"Experiences in Effective Prevention: Past, Present & Future" 1 of 4

Richard Lucey, Jr. Author

07/13/2018 Added

410 Plays

Description

This interactive session highlights current drug use rates among college students; seven elements of effective drug abuse prevention on college campuses; discussion around a strategic planning process; recommended strategies; and resources that are available to assist in prevention efforts. The session’s content is based around the speaker’s experiences and observations around drug abuse prevention among college students in New York State and with three federal agencies during the past 26 years.

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[00:00:05.930]So,
[00:00:07.310]this is I think my third trip to Lincoln in 15 years.
[00:00:12.190]Last time I was here was about 12 years ago.
[00:00:15.160]And I know that Linda Major is joining us
[00:00:17.160]a little bit later.
[00:00:17.993]But,
[00:00:19.243]Cony I don't know if you were at
[00:00:21.240]the national meeting at the time,
[00:00:22.320]but I think that when I was at the Department of Education,
[00:00:24.540]we brought one of our National
[00:00:25.550]HIRARC Conferences here to Lincoln,
[00:00:27.950]and it was at least 15 years ago.
[00:00:30.360]So, it's been a long time.
[00:00:31.979]And if you've been in the field for a long time,
[00:00:34.210]I've been in the drug abuse prevention field,
[00:00:36.270]it's 27 years this year.
[00:00:38.880]I started when I was 10.
[00:00:41.740]And
[00:00:42.990]it's amazing how much things change
[00:00:45.340]over a period of 25 years or so
[00:00:47.460]and how much they don't.
[00:00:49.200]And I'm gonna talk a little bit about that
[00:00:50.940]during today's presentation.
[00:00:52.910]So if I do say so myself,
[00:00:54.930]you've got quite the lineup
[00:00:57.612]for these three presentations.
[00:01:00.260]I adore Jason Kilmer.
[00:01:03.150]If you have not seen Jason speak before,
[00:01:05.020]you're in for a treat
[00:01:05.853]if you're coming to his presentation.
[00:01:07.870]I like to say I could sit and listen
[00:01:09.340]to Jason read the phone book.
[00:01:10.700]I mean he is that engaging, he is that dynamic.
[00:01:13.880]He and I have had the pleasure of co-presenting once
[00:01:17.040]in ASPA Strategies Conference a couple of years ago.
[00:01:19.980]We had a ball doing it,
[00:01:21.650]and we're hoping to do it again soon.
[00:01:24.690]But we try to out-pop culture reference each other
[00:01:28.590]which is always exciting to do with Jason,
[00:01:31.010]but you're really in for a treat.
[00:01:32.300]And I know with Sarah,
[00:01:34.100]it's timely because
[00:01:35.270]September is National Recovery Month,
[00:01:37.270]and so obviously that is timely to have her come in.
[00:01:42.030]So I got in yesterday morning.
[00:01:44.420]I was able to get a direct flight
[00:01:45.680]from National to Omaha,
[00:01:47.300]then I took OMALiNK down.
[00:01:49.030]And so,
[00:01:51.620]I was the only one in the van,
[00:01:53.360]and we did have a driver
[00:01:54.470]who wasn't like the car at the parking lot.
[00:01:57.520]So,
[00:01:59.720]cordial and
[00:02:01.440]a little small talk to begin with,
[00:02:02.650]and then I was looking at email and stuff,
[00:02:04.133]and it was kinda quiet.
[00:02:07.180]And then he started with,
[00:02:08.877]"What are you in for?"
[00:02:09.830]and "Where do you work in?"
[00:02:12.400]As soon as you tell somebody you're with the DEA,
[00:02:16.350]you really are not sure where the questions are gonna go.
[00:02:19.220]They think that immediately you're an agent,
[00:02:21.230]you've been banging down doors,
[00:02:22.940]how many people have you arrested?
[00:02:24.210]How many people have you shot?
[00:02:25.890]I mean it's interesting.
[00:02:29.300]But I told him I work in Drug Abuse Prevention,
[00:02:31.107]and his first question was,
[00:02:34.210]well, no, there was a period of silence
[00:02:35.730]for a good 10 miles, literally 10 miles.
[00:02:39.938]And I thought, well, this is fine,
[00:02:41.100]I'll catch up on emails,
[00:02:42.080]I'll catch up on Facebook,
[00:02:43.260]this is fine.
[00:02:44.093]And
[00:02:45.540]out of the blue he then,
[00:02:46.373]"So what do we really need to doing
[00:02:48.187]"to prevent drug abuse among kids?
[00:02:51.228]"What's the main thing?"
[00:02:54.320]And I thought,
[00:02:55.470]dude we only got like five more miles
[00:02:57.110]left in our trip here,
[00:02:58.110]I really can't go into all of it.
[00:03:00.510]But I said to him,
[00:03:02.200]I think that first and foremost is education.
[00:03:07.080]It has to start with raising awareness,
[00:03:09.560]and education is the foundation.
[00:03:12.320]And I was happy to see when I was going down memory lane
[00:03:15.270]and I was pulling up some information about
[00:03:17.480]the grant that the Department of Ed
[00:03:19.070]had awarded to UNL back in 2005
[00:03:22.570]which started the consortium.
[00:03:24.430]A year later
[00:03:25.870]with Dr. Newman as the project director,
[00:03:28.670]I was on his website
[00:03:29.690]and I was looking at his philosophy statement,
[00:03:31.630]and I'll pull something from that where he says that,
[00:03:33.967]"Learning is the key to good health."
[00:03:37.460]And I thought, well, that's good,
[00:03:38.440]at least I'm in line with what
[00:03:39.510]Dr. Newman is saying here at UNL,
[00:03:41.410]that learning is the key to good health.
[00:03:44.110]Interesting enough though we know from the NIAAA
[00:03:46.950]and the Tiers of Effectiveness that
[00:03:49.380]squarely in that fourth tier of effectiveness,
[00:03:52.560]what is not effective when used alone is education.
[00:03:58.030]Education by itself
[00:04:01.780]is not
[00:04:03.380]going to move the needle so to speak.
[00:04:07.010]But it has to start from there
[00:04:08.540]and then you build on that.
[00:04:09.780]So that was just my little anecdote
[00:04:12.320]about my trip in yesterday
[00:04:14.730]talking to the shuttle driver
[00:04:17.640]and a whole bunch of other things around,
[00:04:19.600]I'm sure we'll get into today,
[00:04:21.360]around prescription drug misuse, marijuana,
[00:04:24.530]fentanyl, heroine, all the fun stuff
[00:04:28.330]that's going on.
[00:04:29.530]So,
[00:04:31.070]I'm really excited to be here and
[00:04:34.040]I will say that
[00:04:36.070]I was a theater major in college.
[00:04:38.640]So I'm very comfortable being on
[00:04:40.740]any kind of a stage, you will find,
[00:04:43.030]and one of the things that we learned
[00:04:45.360]in our training was to, as an actor,
[00:04:47.020]is to know your space.
[00:04:48.830]Well, this is an interesting space, right?
[00:04:50.860]This is a beautiful campus, this whole complex.
[00:04:54.410]But when I do workshops, I tend to be a walker.
[00:04:58.900]No, not a Walking Dead walker
[00:05:01.270]for those of you that enjoy that show like I do.
