UNIVERSITY CAN APPLY ITS MISSION TO DRUG PREVENTION

By the time a young adult enters college, it's probably too late to begin efforts to alert him to the harmful effects of drug abuse.

But that doesn't mean the university shouldn't be at the fore in the battle against substance abuse.

Edward Leoni, chairman of the department of health and leisure at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, said the drug war must be waged on many fronts.

"People, when they come to college, want to experience a broader world," Leoni said. "So when it comes to substance abuse resistance, we have our job cut out for us."

Leoni believes the university's broader role is through its general three-fold mission -- scholarship, education and service to the community -- as applied to drug-abuse prevention.

The university, through the scholarship of its professors, can be a pioneer in introducing the most successful and innovative methods of drug prevention and treatment.

The institution then is able to pass on that knowledge to students and, in its community service role, the region at large.

"I think people have become alarmed about the drug problem," Leoni said. "In Cape Girardeau, we've seen drive-by shootings, murders. These are alarming events.

"I think a lot of people have stopped to look at what's going on, and realize that the solution to the drug problem rests in everybody's hands."

But where to go from here?

Leoni believes the community must focus its efforts on reaching the youth. Those youth must be instilled with a sense of community, a sense that they belong to a group.

"If people belong to a community, they don't want to lose that," he said. "You've got to get kids to buy in at a very young age that this place means something.

"If we don't let people feel like they belong, we're forcing them into the subculture of substance abuse."

The department of health and leisure recently sponsored a three-day event, "Youth Expo `93," that Leoni said embodied the multi-faceted approach to drug education that's needed.

The event included a panel discussion on substance abuse and entertainment and activities for youth. Youth Expo `93 was organized and managed by young people for their peers, Leoni said.

"If we do everything for them, the only thing they've learned is dependence," he said. "That's what we're trying to combat.

"We have to turn loose of the reins and let people solve their own problems. We can give them the resources, and we should encourage them and provide motivation, but I think we make a big mistake when we try to do everything for them."

While Leoni and the department of health and leisure provide resources that cultivate a community response to drugs, John McGaha, an associate professor of criminal justice at Southeast, heads a program that attacks the issue on a different front.

The "intensive case monitor program" puts criminal justice students in direct contact with children from the juvenile justice system under the supervision of the Missouri Division of Children and Youth Services.

"These are already delinquent kids, and the college students work intensively with them," McGaha said. "They check on them at curfew times, at school, with families, and also serve as a positive role model."

The program has operated for the past four years at the university. It's purpose is to keep the kids out of jail. "DCYS seems to think it's really been effective," McGaha said.

As someone who's worked in the field of juvenile law -- as both an officer and an instructor -- McGaha sees a different type of kid today.

"These kids are more sophisticated and more dangerous," he said. "Primarily that's because they generally come from a more disorganized family.

"There's a lot more violence in their families, and it's a harder breed to try to undo some of the damage that's been done to them."

McGaha said dealing with the troubled kids early is important. It's also an aspect of the system that need to improve.

"What happens now, we probably overreact with the ones we do identify, trying to make examples of them instead of helping, and we're missing a lot of kids in the process," he said.