Happy Anniversary And Long Life To CSAW
This month marks the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Moapa Valley Community for Substance Abuse Wellness (CSAW), a local organization with the mission of increasing awareness, knowledge and recognition of the reality of substance abuse in the community. Last week CSAW founder and president, Bruce Whitney, gave an excellent presentation at the Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board about the efforts of CSAW in educating local residents, especially youth, on the dangers of methamphetamine abuse. Considering the obstacles that the organization has faced, it is somewhat remarkable what it has been able to accomplished.
Working with a meager budget and forcing discussion of issues that many people would rather not think about, CSAW has persistently stuck to its mission. The group offers weekly Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings in the community. They also offer support groups for the family members of alcoholics and drug addicts. CSAW has been very active in bringing educational programs about drugs and alcohol to the local schools. The organization is a sponsor-member of the state-wide Crystal Darkness campaign. As such it has scheduled and presented crystal meth awareness programs in the local middle school and will be bringing the programs to high school students later this month.
Much of the real legwork for CSAW has been done by Logandale resident, Bruce Whitney and his wife Sherrie. Having experienced the terror and pain of drug addiction with a member of their own family, and finding little or no local services to depend on for support, the couple has taken it as their mission to establish this local organization to provide these needed support programs.
Despite these significant accomplishments, however, the Board of CSAW often feels like a lonely voice crying in the wilderness. Living in the supposedly sheltered security of Moapa Valley, many people fail to recognize, or simply refuse to acknowledge, that significant drug or alcohol problems exist here; especially with local youth. Many local parents and even some youth leaders are hesitant to have drug prevention programs presented to kids that have no existing drug problems. They fear that such programs might expose their kids to something that would not have been introduced otherwise.
Drug and alcohol problems do exist in small towns like ours. In fact, problems are rampant in rural America, and they involve children at a shockingly young age. A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration study dealing with methamphetamine use in the U.S. cites the alarming fact that “…meth has become the most dangerous drug problem of small-town America. Traffickers make and distribute the drug in some of our country’s most rural areas. Twelve to fourteen year olds that live in smaller towns are 104% more likely to use meth than those who live in larger cities.” Make no mistake, the problem is very serious, it does exist….even here in the quiet and peaceful hamlet of Moapa Valley.
We are fooling ourselves if we think that our children are not being familiarized with these dangerous substances in one way or another; even those smart enough to say ‘no’. Our kids inevitably gain a working knowledge about these things through social interactions and casual discussions with peers. Indeed, they know about them in more detail and at a younger age than most parents would like to think about.
The real question is simple, then. Do we want our kids’ education about drugs to come solely from ‘the street’ with all of the inaccuracy of bravado, hearsay and rumor that this entails? Or should they be further informed by the cold, hard, frightening facts which come from a local group like CSAW; an organization which fully understands the depth and scope of the problem and which can also offer resources for support if problems do arise?
In the end it is surely preferable that local children should learn the truth about the danger of drugs and alcohol from CSAW than from the tragic road of hard experience. If they don’t learn the truth this way, there are countless, more malevolent, sources that will willingly give them a more painful first-hand eye-opener about the shackles of drug abuse. Though this may be a disturbing and unpleasant thought, it is the truth and it should be faced. We gratefully acknowledge the work of Bruce and Sherrie Whitney as well the diligent and dedicated CSAW Board made up of Moapa Justice of the Peace, Ruth Kolhoss; Tamara Woods; Nancy Perkins; Ute Perkins Elementary principal, Ken Paul; local psychologist, Jared Overton; and Pam Toulouse. We wish to appreciate their efforts on the CSAW fourth anniversary.
We also encourage community members to get involved and offer support to the CSAW organization. After all, drugs and alcohol are serious local problems. Yes they are even problems in Moapa Valley and; and grave enough that, in some way, they affect every single member of our little community.
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