[00:05:04.260]But I tend to walk among the participants and such,
[00:05:07.650]one, 'cause it makes me feel like I'm connected,
[00:05:11.520]it's part of why I do that,
[00:05:13.010]and I can't stand still sometimes and so it helps.
[00:05:16.460]I'm not walking today mainly you will at least
[00:05:19.230]see me trip once if I do it,
[00:05:20.691](audience laughing)
[00:05:22.080]and basically my calves
[00:05:24.070]are in pretty good shape as it is,
[00:05:25.200]so I don't need to be going
[00:05:26.033]up and down and getting all that.
[00:05:27.630]So as Megan said we do have the mic,
[00:05:31.030]I am happy to repeat the questions for our viewers,
[00:05:34.230]but I encourage questions and comments and such
[00:05:36.610]during any part of the presentation,
[00:05:38.380]there's no need to wait until the end.
[00:05:40.520]Whenever I do a workshop
[00:05:42.480]or a training or a keynote or whatever,
[00:05:45.330]I like to think of my audience
[00:05:47.230]as my co-presenters if you will.
[00:05:50.500]I don't want to be the only
[00:05:51.820]that's just standing up here for three hours
[00:05:53.330]because you'll get bored and I'll get bored.
[00:05:55.700]So feel free to, if anything isn't clear,
[00:05:58.910]if you have a question, if you have a comment,
[00:06:00.380]please feel free to ask and we'll address it at the time.
[00:06:03.270]So here's our agenda for the day.
[00:06:07.170]We're gonna take some time just to do some quick,
[00:06:09.450]as we're doing right now, the Welcome and Introductions,
[00:06:11.800]then I wanna talk to you a little bit
[00:06:13.070]about your expectations.
[00:06:14.930]I will talk to you a little bit about the DEA,
[00:06:17.230]give you a quick overview of exactly who we are
[00:06:19.300]just to set aside any misperceptions
[00:06:21.220]about what the DEA is and what we do and who we are.
[00:06:24.800]Then I'll share some national data points
[00:06:26.820]around alcohol use among college students,
[00:06:28.620]marijuana use, prescription drug misuse,
[00:06:30.340]and mental health issues.
[00:06:32.830]As Megan mentioned,
[00:06:34.010]I've been at DEA now for a little over two years,
[00:06:36.330]and I spent, prior to that, eight years
[00:06:38.920]as the Special Assistant to Fran Harding,
[00:06:41.210]the director of CSAP at SAMHSA.
[00:06:43.880]Yes we do talk in acronyms
[00:06:45.360]just like I'm sure that you do
[00:06:46.920]on your campuses and in your communities but
[00:06:51.670]there
[00:06:53.690]we made a conscientious effort
[00:06:55.870]to really connect mental health issues
[00:06:58.070]with substance use issues and
[00:06:59.860]so I'll talk a little bit about that in one of the slides.
[00:07:03.010]Prior to lunch I'm going to share with you
[00:07:05.410]the seven elements of an effective prevention program,
[00:07:08.340]and these bore out of a project that I helped lead
[00:07:11.210]at the Department of Ed more than 10 years ago,
[00:07:13.190]and yes, every single one of these
[00:07:15.020]are still relevant today
[00:07:16.010]which is why I talk about them.
[00:07:18.120]Then we'll have lunch.
[00:07:19.910]After lunch I will delve a little bit more
[00:07:22.560]into the elements of a strategic plan for prevention,
[00:07:26.190]and then I'll talk a little bit about DEA's resources
[00:07:29.100]and wrap it up and have you out of here by 2:30,
[00:07:32.040]if not even maybe a little sooner,
[00:07:33.370]and I know people never mind getting out of
[00:07:35.770]a meeting or a training sooner than expected.
[00:07:38.120]So,
[00:07:39.230]with that,
[00:07:41.250]you heard a little bit about me
[00:07:42.830]and my experiences and what I currently do.
[00:07:46.180]So I wanna, a little bit about you, just a quick snapshot.
[00:07:49.040]So how many of you work directly on a campus?
[00:07:52.300]Just raise a hand.
[00:07:53.490]Okay.
[00:07:54.790]How about if you're working in the community?
[00:07:58.530]Okay cool.
[00:08:01.207]So if you are on campus,
[00:08:04.980]do you work in the health center?
[00:08:07.840]Okay, the counseling center?
[00:08:10.430]'Cause they're together, aren't they probably, yeah.
[00:08:13.800]How about health promotion and wellness?
[00:08:17.240]Okay.
[00:08:18.520]Student conduct?
[00:08:21.930]Yeah, you have a fun job, don't you?
[00:08:23.550]Yeah student conduct, yeah.
[00:08:26.260]Student athletes?
[00:08:27.960]Who work in the athletics department?
[00:08:30.690]Sort of.
[00:08:31.630]What's that?
[00:08:32.463]Small scale.
[00:08:33.296]Oh small scale, okay, D3?
[00:08:36.327](woman speaking from a distance)
[00:08:37.180]Okay, oh yeah okay, sure.
[00:08:40.080]I was in one of my previous lives,
[00:08:42.660]I was a coach at a junior college,
[00:08:44.700]so, at a community campus,
[00:08:46.040]and so I was familiar with the NGCAA.
[00:08:48.790]How many of you work with fraternities and sororities?
[00:08:53.100]Yeah okay, bless you.
[00:08:55.508](audience laughing)
[00:08:58.600]I say that just because,
[00:09:00.070]and we'll talk a little bit about this later,
[00:09:03.090]the vast majority of fraternities and sororities,
[00:09:05.840]we talk about this all the time,
[00:09:08.220]are doing great work.
[00:09:09.220]It's all about service and learning.
[00:09:10.490]It's all about civic engagement and stuff.
[00:09:13.090]And what happens, it's the high profile incidents
[00:09:16.390]that occur within a fraternity or a sorority
[00:09:19.380]that make the news,
[00:09:20.960]and therefore paint the picture that, oh, well,
[00:09:22.750]then all sororities and fraternities must be like that.
[00:09:25.720]Newsflash, people have the same misperception
[00:09:28.840]about college students in general, right?
[00:09:32.100]I mean we know that the majority of college students
[00:09:34.570]do not engage in high risk drinking as you'll see,
[00:09:37.250]do not engage in these other risky behaviors and yet
[00:09:40.920]the misperception has continued to be perpetuated
[00:09:44.140]that this is a right of passage,
[00:09:46.160]that this is what
[00:09:47.490]students must do
[00:09:49.250]when they go to campus.
[00:09:51.850]I have a niece who's getting ready
[00:09:53.280]to go to college in the fall,
[00:09:56.120]and I'm
[00:09:58.320]100% confident that her mom and dad,
[00:10:00.850]my sister and brother-in-law
[00:10:03.100]have prepared her for that,
[00:10:06.400]and yet I know you can never be prepared 100%
[00:10:10.380]just because of the work that I've done
[00:10:12.320]in this field overtime.
[00:10:13.950]And so,
[00:10:15.930]it's a little bit you hold your breath.
[00:10:19.065]But
[00:10:20.144]I'm sure that she will do just fine.
[00:10:22.120]So let me ask you a question,
[00:10:23.440]this is what I will ask you to share with me
[00:10:25.330]and I will repeat it for the listeners.
