More Recent Updates from Partnership for a Drug Free America

  As I do every once in awhile, I have posted some of the more interesting and important blog posts from the last few weeks at the Partnership for a Drug Free America website/blog. Please take a look at the summaries below and click on the article link to learn more. Most articles are very short but contain some really good information that may be helpful to parents and students in our community. Thanks for reading!

Amount of Sleep Affects Sports Injuries click here! At Carlisle, we have a lot of students involved in sports and many spend several hours a day doing their sporting activity. This new study evaluated all sorts of factors and how they may affect injury rates and one of only the few factors that showed they may cause more injuries was lack of sleep. And in talking with many middle school students, I realize that several middle schoolers get less sleep than recommended for their age (8-9 hours a night). After reading this, I encourage you to talk more with your own children, maybe do more research, and make sure they have undistracted sleep (get those electronics out of their room!!)

California Suicide Prevention Websites Helps Everyone click here!  Great site with lots of information about suicide and suicide prevention. It will be a nice resource for me, but a great resource for any family or student who feels they may be at risk of suicide or having suicidal thoughts.

Bath Salts Causing Maine Parents to Give Up Their Children click here!  We see more and more news stories about these synthetic drugs and their effects. This effect, the effect of foster families increasing because parents are getting addicted to bath salts and not caring for their kids anymore, is maybe one of the saddest effects I have seen. Shows you the true damage to person, family, and society these "supposedly harmless" synthetic drugs are actually causing.

Prescription Drug Abuse on the Rise and Teens/Young Adults Causing It click here!  Prescription drug abuse continues to be the fastest rising drug abuse in our country. Easy to get for both adults and teens and found in almost every home. And it is being abused more and more everyday. This article shows a study that shows teens/adults from age 15-27 is the biggest population driving this phenomenon. Protect your medications and pay attention to how many you have and where they are!