The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
High school students drinking and smoking more…
The 2013 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey conducted in the valley by the Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project (GCSAPP) raised a few red flags with students throughout the valley. Executive director Matthew Kuehlhorn characterized the numbers as “not so good” in the Crested Butte Community School.
The Key Performance Indicators show an apparent increase in alcohol and marijuana use by Crested Butte high school students in the last year or two. The reported rate of use at the Crested Butte school is very high compared to the Gunnison High School and those in Denver.
The 2013 figures show there is a reported increase in alcohol consumption from Crested Butte Community School students that is significantly higher than other schools in the county and significantly higher than Denver public schools. The figures are compiled from surveys of the students.
“This is interesting as the reported rates of use have been decreasing the past several years,” said Kuehlhorn. “Now there is a reported increase. Why is this? In comparing 2011 data to 2013 data for just the high school-aged students in Crested Butte—a quick glance suggests this is not just a rowdy class. Remember, the numbers in Crested Butte are relatively small. So if a class had a rowdy group of students they can throw off the percentages significantly. In 2011 fewer 9th and 10th grade students reporting drinking alcohol in the past 30 days than those reported in 2013. For example, almost 100 percent of 9th graders in 2011 reported not drinking alcohol in the past 30 days. In 2013, 70 percent reported not drinking. This is significant. These will be our next-year sophomores.”
Ultimately, according to Kuehlhorn, this survey is a tool the community must take with a grain of salt. “There is opportunity here to address culture if we deem this to play into the behavior of our students,” Kuehlhorn said. “How are parents enabling, or not, student drinking choices? In CBCS, 85 percent of students hold a Choice Pass yet 57 percent of high school students report drinking regularly. There is inconsistency there and there are two people who sign the pledge each year.”
The recent survey figures show that 43 percent of Crested Butte high school students reported not drinking in the past 30 days. Meanwhile, 68 percent of Gunnison high school students reported the same thing. Denver high school students reported that 63 percent of the city high schoolers hadn’t consumed alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey.
Why the difference between Gunnison and Crested Butte? Kuehlhorn said location of where the GCSAPP staff lives might actually play a role.
“One interesting thing to note is that Brooke Harless worked with GCSAPP from 2008 to 2012,” he explained. “This seems to correlate with less alcohol and drug use in Crested Butte year after year until 2012. Then it rises. Is having a GCSAPP employee, who is awesome and loved by the town, living in Crested Butte enough to add an environmental factor causing behavior changes? Maybe. I know from living in Crested Butte many years and in the valley for more than 17 years, there is a culture in Crested Butte that promotes independence. Does GCSAPP come in and do things ‘to’ Crested Butte youth and parents? Is this perception real?”
Kuehlhorn thinks so. “We can only test this through conversation,” he said. “The question becomes: Is preventing alcohol use or any other drug use among youth important? If so, we as a community can address it together,” he concluded.