[00:10:29.420]Lightning round question,
[00:10:30.950]what do you consider to be
[00:10:32.210]one of the biggest challenges you face
[00:10:35.870]in drug abuse prevention
[00:10:37.140]whether you're on a campus or in a community?
[00:10:39.810]What do you consider to be
[00:10:40.790]one of the biggest challenges
[00:10:42.110]that you face?
[00:10:46.320]Misperceptions of
[00:10:48.630]norms, okay norms misperceptions, okay.
[00:10:52.020]Others?
[00:10:55.090]Parent involvement, good or bad?
[00:10:57.130]Both.
[00:10:58.834](woman speaking from a distance)
[00:11:00.200]They what?
[00:11:01.033](woman speaking from a distance)
[00:11:05.840]Okay.
[00:11:07.230]Okay.
[00:11:08.660]And I say good or bad because obviously
[00:11:10.080]you have the parents that are just, right?
[00:11:12.430]They're there all the time
[00:11:14.720]which is good
[00:11:17.060]sometimes.
[00:11:18.480]But the other side of that is
[00:11:20.440]getting parents involved,
[00:11:22.710]because we still unfortunately deal with the situation
[00:11:25.750]where as soon as the child turns 17 or 18,
[00:11:29.200]they send them off the campus,
[00:11:30.720]and now he or she is your responsibility
[00:11:32.820]'cause you are like the UNL babysitting service, right?
[00:11:35.630]I mean it's unfortunately
[00:11:38.170]what often happens
[00:11:39.230]until something bad happens,
[00:11:42.030]and then they're in your face.
[00:11:44.120]So it's not a bad rap against parents,
[00:11:45.570]it's just what we have seen
[00:11:47.280]over the last five to 10 years which is nice is
[00:11:51.090]parents is programming both on campus and in communities
[00:11:55.820]and at the federal level
[00:11:56.900]for campaigns that are involving parents,
[00:11:59.470]at least the ones that I've been involved in,
[00:12:01.340]because I'm that voice saying
[00:12:02.930]but it doesn't stop at high school,
[00:12:05.720]so you've got to continue talking about parents
[00:12:08.730]for when their young child is going off to college.
[00:12:11.790]So parents definitely can be a challenge sometimes.
[00:12:16.090]Others, what are some of the biggest challenges
[00:12:17.113]that you face in prevention?
[00:12:23.160]Stigma is a big issue, yep.
[00:12:25.870]We'll talk a little bit about that as well.
[00:12:27.740]It continues and you wonder why does it continue, right?
[00:12:31.470]I mean for as long as we have been talking about
[00:12:35.440]alcoholism and drug addiction being a chronic disease
[00:12:39.260]just like cancer, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes,
[00:12:44.830]there aren't many stigmas attached to those diseases, right?
[00:12:49.298]There is this connection or this
[00:12:52.320]designation that it's still a moral failing of some kind,
[00:12:56.700]that it's your fault that you're addicted to drugs,
[00:12:59.710]you could have prevented this from
[00:13:02.630]you ending up in this spot,
[00:13:04.760]and so stigma is still unfortunately alive and well.
[00:13:09.980]Other challenges that you're facing?
[00:13:14.230]Yes?
[00:13:15.063](man speaking from a distance)
[00:13:32.916]Mmm-hmmm.
[00:13:35.020]So the comment is that
[00:13:37.620]leadership can tend to be conservative
[00:13:39.500]or rather tightlipped,
[00:13:40.520]I'm paraphrasing,
[00:13:43.530]talking about the issue on campus.
[00:13:47.320]This is not a new issue
[00:13:49.800]and it has nothing to do with politics
[00:13:51.600]when we use the word conservative at all.
[00:13:55.000]This has been an age old issue
[00:13:57.980]whether you have been at UNL,
[00:14:00.340]at Ohio State, at the University of Albany,
[00:14:02.470]at Arizona State, at Hudson Valley Community College.
[00:14:05.420]I'm just naming all types of schools
[00:14:08.010]where it is possible that the leadership
[00:14:10.540]does not want to talk about
[00:14:12.630]how bad of a drug problem we have,
[00:14:15.570]because if we talk about
[00:14:16.570]how bad of a drug problem we have,
[00:14:19.230]what's that gonna do?
[00:14:20.660]It's gonna decrease admissions,
[00:14:23.140]and people won't come here.
[00:14:27.240]And so there is that particular issue
[00:14:29.700]where that's been an issue for,
[00:14:32.040]we'll talk about that
[00:14:32.880]with needs assessments
[00:14:34.020]a little bit later,
[00:14:34.853]but that's been an age old issue
[00:14:37.070]is not talking about the fact that
[00:14:40.340]there is an issue to deal with.
[00:14:42.480]Anybody else, any other challenge
[00:14:43.690]that you're currently facing, yes?
[00:14:45.400](person speaking from a distance)
[00:14:49.440]Sure.
[00:14:50.273]So there's bias and there's lack of knowledge
[00:14:51.920]about LGBT community as well as other cultural groups,
[00:14:55.210]and I use that word very broadly.
[00:14:58.800]Women, that's a cultural group.
[00:15:01.140]Athletes, that's a cultural group.
[00:15:03.620]Fraternities and sororities,
[00:15:04.650]first year students, LGBT,
[00:15:07.340]Native American,
[00:15:08.520]any of the minority serving institutions if you will,
[00:15:11.500]all are part of cultural groups.
[00:15:14.470]And so bias and lack of knowledge
[00:15:16.490]about how alcohol and drug use
[00:15:20.578]affect those populations
[00:15:23.000]is certainly a challenge.
[00:15:25.880](woman speaking from a distance)
[00:15:35.342]Mmm-hmmm.
[00:15:36.175](woman speaking from a distance)
[00:15:52.170]Sure, absolutely, and,
[00:15:55.410]interesting
[00:15:56.590]fact,
[00:15:58.730]in the DEA, alcohol is not a controlled substance,
[00:16:01.920]so it's not within our purview,
[00:16:04.560]it's not necessarily anything that we are focused on,
[00:16:07.930]it's not part of drug trafficking if you will,
[00:16:10.410]but when I do these presentations,
[00:16:12.120]that's not a hat that I can't take off
[00:16:13.940]and leave in the closet
[00:16:14.820]and then not talk about.
[00:16:16.750]So as you will see,
[00:16:18.880]whenever I do these types
[00:16:19.850]of presentations and such,
[00:16:20.960]I have to talk about alcohol,
[00:16:23.380]because you can't not talk about
[00:16:27.480]drug abuse prevention on college campuses
[00:16:29.770]without talking about the number one drug of choice
[00:16:33.490]among college students which is alcohol.
[00:16:35.800]So,
[00:16:36.800]I will be talking a bit about that.
[00:16:38.880]And so thank you for bringing that up as well.
[00:16:42.460]Anything else, any other challenges people are facing?
[00:16:47.200]Which I'm sure that there are many percolating in your head,
[00:16:49.300]it's just about, do I really wanna say that I wanna?
[00:16:53.280]Or there's just too many,
[00:16:55.270]it could take up the three hours.
[00:16:56.780]So I'll move on to
[00:16:59.000]painting a bit of a picture for you about the DEA.
