Teens take team-approach to fighting drug abuse

By Linda Ciampa
Special to CNN

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Parents are the anti-drug. You may have heard that tag line from a public service campaign. But it turns out kids may be a pretty effective anti-drug, too. That is the premise, anyway, behind the award-winning ATHENA and ATLAS programs -- which target teens participating on sports teams.

"You don't have the same authority figures laying down the hammer about drugs and alcohol and steroids," says James McCarty, athletic director of Stayton High School in Stayton, Oregon, which instituted the programs this year. "It's kids teaching kids. It's three to four times more powerful."

Researchers at Oregon Health and Sciences University came up with the ATHENA and ATLAS concepts because they believed classroom-based anti-drug classes just didn't work. "Kids are really influenced by those they hang out with," says Diane Elliot, M.D. "Sports teams are thus a really powerful vehicle."

ATHENA, for girls, stands for Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise and Nutrition Alternatives. ATLAS, for boys, stands for Athletes Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids.

The programs, which grew out of studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, consist of weekly team meetings during the season. "It is a scripted curriculum program, which is easy to fit into the coach's schedule," Elliot says. "When the team meets, it is divided into six squads with one squad leader." The groups work interactively, Elliot explains. "They might deconstruct ads or play Jeopardy about the effects of drugs on an athlete."

Morgan Kishpaugh, age 15, went through the ATHENA program last fall at a High School in Pendleton, Oregon. "When you're taking a class they're saying, 'Don't do the drugs.' They're trying to ram all these things into your brain. The ATHENA program explains to you how the drugs will affect you as an athlete." Kishpaugh says the program also helped her understand how nutrition affects athletic performance. "I highly recommend it to any team of any kind," she says. "It was very, very helpful and it benefited everybody."

This school year, 15,000 teens in four states benefited from the programs, thanks to a Sports Illustrated 'Champions Award.' The magazine contributed $1 million in cash and public service announcements to promote and implement the program in high schools in Florida, Oregon, Michigan and Virginia.

Statistics suggest such interventions are sorely needed. Not only are teens abusing alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs, but there is a growing problem with abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications, too.

"Five percent of high school seniors report abusing (the stimulant) Ritalin alone," says Wilson Compton, M.D., of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "That's an awful lot of kids taking these drugs outside of a legitimate medical purpose." Compton says abuse of narcotic painkillers and sedatives is growing -- as is abuse of the cough suppressant dextromethorphan, which in high doses produces a hallucinogenic effect. "Seven percent of high school seniors reported using over-the-counter cough medicine at least once in the past year."

Driving this new wave of drug abuse: an impression that prescription and non-prescription drugs are somehow safer. But in fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that accidental drug overdose deaths rose nearly 70 percent between 1999 and 2004. The increase was even more dramatic in teens and young adults: a shocking 113 percent rise.

How well do programs such as ATHENA and ATLAS work? McCarty says that at Stayton High School, teens participating on sports teams sign an athletic code at the beginning of the season, promising not to abuse drugs. Last year about 20 students violated the code and suffered disciplinary action. Only three have violated it so far this year.

Linda Ciampa is a registered nurse and freelance health writer.

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