A Growing Community Equals Growing Number of Teens Experimenting with Drugs through Vaping

(Rutherford County, TN) Protecting the safety of school students is a top priority for school administrators and as the number of Rutherford County Schools grow, so do the number of School Resource Officers. Today, there are 51-brick and mortar county schools and 1-virtual school, which means at least one law enforcement officer at each school.

Rutherford County Sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Culp has been a School Resource Officer for 22-years and the first school he served in was Barfield Elementary… When Culp started at Barfield, it was a K thru 8th grade school, today it is a K thru 5th grade school.

Over the years a lot has changed within the community and within our local schools, but one thing has remained constant - - teenagers and their decision-making capabilities. Information posted by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry summed it up best when it comes to a teens developing brain, “…the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that controls reasoning and helps us think before we act, develops later.” In layman’s terms, this equals teenager’s acting on impulse and making bad decisions.

One of the many bad decisions made by teens revolves around the decision to smoke, drink or try drugs. Records in history document youthful drug users in the 1920’s and 40’s, but national media reports from year’s past point to the 1960’s as the real start to hefty drug use by juveniles.

Today, some of the biggest problems that School Resource Officers are seeing… What teens put into the vape is part of the problem… Similar to the ‘60’s, marijuana continues to be one of the most popular choices when it comes to teen drug use. THC, which is the chemical responsible for most of the psychological effects of weed, is what a lot of juveniles are smoking in vapes.

Parents need to be aware of what their teenagers are doing, or perhaps vaping in this case. You can learn more about teen vaping by visiting DrugFree.org.

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A Growing Community Equals Growing Number of Teens Experimenting with Drugs through Vaping

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