[00:17:03.130]So,
[00:17:04.250]in 2018 our budget was
[00:17:06.120]almost 3 1/2 billion dollars,
[00:17:07.860]that is yes with a b.
[00:17:10.260]We have a significant amount of money.
[00:17:14.070]It's interesting, it's the first agency,
[00:17:16.230]so I've been and now this is my third federal agency,
[00:17:19.180]I've been a part of the US Department of Education,
[00:17:21.520]the Department of Health and Human Services,
[00:17:23.170]and now the Department of Justice.
[00:17:25.360]This is the first agency that I've been in
[00:17:27.740]where there are two pots of money
[00:17:31.090]from which we can work with.
[00:17:33.200]The traditional pot of money
[00:17:34.490]is the money appropriated to us by Congress.
[00:17:37.770]And that's when you get into hearing things
[00:17:39.380]about a possible government shutdown
[00:17:40.790]and all that kinda stuff,
[00:17:42.060]when Congress is late
[00:17:43.100]in passing a budget and such.
[00:17:45.880]So we usually have that money to work with.
[00:17:48.460]But at the DEA we also have a pot of money
[00:17:51.470]from the registration fees.
[00:17:53.350]These are the physicians, the pharmacists,
[00:17:56.470]the manufacturers, the wholesalers,
[00:17:59.070]who need to be registered with the DEA
[00:18:01.680]in order to then handle the controlled substances
[00:18:05.240]and dispense them, prescribe them, and all that.
[00:18:07.380]So they pay a fee as registrants to the DEA,
[00:18:11.770]and that's another pot of money
[00:18:13.760]that we get to work with in DEA,
[00:18:16.860]so that's kinda nice
[00:18:18.400]to have that flexibility.
[00:18:20.020]We have about 10,500 employees in the department,
[00:18:24.340]and most of them,
[00:18:26.102]half of the staff are indeed special agents.
[00:18:29.260]We also have the intelligence research specialists,
[00:18:32.330]these are the data folks
[00:18:33.470]that are collecting data and surveillance
[00:18:35.840]about things that are going on
[00:18:37.230]not only domestically but internationally,
[00:18:39.030]and I'll talk about that in just a bit.
[00:18:40.870]We have chemists on staff,
[00:18:42.910]these are the folks who are working in the labs,
[00:18:45.100]who are continually analyzing samples that are coming in,
[00:18:49.570]and these are the folks who can analyze and tell us
[00:18:52.240]that THC content is now exponentially higher
[00:18:56.030]than it was even five to 10 years ago in marijuana.
[00:19:00.210]These are the folks who are looking at the synthetic drugs,
[00:19:03.070]alright, fentanyl and its being mixed with heroine and such.
[00:19:07.320]The diversion investigators are the folks who are
[00:19:11.620]looking out and over, if you will,
[00:19:13.610]those docs and pharmacists and wholesalers and such,
[00:19:16.470]to ensure that the controlled substances
[00:19:18.770]are going where they're supposed to be going
[00:19:21.050]and not being diverted elsewhere.
[00:19:24.100]And then you have a 3500 or so
[00:19:27.915]admin and professional staff
[00:19:29.580]which is what I would fall into in our category
[00:19:32.110]in community outreach and prevention support.
[00:19:34.880]I do work side by side with some of the agents everyday.
[00:19:38.260]The agents work in our section
[00:19:41.470]and in other offices directly around us.
[00:19:44.530]So I love working with the agents.
[00:19:47.650]It is interesting
[00:19:49.860]when I first got there two years ago,
[00:19:52.000]that working in a law enforcement agency
[00:19:53.800]is a bit of a culture shift,
[00:19:56.420]considering I've worked in education
[00:19:57.980]and health and human services.
[00:20:00.530]It's a little interesting
[00:20:01.430]when you're going to a meeting
[00:20:02.890]and you're seeing the side pieces right there,
[00:20:05.800]but it's like, okay, this is interesting,
[00:20:07.490]I feel safe, and you do.
[00:20:09.240]We are one of the like safest buildings possible
[00:20:12.320]in the government.
[00:20:14.970]And yet working side by side with the agents,
[00:20:18.700]they know enforcement
[00:20:21.680]and they know
[00:20:23.830]diversion,
[00:20:25.340]they don't know much about prevention.
[00:20:27.940]So it's great to be in some of these meetings with them,
[00:20:29.900]and they are so receptive to what we're trying to do
[00:20:33.710]and working hand in hand together.
[00:20:35.760]So I've really enjoyed doing that.
[00:20:38.570]So we have, I'll show you domestically,
[00:20:41.870]so the DEA we have 222 offices
[00:20:44.610]in 23 field divisions around the United States.
[00:20:49.370]And news for Nebraska
[00:20:51.660]is that our newest field division
[00:20:55.020]opened this past Sunday officially in Omaha,
[00:20:58.850]so we now have an Omaha field division.
[00:21:02.840]In fact I'll be in a meeting
[00:21:03.810]tomorrow with Sue and her group,
[00:21:05.500]and unfortunately I couldn't get him to come today
[00:21:07.950]'cause he was working on something else,
[00:21:10.010]but we do have one of the assistant special agents in charge
[00:21:12.900]of the Omaha division coming in and talking to the group
[00:21:15.130]for a little bit tomorrow.
[00:21:16.450]The Omaha field division which we see in the map,
[00:21:18.330]it covers five states,
[00:21:19.620]the two Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa.
[00:21:23.690]So it really was just elevated
[00:21:26.370]within the last week
[00:21:27.880]to a field division office.
[00:21:30.710]And so where exactly it is in Omaha,
[00:21:32.890]I don't even know that yet.
[00:21:34.230]You can find it online.
[00:21:36.040]But we talk about how we try to help
[00:21:39.040]campuses and communities
[00:21:40.010]make more connections
[00:21:40.843]with their local DEA office,
[00:21:42.470]and I'm more than happy to help
[00:21:43.540]try and put you in touch with those folks
[00:21:45.870]for anything that you might be working on.
[00:21:48.150]We also have an international presence.
[00:21:51.625]We have 91 offices in 70 countries around the world.
[00:21:55.750]And this is just a quick map
[00:21:57.370]to show you where we are located.
[00:22:00.090]So,
[00:22:00.960]the DEA has
[00:22:03.010]three,
[00:22:04.310]it's a trifold mission if you will.
[00:22:06.570]So first and foremost,
[00:22:07.620]we are indeed an enforcement agency.
[00:22:09.420]That is our primary mission
[00:22:12.090]to enforce the US controlled substances
[00:22:14.980]laws and regulation.
[00:22:17.540]Then we have the regulatory piece
[00:22:19.240]and that's the diversion piece,
[00:22:20.640]the controlled substances
[00:22:21.910]that I had mentioned to you,
[00:22:23.330]and
[00:22:24.370]ensuring that the
[00:22:26.620]illegal growing manufacturer,
[00:22:29.500]distribution of controlled substances
[00:22:31.550]is kept in check.
[00:22:33.010]So there is the regulatory piece on that.
[00:22:35.230]And then there is what I like to call
[00:22:37.020]the small but mighty prevention section.
[00:22:39.700]There are only, and I say that word
[00:22:42.740]just because it's what it is,
[00:22:44.290]there's only eight of us on staff
[00:22:46.520]in the Prevention Support section.
