By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The good news is, on the whole, illegal drug and alcohol use among Barton County youth is on the decline. The bad news: Barton County rates remain higher than state averages. Marissa Woodmansee, Juvenile Services Director for the 20th Judicial District, and Tyler Morton, Juvenile Services prevention specialist, said current programs like Youth Crew and All-Stars are a cause of the declines.
"Our every wish is that they continue to go down," Morton said. "We've seen some of the dynamics have fallen off quite a bit as far as the data is concerned. People say, 'Why concentrate on this now?' It's because not only do we want it to fall off, we want to see it continue to stay off. We want to be really protective of the data we get."
Morton is working under a 10-year Youth Crew grant that addresses community awareness and substance misuse issues. The two substances identified as problems in Barton County were alcohol and marijuana. The Youth Crew and All-Star programs provide education to students in grades 6-12.
"The focus for our specific program is marijuana and alcohol use," Morton said. "We talk about a variety of different factors. Again, just trying to build a safe place for kids to come in and get some education, and also have some fun as well."
The state gets its data from the Kansas Communities that Care survey that goes out to students in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12. Nearly 23 percent of those Barton County students reported using alcohol in the past 30 days in 2019. That number has steadily decreased since, hitting just 11.3 percent in 2022. The state average has also decreased from 16.4 percent in 2019 to 9.2 percent in 2022.
Two-week and 30-day binging statistics, or students consuming five or more drinks on one occasion, follows a similar line across Barton County and the state since 2019.
Barton County students fell under the state's average of marijuana use in 2020 and 2021 though, at 4.9 percent in 2022, Barton County has now eclipsed the state rate of 4.2 percent. Barton County's vape rate continues to be two-plus points higher than the state rate, and the county's prescription drug misuse rate has remained under the state average for four of the last five years.
"What we do see for Barton County is we are still above the state rate, and we want to continue to move below that number," Woodmansee said. "I am hopeful with additional prevention programs being put in place, we will be able to do just that."