren’t allowed to go in the bathrooms downstairs. The girls would go down there, crushing pills and snorting them before class.”

In addition, they said, many students had vodka in the water bottles they carried with them to class, athletes were known for getting high in their cars before practice, and while not all the students were involved, of course, they believe people have misconceptions about the prevalence of drug use.

“I think a lot of people are oblivious to who’s doing it,” Pfeiffer said. “We were both cheerleaders, and many football players would get high. That also makes it cool, if the cool kids are doing it, but it ruins kids’ lives.”

And it starts earlier than people might think, they say.

“It starts with weed,” Pfeiffer said. “In seventh grade, everyone was smoking weed. In eighth grade I tried it for the first time because of peer pressure. Then in ninth grade, it was everywhere.”

Both of the women said they believe the teachers and administrators did know students were using drugs, but didn’t do anything about it. Lapeer West Principal Tim Zeeman disagrees.

“I’m sure some go undetected, but when we get a hint, or a tip, we go at it,” he said. “We have our people look at the kid, we go through their locker, if they drive we go to their car. We hit it pretty tough.”

Part of the protocol is contacting the student’s parents, he said, and part of it involves school liaison officer Brian Wenzel of the Lapeer Police Dept.

“The biggest thing is that you don’t turn a blind eye to it,” Zeeman said. “When we get a hint of something, we go at it full-bore.”

The County Press has an appointment to discuss the issue with Lapeer Community Schools Superintendent Matt Wandrie next week.

Another administrator posed the question, “Who did they report it to?” when Pfeiffer and Badour’s observations were mentioned to her.

And that’s a good question.

“Who wants to be the snitch?” asked Circuit Judge Byron Konschuh, who, as former Lapeer County Prosecutor, has been active in the fight against prescription drug and heroin abuse in Lapeer County.

“It’s not a secret school-age kids are getting marijuana, alcohol, prescription drugs and now, unfortunately, heroin,” he said. “There’s not a lot that can prevent it getting in.”

There has to be a balance between protecting people’s rights to privacy, and protecting people from their own stupidity, Konschuh said.

“It’s just a very, very complex issue,” he said. “Until tragedy occurs, everyone looks the other way.”

The best way Konschuh can think of to attempt to tackle the drug abuse problem that the youth of Lapeer County are facing is a multifaceted approach, including admitting there is a problem, educating kids — and at an earlier age — and more accountability, enforcement and punishment for offenders.

Part of that should take place in the schools, he said.

“There’s no doubt teachers are confronted with it. They see the kids nodding off in class. But to put the complete burden on the teachers is unfair,” he said.

Konschuh helped form the local chapter of Families Against Narcotics, which is a group for recovering addicts and their families, and he has in the past taken recovering addicts into the schools to talk to the students.

“We need to get to them in middle school, if not elementary,” he said, “so they can hear the real-life stories of the people who’ve been to hell and back.”

But the topic also needs to be addressed at home, with the parents, he said, and Zeeman agreed. Often, he said, the students who are abusing drugs are getting them from the medicine cabinets at home, and using them before they get to school.

Talking to your kids about drugs and the reasons to stay away from them can go a long way, Konschuh said. Simply sitting down to dinner as a family and keeping the lines of communication open is something that can make a real difference. Talking about tough subjects, like drugs, alcohol and sex, might be uncomfortable, but a pregnancy in middle school, drug addiction, or death from binge drinking would be a lot worse.

Pfeiffer, too, said she’d like to see drugs discussed more openly in the schools. A lot of the kids don’t even know about the FAN meetings, and probably wouldn’t attend. She said she’d like to see a more aggressive approach to informing students about the very real dangers of the drugs they might be dabbling in, and even suggested drug testing all athletes. She also suggested holding more informational assemblies and having manned information booths in the cafeteria — a place all the students congregate at one point or another during the school day. As someone who has had her life personally affected by drug abuse, she said she’d like to be a part of the awareness effort.

“I think what really helps is kids talking to kids. I would like to help out in the schools somehow — have a booth or something,” she said. “It’s tough seeing it happen. I guess it makes me angry. It’s like, why can’t you see how bad it is?”

Families Against Narcotics is a good place to start for parents who want to become more informed about the dangers of drug abuse, from prescriptions to heroin, including signs and symptoms of abuse, support for family and friends, and how to talk to your children. Find out more by visiting familiesagainstnarcotics.org, or call Tina Dinnan, president of the Lapeer chapter of FAN at 810-728-2033, or send e-mail correspondence to [e-mail].