[00:22:51.590]And
[00:22:52.930]so,
[00:22:54.020]we all have our areas of expertise,
[00:22:55.530]we all have our projects that we lead,
[00:22:58.600]but
[00:22:59.480]we
[00:23:00.600]have a significant presence around the country,
[00:23:05.560]and we try to
[00:23:07.690]what I say no longer be the best kept secret
[00:23:11.300]in the DEA.
[00:23:12.930]People don't think of prevention
[00:23:15.120]when they think of the Drug Enforcement Administration okay.
[00:23:19.240]But if you've heard of Red Ribbon Week,
[00:23:22.420]okay, which is October 23rd to the 31st of every year,
[00:23:27.190]that is a DEA initiative
[00:23:30.080]that started over 30 years ago.
[00:23:32.680]So we have been working
[00:23:33.690]in prevention arena
[00:23:34.870]for more than three decades,
[00:23:37.290]and,
[00:23:38.330]for those of you that don't know the Red Ribbon history,
[00:23:40.510]it all started with the kidnapping
[00:23:42.400]and the torture and the murder
[00:23:43.610]of Special Agent Enrique Camarena, Kiki Camarena.
[00:23:49.100]He
[00:23:50.710]was
[00:23:51.543]on his way to lunch with his wife in Mexico,
[00:23:54.440]and he was kidnapped by five individuals,
[00:23:56.960]and this was actually an operation that was from
[00:24:00.700]some corrupt Mexican policy as well as the drug cartel.
[00:24:05.140]And unfortunately they didn't find his body for a month,
[00:24:08.990]and then when they did they realized
[00:24:10.500]he had been significantly tortured before murdered.
[00:24:13.780]And the Red Ribbon Campaign
[00:24:15.570]was started in his home state of California
[00:24:18.530]by some members of Congress and some school districts
[00:24:22.710]to raise the awareness of living a drug-free lifestyle
[00:24:25.770]because that was Special Agent Camareno's mission
[00:24:29.460]was really around prevention in youth.
[00:24:32.590]So if you've heard of Red Ribbon,
[00:24:33.680]that's a significant prevention campaign that we have,
[00:24:36.810]and then I'm gonna talk a little bit later
[00:24:37.990]about all of our various websites
[00:24:40.200]and other things that we do to raise awareness.
[00:24:43.370]So DEA does have prevention as part of its mission.
[00:24:46.980]It's just not the first thing that people think of
[00:24:49.390]when they think of DEA.
[00:24:51.470]Alright so we'll move on to some data points now,
[00:24:53.550]and I'm sure many of you have seen these.
[00:24:57.150]Some of them are brand new from the ACHA,
[00:25:00.000]and this first couple are
[00:25:02.580]from the Monitoring the Future study released last year.
[00:25:05.240]So, what do we know about alcohol?
[00:25:07.960]Traditionally we know that college students
[00:25:10.100]are more likely to drink
[00:25:11.900]than their non-college peers,
[00:25:16.470]and that's been
[00:25:18.550]a long standing trend is that
[00:25:22.170]typically college students drink
[00:25:23.890]much more than their peers
[00:25:24.990]who are not in college.
[00:25:26.270]Keep that in mind when we flip to marijuana.
[00:25:29.580]You can see here in 2016
[00:25:32.750]that college students
[00:25:33.740]did have a higher rate of
[00:25:36.470]just heavy drinking,
[00:25:37.580]that five or more drinks in a row,
[00:25:39.060]that's the standard definition that we're using
[00:25:41.330]in the Monitoring the Future study,
[00:25:43.180]as opposed to the 28 to 29% of non-college students.
[00:25:48.560]And then about four in 10 college students,
[00:25:52.440]a little over 40% being intoxicated in the past month
[00:25:56.790]as opposed to about 30% of their peers.
[00:25:59.170]So we know that as far as alcohol is concerned,
[00:26:01.820]typically it's higher among college students,
[00:26:04.680]but when we move to marijuana interestingly enough,
[00:26:07.600]we see a higher prevalence of those who are not in college.
[00:26:11.520]It's those not in college who tend to have a higher rate.
[00:26:15.520]Daily or near daily marijuana use and it's almost 5%,
[00:26:20.530]is among the highest levels
[00:26:22.950]that have been seen in over 30 years.
[00:26:26.270]Since the Monitoring the Future study
[00:26:28.440]has been tracking this,
[00:26:30.250]that daily or nearly daily rate
[00:26:32.630]of marijuana use among college students,
[00:26:34.500]just about 5%
[00:26:36.120]is among the highest level seen in 30 years.
[00:26:40.790]So a couple of stats that are not on here
[00:26:43.180]but I will give to you,
[00:26:45.140]and you are going to get a copy
[00:26:47.200]of this PowerPoint presentation
[00:26:48.670]after the fact, right, we've talked about
[00:26:50.200]or maybe you already have access to it now.
[00:26:51.944](woman speaking from a distance)
[00:26:55.690]Right.
[00:26:56.523]So,
[00:26:57.900]happy that you'll get this,
[00:26:59.790]I'm also happy to share
[00:27:00.700]some of my talking points with you as well.
[00:27:03.260]But on the marijuana issue,
[00:27:04.490]so in 2016 we know that 39%
[00:27:08.670]of full-time college students
[00:27:10.360]use marijuana at least once in the past year,
[00:27:14.190]that's 39% once in the past year.
[00:27:16.880]22% used at least once in the past month.
[00:27:21.030]Okay.
[00:27:22.020]So the rate of course
[00:27:23.150]you're seeing up here is the daily use,
[00:27:25.240]I just gave you the yearly and the monthly.
[00:27:28.410]Both of those percentages were the highest since 1987.
[00:27:33.540]That annual use and that monthly use
[00:27:36.130]are the highest since 1987,
[00:27:39.300]there's been a steady increase since 2006.
[00:27:43.260]So every year for the last 12 to 13 years or so,
[00:27:48.230]that number has been going up incrementally.
[00:27:51.610]And so obviously in Prevention,
[00:27:53.360]we're watching the data, right?
[00:27:54.527]And so this is something that we need to keep our eye on.
[00:27:57.480]And I'm certainly not telling you
[00:27:58.640]anything that you don't already know,
[00:28:00.510]being on college campuses and the communities
[00:28:02.330]that are seeing this usage rate among students.
[00:28:04.840]So what's one of the reasons
[00:28:07.050]or one of the likely reasons that
[00:28:08.800]marijuana use is increasing among
[00:28:10.740]not only college students
[00:28:11.790]but also their peers
[00:28:13.530]who are not in college
[00:28:15.320]is the ongoing decline
[00:28:16.840]in the perception of risk.
[00:28:19.340]And we have known that in Prevention for the longest time
[00:28:21.940]that typically when you see a decrease
[00:28:24.600]in the perception of risk of using,
[00:28:27.160]there is then an inverse on the chart,
[00:28:29.960]the usage rates go up.
[00:28:31.660]And that's typically what you see,
[00:28:33.180]as risk goes down, usage rates go up.
[00:28:35.710]And we're seeing the exact same thing with marijuana.
[00:28:39.070]In 2016
[00:28:40.670]there were 30% of students,
[00:28:43.517]and I'm talking traditional 19 to 22-year olds
[00:28:47.090]that are in college.
