Reply to Arlington Has A Drug Problem - From Middle School to High School to Our Community at Large

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some stats from here might help put the actual numbers in perspective:

https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/SecondChance-Brochures-English.pdf

There were 138 referrals by the courts from 2011-2015. And just 378 students total over that four-year period (including self-referrals and school-based referrals).

Half of all referrals were for marijuana and a quarter for alcohol.

So with that as a benchmark, the unanswered question is whether there's been a sharp uptick in the last couple of years.

But this doesn't really support the contention that there were 100 arrests last year or that there's some massive problem with opiates that's dominating pot and alcohol.

Facts, people. Let's try to base these conversations in them.[/quote]

Thanks for posting this, data is helpful in this discussion. I realize it may not capture all of the first-time offenders (or people on their second or more offense), but it's still a very good perspective on the magnitude of the problem. [/quote]

378 over a four-year period might validate the 100 per year claim, but the distinction between what was a court referral (i.e. the outcome of an "arrest") versus self-referral and school referral is critical. It does look like roughly 100 kids APS-wide end up on Second Chance for a variety of reasons, but only a small percentage of those are due to law enforcement intervention. This is an important point for all of the hyperventilation.

Remember, APS has almost 28,000 students, 13,000 of whom are in middle school or high school. 100 out of 13,000 is 0.76% of the secondary student student population participating in the drug redirection program, which I think is a decent proxy for the problem. Among the court referrals, that works out to about 0.25%.

I don't mean to minimize the problem, but I would prefer to temper the hysteria wherein people seem to be jumping to conclusions from incorrect or misunderstood information.[/quote]

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