The Clearfield Area School Board hosted a drug forum Wednesday evening in the Junior and Senior High School Auditorium.
The school board put together this forum hoping that educating the parents will help them be proactive when it comes to drugs.
The school board wants parents to have their eyes trained to spot signs of drug abuse in the community. Officials that participated included the Clearfield County Coroner and the Clearfield-Jefferson Drug and Alcohol Commission.
School Board President Larry Putt said of the officials, “I’m sure that they can give them really good information on what to look for, how to identify if someone is abusing drugs.”
The school board believes this issue effects everyone in the community. They want this forum to help parents get involved in the battle against drugs.
School Board Vice President Mary Anne Jackson explained,”If you’re not involved or you don’t think you have any connection with it, it’s easy to ignore. But we know that isn’t the answer. We want to raise awareness, get people looking around. See something. Say something.”
One of the tools in the fight against drug abuse is the life saving drug, Naloxone. Clearfield County Coroner Mike Morris doesn’t think just reviving someone is enough to keep them clean.
He said, “We need to have some teeth in that law where if we save you, you’re required to either pay for the services or follow-up with treatment so that you can battle your addiction instead of going back to the same problems you had before.”
Morris believes more needs to be done to motivate addicts to get help.
He explained, “A lot of people want to change their lives and go to rehab but some people need that extra push.”
Morris says he wants fewer cases where a person was revived on a Friday, but then found dead from another overdose on Sunday.