[00:28:49.860]30% perceive great use in,
[00:28:52.600]or great risk in using marijuana,
[00:28:55.070]and that was the lowest level of risk since 1980.
[00:28:59.810]So obviously the risk perception is way down,
[00:29:03.420]and we know the actual usage rates are up.
[00:29:07.090]And it's been going that way for the last three decades.
[00:29:11.070]So that's what we know about
[00:29:12.260]marijuana use among college students.
[00:29:14.550]So when we look at the nonmedical use of prescription drugs,
[00:29:18.130]these are the most recent data
[00:29:19.380]from the National College Health Assessment, the NCHA,
[00:29:22.920]that the American College Health Association,
[00:29:25.690]I know many schools tend to use this instrument.
[00:29:27.910]It's a very broad comprehensive
[00:29:30.380]instrument that looks at not only
[00:29:32.850]alcohol and drug use
[00:29:34.110]but also mental health issues
[00:29:35.567]and a whole host of other issues on college campuses.
[00:29:38.680]But here you can see a gender difference
[00:29:41.610]in the percentage of college students
[00:29:43.190]who reported using prescription drugs
[00:29:45.290]not prescribed to them,
[00:29:47.120]the very definition
[00:29:48.310]of prescription drug misuse,
[00:29:50.140]within the past 12 months.
[00:29:51.860]And so,
[00:29:53.460]I didn't do a comparison
[00:29:55.970]slide for you,
[00:29:57.050]but when I was updating this slide
[00:29:58.680]a couple of weeks ago
[00:29:59.610]when the fall 2017 numbers
[00:30:01.640]had just come out,
[00:30:02.473]I was updating them,
[00:30:05.940]interestingly enough,
[00:30:07.870]most of these numbers went down
[00:30:10.730]a point one or two or three tick
[00:30:13.630]in all of these.
[00:30:15.100]On the next slide you'll see
[00:30:16.320]in the mental health issues,
[00:30:17.860]everything went up.
[00:30:19.620]So it's interesting that that's going on.
[00:30:22.310]But here you can see,
[00:30:23.680]so, we talk a little bit,
[00:30:26.300]dive into the data a little bit,
[00:30:27.690]so you will see that
[00:30:29.900]among
[00:30:31.340]most classes
[00:30:33.150]of these drugs,
[00:30:35.700]males outpace the females,
[00:30:38.750]except significantly the females
[00:30:41.540]outpace the males in antidepressants.
[00:30:46.400]Any reason why you think that might be?
[00:30:50.830]And this study hasn't looked to say this is why,
[00:30:53.470]but I've brought this up and I've heard
[00:30:55.500]pretty much every time I've done this,
[00:30:57.740]where people then start nodding their heads
[00:30:59.330]or they actually have,
[00:31:00.980]pretty much on the same page with why they think
[00:31:03.820]females outpace males when it come to anti-depressants.
[00:31:07.350]Any idea?
[00:31:12.270]Female is more likely to get help.
[00:31:15.320]And it does come back to the stigma issue
[00:31:17.050]as to why males may not be going to seek help, to get help.
[00:31:21.150]I can tell you, it's gonna come up in a slide or two about,
[00:31:26.420]the 18 to 25 age group and help seeking behavior in general.
[00:31:30.710]So we'll talk a little bit about that.
[00:31:32.010]But
[00:31:33.480]you will see that,
[00:31:34.620]yeah among,
[00:31:35.950]and that's a pretty wide disparity
[00:31:37.720]'cause in all the other classes of drugs,
[00:31:39.330]it's either pretty close
[00:31:40.410]or the males are definitely outpacing the females
[00:31:42.730]except within that one category.
[00:31:45.430]They are equal, it's almost 10% of college students
[00:31:48.150]have used one or more of these drugs
[00:31:49.450]non-medically in the past year.
[00:31:51.888]So it's about 10%.
[00:31:54.720]So,
[00:31:55.570]this is based on about,
[00:31:57.660]the n is about 31,000 students
[00:31:59.880]for those of you who are interested,
[00:32:00.853]and this fluctuates every semester
[00:32:03.950]when the ACHA comes out with their numbers,
[00:32:06.540]but this was 31,000 students or so at 52 schools.
[00:32:10.570]And that's how they've weighted all of this information.
[00:32:12.700]So,
[00:32:13.870]when I was at SAMHSA,
[00:32:15.690]in 2015
[00:32:17.670]we administer the NSDUH,
[00:32:19.900]the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
[00:32:22.240]And so when I ever talk about data,
[00:32:24.050]there are three primary data sources
[00:32:26.320]that I always key in on,
[00:32:27.950]Monitoring the Future study
[00:32:29.470]which is funded through NIDA
[00:32:30.710]is one of them
[00:32:31.850]because they have a whole volume
[00:32:33.200]that looks at college students.
[00:32:34.900]There's the NSDUH which is funded through SAMHSA,
[00:32:37.310]ad then there's the NCHA.
[00:32:40.120]So those are typically the three
[00:32:42.540]data points that I tend to focus on
[00:32:44.570]when I'm looking at what's going on
[00:32:47.570]in prevalence among our college students.
[00:32:50.310]So in 2015 SAMHSA had come out with a report,
[00:32:53.300]and they drilled down a little bit further into the NSDUH,
[00:32:56.740]and they learned that approximately 137,000
[00:33:00.890]full-time college students
[00:33:02.860]start using prescription stimulants,
[00:33:05.730]we're gonna talk about stimulants, non-medically,
[00:33:08.310]and that's about 400 on an average day.
[00:33:11.840]So about everyday
[00:33:13.820]400 college students
[00:33:15.310]start non-medically using
[00:33:17.290]prescription stimulants.
[00:33:20.400]And yet during November, December, and April,
[00:33:22.400]that average rate went to 500 students.
[00:33:27.240]Okay.
[00:33:28.073]So,
[00:33:29.280]that report that we had released which generated
[00:33:31.410]a significant amount of attention and press,
[00:33:33.290]and we did some interviews about it,
[00:33:34.970]the report was not designed
[00:33:36.560]to determine the cause behind the trends,
[00:33:39.120]but just think about the months that I just mentioned,
[00:33:42.680]November, December, and April,
[00:33:44.910]non-medical use rates
[00:33:46.820]of prescription stimulants
[00:33:48.000]went up among college students,
[00:33:50.220]and why do we think that is?
[00:33:53.050]Finals and midterms and others, yeah absolutely, right?
[00:33:57.520]And so,
[00:33:59.390]there is the belief that
[00:34:02.520]if I take
[00:34:04.280]Ritalin or some other stimulant, Adderall,
[00:34:06.990]that I'm going to get a better test score.
[00:34:10.160]It's going to help me get a better grade.
[00:34:14.211]And it should be noted
[00:34:16.120]that the non-medical use
[00:34:17.420]of prescription stimulants,
[00:34:18.810]there's not a bit of research
[00:34:20.010]to show that that's true.
[00:34:22.540]And in fact I'll talk a little bit about our website later,
[00:34:26.490]but
[00:34:28.510]we launched a new podcast series
[00:34:30.900]on campusdrugprevention.gov this past January
[00:34:34.870]with me as the host which I'm, it's fun to do.
[00:34:37.840]And my first interview was with Dr. Nora Volkow,
[00:34:40.230]the director of NIDA.
