Petaluma stakeholders discuss drugs in schools

The introductions advanced through the room one-by-one, a group of around 60 attendees representing leaders in health care, community health, education, nonprofits, law enforcement and other interests that had assembled in Petaluma last week to discuss concerns over drug abuse by the city’s youth.

Next up was Gordon Stinson, a Petaluma father who knew those concerns all too well.

“I lost one son to this disease,” said Stinson, whose 23-year-old son Matthew was found dead on the streets of Petaluma in September and was said to have a history of substance abuse problems. Three years earlier, Stinson’s eldest son Bram, also 23 at the time, hanged himself at Petaluma’s D Street bridge.

“We can’t just be in an emergency response mode,” Stinson said, calling for more vigorous case management, treatment and transparency with parents when young people in Petaluma are facing substance abuse or mental health issues. “You can’t have a nine-to-five response to a 24/7 problem.”

Nine months after two Petaluma parents launched a grassroots organization centered on issues around drug and alcohol abuse among the city’s youth, Petaluma Parents Against Drugs drew a large swath of city leaders last Wednesday for a wide-reaching meeting to determine priorities going forward.

The meeting was an echo of a similar gathering in Petaluma 12 years ago, according to several in attendance, a summit that gave rise to organizations like the nonprofit Healthy Communities Consortium that focus on interdisciplinary solutions to various community challenges.

“Things change over 10, 12 years. It’s time to do this again,” said Jeff Weaver, chief of the Sebastopol Police Department and facilitator of the Petaluma event. His city held a similar gathering in the summer of 2012, and another, 10 years ago.

Last week’s event was perhaps the highest profile to date held under the auspices Petaluma Parents Against Drugs, the group founded by Petaluma parents Heather Elliott-Hudson and Kathleen Rose Stafford in early 2016. The organization commonly known by the acronym PPAD held its kickoff meeting in March, and supporters have made group showings at meetings of the Petaluma City Council to lobby for the restoration of police officers based at Petaluma high schools. The group’s Facebook page has amassed more than 1,300 “likes.”

Attendees of the event were asked to share their desires for new or improved initiatives to address teen drug use and related issues in Petaluma, ultimately resulting in three main priorities: better treatment options, parent education and drug prevention education in schools. A leadership team including representatives from law enforcement, health care and education will meet in the next few weeks to create committees focused on each issue, said Elliott-Hudson said.

“Each committee will have at least 2 people in a leadership role to build a team, ideas and next steps. From there we start making progress and getting things done,” she said.

Rates of drug and alcohol use within the city’s largest school district, Petaluma City Schools, have historically ranked in the lowest 10 percent for the state as a whole, said Dave Rose, the district’s director of student services. Yet new challenges have emerged, including the difficulty of monitoring student behavior in the age of social media and the fact that consumption of prescription pills is more discreet than smoking marijuana.

“It’s so much easier to get it,” Rose said of prescription drugs.

Those drugs, which include commonly prescribed prescription painkillers, are considered a gateway to more nefarious narcotics, said Ryan Sibbald of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in Santa Rosa.

“It begins with pills, and ultimately ends up with heroin,” with 80 percent of heroin users reported to have started with prescription drugs, he said.

Law enforcement also expressed concern that the passage of California’s Proposition 64, which legalized recreational marijuana use under state law for individuals aged 21 and older, could mean a new era in terms of underage use.

“The short version is - it’s being used more, it’s being abused more,” Sibbald said, citing observations of underage use he said came from Colorado, a state where marijuana is already legal.

Weaver, the Sebastopol police chief, noted that new efforts around education or treatment would likely require new funds. The Petaluma Police Department’s staffing shrank by around 20 percent as the city faced the economic impact of the recent recession.

Yet interim Petaluma police chief Ken Savano said the presence that evening boded well.

“This community is great, and we’ll do even greater things working together,” he said.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)