More than 400 teens attend Youth Summit at MCCC
MONROE — Drugs, vaping, alcohol, sexting, bullying and mental health were some of the topics covered at Tuesday’s fifth #iMatter Youth Summit at Monroe County Community College.
Attending were more than 400 members of Student Prevention Leadership Teams from 12 school districts: Airport, Bedford, Mason, Dundee, Ida, Jefferson, Monroe County Middle College, Monroe, Orchard Center, St. Mary Catholic Central, Summerfield and Whiteford.
The summit included breakout sessions, lunch and hands-on activities like breathing exercises, dance therapy, body image activities and yoga. There was even a rap contest.
Jeff Yorkey, Monroe County prosecutor, was the main speaker. A lawyer for 30 years, he’s also a dad. Yorkey began by talking about anxiety, because that’s often the impetus for dangerous behaviors.
“Twenty percent of people with anxiety also have substance use disorder,” Yorkey, 57, said. “Every generation goes through anxiety. You guys have anxieties. You have it way worse than we did. With the pandemic, you had to sit home by yourselves. Your relations with other people and your world shrunk.”
Yorkey told the students he wasn’t going to give them statistics. Instead, he showed them the consequences of some of today’s dangerous behaviors, like vaping.
One of his slides showed photos of healthy lungs and lungs damaged by vaping.
“The white area is damaged area of the lung tissue. That’s irreversible damage,” he said. “If you have lungs that look like that already, that’s a scary thing to see.”
Another slide listed the chemicals in vape products. The list included antifreeze and paint solvent.
“You have to use your brain (on a job),” Yorkey said. “Substance use makes it a lot more difficult to succeed in these jobs. This is the damage you’re doing to your brain, the brain you need to make a living. You’ve got to think about that stuff."
Yorkey also warned against sexting.
Teens texting explicit photos to a boyfriend or girlfriend is common and can have criminal and embarrassing consequences.
“You think you’re in a trusting relationship; you trust them implicitly. But if someday you guys break up or get mad, they have these pictures. They show their friends. It happens all the time,” Yorkey said. “Anything that you put on social media or your phone, every picture you’ve ever taken, someone can find it. All those images are somewhere in cyberspace. Law enforcement might have to look at those pictures. Your parents might see them. Think about that stuff,” he said.
All forms of bullying have long-lasting effects on victims, Yorkey told the students. He showed a video of a man speaking before his alma mater’s school board. When in school 35 years earlier, the man was bullied and physically abused because his last name is Gay. Some bullying even came from adults.
“I got the .45 out of my father’s drawer; I put it in my mouth. Nobody in the school system helped me,” the man said in the video.
“The things you do to other people, it stays with them forever,” Yorkey said. “Stand up for the people in this world who can’t necessarily do it for themselves. Be a leader. Stand up for yourself. That’s the most important think you can do in life."
After Yorkey’s presentation, Monroe Police Officer Adam Theisen and Ryan Nelson from the Monroe County Intermediate School District put on sparkly suit coats and hosted a game show. Three schools at a time were pitted against each other to answer questions about nicotine, alcohol, vaping and other drugs. The show also included several interactive games that used high and drunk goggles.
One question showed a prescription pill next to a drug and asked which was which. Both were similar.
“Don’t trust your eyes to determine if it’s real,” Theisen said. “One pill can kill. These dealers get their own pill presses to sell on the streets. They want you guys to get addicted and keep coming back for more and more.”
Another question asked if drug abuse is a disease or a choice.
“Using might be a choice, but once you go down that path, it’s a disease,” Theisen said. “It changes the wiring in your brain, marijuana included. Name me one person who smokes marijuana who can go a day without smoking it.”
In one of the games, students had to do 30 seconds of cardio exercise before trying to pick up ping pong balls using straws.
The cardio mimicked the effects of vaping. Bedford students won, picking up 18 in one minute.
“Someone has not been vaping, clearly,” Theisen said. “Coordination is affected. Your motor skills (suffer) when you’re high.”
In another game, students wore marijuana goggles and played a large Connect 4 game. Ida students won the first game; Summerfield, the second.
“See how much faster someone who is not high can do things,” Theisen said.
The students wearing the goggles reported that the yellow and green discs appeared to be the same color. Others said things looked blurry with the goggles. One student felt dizzy.
Student Prevention Leadership Teams began at Monroe County schools in 2013. Participants are trained and then convey to their school peers the dangers of using drugs and alcohol, driving under the influence and other risky behaviors.
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The Youth Summit is offered by the Monroe County Substance Abuse Coalition and other local organizations.
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: More than 400 teens attend Youth Summit at MCCC