[00:34:41.860]So I went up to her office and we sat and chatted
[00:34:44.470]for about a half an hour and did the interview,
[00:34:46.610]and she talks specifically about this issue,
[00:34:50.040]and this new study that came out
[00:34:52.540]whereby students have the perception going into a test,
[00:34:56.570]that non-medically using a prescription stimulant
[00:34:59.610]would help me get a better grade.
[00:35:02.190]They took the test,
[00:35:03.060]they came out of the other side after taking the test,
[00:35:05.020]and they still felt
[00:35:06.800]that it helped them get a better grade,
[00:35:09.830]and it didn't.
[00:35:12.140]So there's this,
[00:35:13.640]again this is what we're up against
[00:35:15.300]is breaking about perceptions.
[00:35:17.380]You talked about norm misperceptions
[00:35:18.610]are on alcohol use, right?
[00:35:20.260]But we also have now misperceptions
[00:35:21.870]that we're trying to break
[00:35:23.130]around prescription drugs
[00:35:24.400]and even some of the other drugs.
[00:35:25.780]So that's just a snapshot
[00:35:27.730]of what we're looking at
[00:35:28.970]with prescription drugs.
[00:35:31.860]And then I move on to mental health of college students.
[00:35:33.777]And as I mentioned all of these numbers went up
[00:35:37.770]from the spring 2017
[00:35:40.350]data.
[00:35:42.170]I tend to,
[00:35:45.349]I'm a bit of a word guy, a terminology person,
[00:35:47.910]and in the office I'm one of our chief editors
[00:35:49.850]of things and such,
[00:35:50.683]so I zero in on words
[00:35:52.430]and I look at things like
[00:35:53.910]difficult to function,
[00:35:55.040]overwhelming anxiety,
[00:35:56.800]overwhelming anger.
[00:35:58.120]These are very strong words.
[00:36:00.100]These are very strong feelings.
[00:36:02.100]And you take a look at this and
[00:36:05.410]at any time in the last year
[00:36:07.210]more than half of our college students
[00:36:08.740]felt things were hopeless.
[00:36:10.850]More than half of college students
[00:36:13.930]at some point in the last year
[00:36:15.960]felt things were hopeless.
[00:36:18.350]And then even higher than that,
[00:36:20.340]you're looking at over 60% of students
[00:36:22.400]felt overwhelming anxiety or felt very lonely.
[00:36:26.930]And then you start looking at the suicide numbers.
[00:36:30.250]Right?
[00:36:31.370]And so
[00:36:33.672]when I
[00:36:35.220]was at SAMHSA
[00:36:36.480]and working with the folks
[00:36:37.500]who worked on suicide prevention
[00:36:39.100]in the Center for Mental Health Services,
[00:36:42.100]and I was going out and doing a presentation
[00:36:43.650]on mental health issues among college students,
[00:36:45.297]and I had to sit down with them and I said,
[00:36:46.610]you know, in the substance abuse field,
[00:36:48.310]I'm used to dealing with some very high percentage numbers,
[00:36:51.490]anywhere between 39 and 44% of college students binge drink
[00:36:55.260]in the last two years or two weeks.
[00:36:57.650]And
[00:36:58.790]so,
[00:36:59.920]those are high numbers that I'm used to dealing with,
[00:37:01.870]and then you look at the NIAAA number,
[00:37:03.600]and the number of students
[00:37:04.960]who are sexually assaulted, assaulted,
[00:37:07.140]the
[00:37:08.390]1800 or so each year who died,
[00:37:10.750]those are big attention-grabbing numbers.
[00:37:13.180]And then I get to seriously considered suicide,
[00:37:16.060]and at the time it was just under 10%.
[00:37:18.407]And I said
[00:37:20.270]is that gonna get their attention?
[00:37:21.660]I don't know,
[00:37:22.500]I don't work with this population often enough.
[00:37:25.730]It was great that they said,
[00:37:26.887]"Rich, you're gonna do fine with this
[00:37:28.837]"'cause you can paint the picture for them
[00:37:30.247]"and this is the picture you wanna paint.
[00:37:33.057]"You're in a class, say, it's English Comp,
[00:37:34.927]"or it's one of these classes, it could be any class,
[00:37:38.187]"but take a first year students class where
[00:37:40.407]"it's mandatory, everybody has to take it,
[00:37:42.997]"and you've got 100 students in your class,
[00:37:45.967]"10 of you are seriously considering suicide."
[00:37:50.570]That's what gets people's attention
[00:37:52.540]is that social and math piece that we do,
[00:37:54.640]that you break it down and equate it to,
[00:37:58.060]yeah, the 44% is a big number
[00:38:00.710]and that's based even on a bigger number
[00:38:02.730]of the millions of college students in our country,
[00:38:05.370]but the fact that in any one particular class,
[00:38:08.770]and that even you take 10% of that,
[00:38:11.840]that one or two of those students
[00:38:13.640]have actually attempted
[00:38:16.620]suicide,
[00:38:17.530]had a plan and attempted suicide.
[00:38:20.690]So that's what can help make it real for me
[00:38:23.030]and for the people that I talk to.
[00:38:24.360]So, the mental health issues,
[00:38:26.500]it's,
[00:38:28.090]you can't not talk about the mental health issue
[00:38:32.190]when you're talking about substance use issues,
[00:38:34.160]because there is this paradox.
[00:38:36.550]I've talked to people in counseling centers
[00:38:38.420]and in health centers,
[00:38:39.253]folks who are working in those
[00:38:41.060]facilities on college campuses,
[00:38:41.893]and what do they hear from college students
[00:38:44.260]is that college students
[00:38:46.080]in their sessions and such,
[00:38:48.410]are saying, "I'm feeling depressed,
[00:38:51.207]"I'm feeling anxious,
[00:38:52.407]"and so therefore I'm gonna drink
[00:38:54.577]"or I'm gonna use other drugs.
[00:38:57.127]"So I'm feeling depressed or anxious
[00:38:58.447]"so I'm gonna use alcohol or drugs."
[00:39:01.130]And yet they're using alcohol and other drugs
[00:39:03.340]and they're feeling depressed and anxious.
[00:39:05.920]So there is this bidirectional intersection if you will
[00:39:09.320]between these two things that are going on.
[00:39:11.610]And so
[00:39:13.130]my time spent at SAMHSA
[00:39:14.380]and especially the time that I've worked
[00:39:15.780]with the folks in the mental health center
[00:39:18.870]has really helped shaped a little bit about
[00:39:20.980]the work that I do and presentations that I do
[00:39:23.380]because I don't think you can ignore these numbers
[00:39:26.950]and how they relate to the substance usages
[00:39:29.390]that we're facing on college campuses.
[00:39:31.310]So.
[00:39:33.630]Anything on the data points?
[00:39:39.130]No, okay.
[00:39:40.470]So I'm gonna quickly as we,
[00:39:42.360]we'll stay on schedule and get us up to 12 o'clock.
[00:39:46.060]In the next 40 minutes I'm gonna talk a little bit about
[00:39:48.650]these seven elements of an effective prevention program.
[00:39:52.810]So I do have to ask this,
[00:39:54.470]one of my first pop culture reference is
[00:39:55.980]how many Golden Girls fans do we have in the audience?
[00:39:58.710]It's okay, you can raise your hands.
