You’ve seen the headlines about drug addiction; “Kids on Drugs”. . . duh. For most people this conjures up visions of young people gathering somewhere to smoke or inject drugs, probably marijuana or meth, few think that kids would do this in their own bedrooms’ using something so innocent as a Highlighter pen or a cute little blue glass elephant knick-knack.
According to Tammy Hopke, program coordinator for the Burnett County’s Restorative Justice of Northwest Wisconsin, Inc. program, along with Burnett County’s Health and Human Service department and Burnett County Prevention Group, they have aligned with one goal, to vigorously create a drug awareness agenda for their county including their interactive display room called “Hiding in Plain Sight.”
Tammy states that “Drug addiction in the United States is growing by leaps and bounds and it’s a war we have to fight.” She adds that during the past year alone, that’s just during the past twelve months, drug seizures rose 1,300 percent in Burnett County alone, leading to an unimagined amount of property and personal crimes in the county while stealing the futures and even the lives of kids on drugs.
When you consider the high received when doing drugs to be “better than any sober person ever felt,” it’s no wonder that kids, many with low self-esteems, don’t have the ability to ‘just say no’. Besides, drug packaging is so attractive and comes with clever twisted names and flavors. No wonder kids succumb to peer-pressure and give it a try. Besides, drugs promise to do for them what they presume they can’t do on their own; for some users, drugs give them a false sense of unbelievable confidence and amazing clarity and energy, and for others, drugs remove any pressure they have to succeed or get involved with anything, or even eat or bathe.
This past June, due to the rising drug issues and because of the passion of one of the women in the Restorative Justice office, Burnett County got serious about their drug problems and upped their game. They started with a town hall meeting where over 200 people turned up to hear speakers that scared them silly as they shared about the devastating effects drugs have on the individual, their families, their towns, schools and even their county. The attendees decided that something had to be done and funds needed to be raised for hand-outs, posters, educational material and even a highway billboard.
They started with an eight weeks drug series in the local papers to educate anyone interested with simple but scary facts like, “The minute you hand a child a cell phone, the fight is over.”
This might seem a bit dramatic, but as a former jailer/dispatcher for Washburn County, Tammy has seen firsthand how easy it is for kids to not only obtain drugs, but to successfully hide them in plain sight from their parents or adults in general.
The Burnett team, that covers multiple counties, has put together a teen’s bedroom display with over 50 items directly linked to drug and alcohol use and Tammy has been setting up this room wherever she can to show parents how well the items are ”Hiding in Plain Sight.”
She’s visited many local schools, including the ones in Washburn County, to present this ‘open house forum’ during teacher’s in-service days and anywhere else she can impact adults with this priceless information.
She even shares the latest information concerning bees, the latest drug symbol and what part they play on the war on drugs. These bees are not the kind of pollinator insects’ you would automatically think of, but the symbols of bees on clothing and jars, etc, the kids use to designate as drug ‘honey.’
By using a special recipe, kids can reduce marijuana to a yellow ear-wax like substance that’s very sticky, hence the name, honey. This honey is smoked in a variety of ways with objects that appear innocent in themselves, that is, until you look at the common highlighter pen or the cute blue glass elephant knick-knack more closely. They’re really drug pipes and it comes under the general heading of dabbing. A simple toilet paper tube packed with dryer sheets looks odd, but innocent enough, unless you know that kids use it to exhale into it in order to diffuse the smoke smell in their room.
Another thing Tammy brings along to the bedroom display are several obvious objects for smoking marijuana in order to show how easy drug products are to get off the internet. Seeing the objects she has were purchased by an eleven year old on Amazon; no questions asked, shows how easy it is for kids to get anything they want without anyone ever knowing. After getting the products they can explore many other sites that explain in detail how to use their new purchases and links to several You Tube videos that demonstrate the entire operation.
Every adult needs to see this bedroom and see how many of the drug related items are “Hiding in Plain Sight” they can find. Tammy will have this display set up during the Chamber of Commerce’s Jack Frost Festival on Saturday, January 14 at 128 Walnut Street in Spooner, across the street from Spooner Eye Care, between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm and invites everyone over the age of 18 to stop and be blown away by the things to be learned from innocent objects.
Tammy Hopke is available to set up this teen’s display bed room and answer questions at no charge for any adult group, civic, church, hospital or others, thanks to the people who care in Burnett County. For more information, contact Tammy Hopke at 715-349-2117 during business hours and don’t miss this Saturday’s opportunity to see the room for yourself.
Last Update: Jan 13, 2017 7:17 am CST
