Parent Night to address drug and tobacco use
Monday event hosted by Worland Police and Middle School
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WORLAND – The Worland Middle School will host a Parent Night on Monday at 7 p.m., to give Worland Police Department Chief Gabe Elliott and Captain Zach Newton a venue to inform and educate parents of the drug trends in the area, and popular tobacco products being found among local youth.
“The idea for the presentation came from meeting of the Washakie Prevention Coalition, when it was realized most people don’t know what ‘juuling’ is,” said Chief Elliott.
While vaping, which burns tobacco-infused liquids, is popular with teens, juuling has become just as popular, but the process involves burning tobacco salts, which, according to manufacturers, can deliver as much as 59 milligrams of nicotine in one cartridge, equivalent to one package of regular cigarettes.
According to DrugFree.org, both vaping and juuling can lead to exposure to carcinogens and toxic metals from the smoking devices, and increases the probability of smoking, especially in youth.
While tobacco, alcohol and marijuana use has become fairly common, the Big Horn Basin is seeing a rise in opioid-based drugs, as well as Fentanyl, a painkiller up to 10 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.
The drug is often illegally manufactured and shipped to the US from China. Fentanyl is cheaper and easier to obtain than heroin, making it a desirable cutting agent for drug dealers. It is also used as a cutting agent in pill-form opioids such as Oxycodone. The accidental overdose deaths of rock superstars Prince and Tom Petty have been attributed to this dangerous combination.
“Fentanyl is even more dangerous to those who haven’t used in a while because the body hasn’t built any kind of tolerance to it,” said Deborah Anderson, addiction specialist with Cloud Peak Counseling Center. “Factor in the fact that fentanyl doesn’t respond to NARCAN (the opioid reversal drug) well, and you have a very volatile situation that can, and does, very easily lead to death.”
Monday’s event will be held in the Middle School Auditorium at 7 p.m., and is for parents of students in fifth to twelfth grade, although all parents are welcome.