[00:40:00.040]It's okay, it's not a guilty pleasure.
[00:40:02.780]It's a pleasure, right?
[00:40:04.780]Everybody has a Sophia in their family
[00:40:07.550]or among their friends,
[00:40:08.500]everybody knows a Sophia.
[00:40:10.380]So this is for you,
[00:40:11.230]picture it,
[00:40:12.450]2006
[00:40:13.860]Washington DC,
[00:40:15.970]and I was at the Department of Education at the time,
[00:40:18.760]and we were at risk of losing
[00:40:22.000]the funding for the model program grants.
[00:40:25.810]And
[00:40:28.130]one of the reasons why
[00:40:30.480]we were at risk for losing that money was,
[00:40:34.750]and this was coming from within the department by the way.
[00:40:37.690]This was not coming from the Hill.
[00:40:40.940]This was coming from,
[00:40:42.260]and I can tell these stories
[00:40:43.310]because I'm not there anymore,
[00:40:44.300]and I'm telling you the way it was.
[00:40:46.333]And if you haven't learned
[00:40:47.710]budget runs programming.
[00:40:49.290]And I learned that when I first started in my career,
[00:40:53.300]that budget tends to run policy
[00:40:55.620]and more importantly, programming.
[00:40:57.570]And it was the budget service,
[00:40:59.120]they are the ones who make the recommendation.
[00:41:02.880]And
[00:41:04.400]they were adamant, if you will,
[00:41:07.510]that
[00:41:09.370]there were enough model programs
[00:41:11.360]for people to now learn from.
[00:41:13.860]We had 22 model programs that were identified,
[00:41:16.960]and so
[00:41:17.793]the other
[00:41:19.450]3,978
[00:41:21.670]campuses around the country,
[00:41:23.770]we have about 4,000 or so colleges,
[00:41:25.820]they can learn from those 22,
[00:41:27.640]that's sufficient.
[00:41:30.730]And so we had to try and sit down with them,
[00:41:32.780]and I was the person who had to write this three-page memo
[00:41:35.070]that talked about the fact that prevention is not finite.
[00:41:39.850]It doesn't have an endpoint.
[00:41:42.400]It continues to evolve.
[00:41:45.210]And so we, yes, we'll learn from these 22,
[00:41:48.510]but we need to keep learning.
[00:41:50.020]Prevention doesn't just stop.
[00:41:53.200]And so we needed to continue the funding
[00:41:55.480]to learn from other campuses.
[00:41:57.180]These 22, great as they were,
[00:41:59.400]were not the be all and the end all
[00:42:01.800]and have all the answers.
[00:42:03.900]So we needed to keep learning.
[00:42:06.691]I thought I wrote a pretty darn good memo,
[00:42:09.240]it was cleared by our administration
[00:42:11.140]and sent up to the budget service,
[00:42:13.580]and sure enough their recommendation
[00:42:15.870]was to zero out the program.
[00:42:18.840]And then we end up being summoned up on the Hill
[00:42:22.030]to talk with the senators and their staff
[00:42:24.540]who were the architects of the model program,
[00:42:27.560]and
[00:42:28.810]I was, there was the budget person,
[00:42:30.490]there was the congressional liaison person,
[00:42:32.270]there was the head of our office and me.
[00:42:35.530]And I just thought I was gonna sit there,
[00:42:37.010]and I wasn't gonna say a thing.
[00:42:38.410]This was their issue.
[00:42:39.400]'Cause I was having a tough time,
[00:42:40.850]I admit I was having a tough time figuring out
[00:42:43.840]how I was going to speak the party line,
[00:42:45.940]and I don't mean that in a political sense,
[00:42:47.600]how I was gonna speak the department's line
[00:42:49.340]to say yes we recommend not funding this
[00:42:53.310]'cause I knew deep down that
[00:42:55.260]that was not what we should be doing.
[00:42:58.410]So I was having a tough time reconciling that within myself,
[00:43:00.840]so I just figured I was going to just listen anyway,
[00:43:04.450]there were people at much higher pay grade than me
[00:43:06.850]that were going to be there,
[00:43:07.730]they would be doing all the talking.
[00:43:09.750]We had a one-hour meeting with the senators' staff,
[00:43:11.970]Senator Byrd, Senator Harkin, and there was one other.
[00:43:16.420]A one-hour meeting,
[00:43:18.190]and Rich was engaged in the Q and A
[00:43:20.250]for 50 minutes of that 60 minutes
[00:43:22.860]which scared the crap out of me.
[00:43:24.940]But these senators' staff were so involved
[00:43:28.840]and they knew prevention.
[00:43:31.230]So I was actually having a conversation with people
[00:43:33.380]who knew what they were talking about.
[00:43:36.340]We got the money.
[00:43:38.910]Well, I didn't have to say anything other than
[00:43:41.230]here's what we hoped to do,
[00:43:43.020]and what was the hope to do,
[00:43:44.710]continue funding so we could learn from these 22.
[00:43:48.290]We would fund a project
[00:43:49.950]where we would still identify
[00:43:51.220]other model programs,
[00:43:52.570]but then also learn from these 22 programs,
[00:43:55.130]and sure enough that's what we did,
[00:43:56.940]and that's how we came up with the book
[00:43:58.950]from the Higher Ed Center
[00:43:59.840]which you can still get,
[00:44:01.730]and if you are interested,
[00:44:02.840]I can send either Megan or individually to you,
[00:44:06.100]the PDF file of this document.
[00:44:09.900]It's about 80 pages
[00:44:10.950]but it's one of the few documents
[00:44:13.440]that I say is a read cover-to-cover
[00:44:16.230]if you're working in this field,
[00:44:18.980]cover-to-cover,
[00:44:20.270]because
[00:44:21.430]it's your peers talking about
[00:44:24.480]their experience in prevention.
[00:44:27.860]And so these 22 schools represented a diverse group,
[00:44:31.180]there was suburban, urban, rural,
[00:44:32.640]there was public, private,
[00:44:33.720]there was large, there was small,
[00:44:36.600]there were no two-year schools.
[00:44:39.790]It was the time,
[00:44:41.160]I'm going back now to
[00:44:44.065]1999 to 2004 was this cohort these several years.
[00:44:51.440]It was just, sometimes the four-year grantees,
[00:44:54.350]the four-year schools,
[00:44:57.106]have more resources than the two-year schools,
[00:45:01.226]they can explain and express really clearly
[00:45:04.670]what they're doing on their campuses,
[00:45:07.560]but
[00:45:08.610]I say that,
[00:45:10.160]one, is to mention it's a shame
[00:45:11.770]that we didn't have any two-year schools
[00:45:13.140]who were model campuses at the time,
[00:45:15.520]but every single one of these seven elements
[00:45:18.340]apply to two-year schools.
[00:45:20.950]So any of you working on two-year campuses
[00:45:23.390]can learn from this.
[00:45:24.780]This is not to say that
[00:45:26.060]oh well then if they're all four-year schools,
[00:45:27.187]then this is not for me.
[00:45:29.540]No, 'cause you're gonna see
[00:45:30.740]how general this information is,
[00:45:33.260]that it really applies
[00:45:34.220]to the work that you're doing as well.

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"Experiences in Effective Prevention: Past, Present & Future" 1 of 4

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