Juvenile Drug Charges Have Increased Tenfold : Law enforcement: Many teen-agers are using methamphetamine, which is cheaper than beer. But police work is more effective.

Criminal drug charges against juveniles have increased tenfold since 1991 because drug prices have plummeted, teen-agers have increasingly rejected a “just say no” philosophy and officers have cracked down on narcotics use, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

With dealers of cocaine and methamphetamine slashing prices in a cutthroat competition, both powerful stimulants have become affordable, and many teen-agers are choosing potent methamphetamine over alcohol, authorities said.

“It’s getting so you can buy methamphetamine cheaper than you can buy a six-pack of beer,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Kathy Kemp, who acts as police chief in Thousand Oaks. “There’s a real concern about some of our youth in this city. And if we don’t get a handle on it, we’re liable to see our statistics go right through the roof.”

Juvenile drug charges already have soared from just 46 in 1991 to 441 last year in the sheriff’s jurisdiction--Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Moorpark, Fillmore, Ojai and the county’s unincorporated areas.

“With the amount of drugs that are on the street, we ought to have that number,” Assistant Sheriff Richard Bryce said. “Drugs are kind of the root of all evil, so there’s been an emphasis in the field to make more arrests.”

Arrests are also up, Bryce said, partly because of an extensive, two-year training program where deputies learned how to spot users stopped for traffic violations or questioned about other offenses.

A larger sheriff’s budget has also allowed patrol cruisers to be staffed with two deputies, prompting more stops of groups of suspects. “At night, a two-person car is more likely to engage than a single-person car whose backup is 15 minutes away,” Bryce said.

Parents and educators are also increasingly calling for help, and deputies are training them on campuses and after school to identify drug-using youngsters.

Deputy Patty Dryer, an instructor in the sheriff’s Safe Schools program, said she has visited nearly every junior and senior high school in the Conejo Valley and a couple of elementary schools.

“We teach them that something that looks very innocuous--a Visine bottle, an eyedropper--may be something the child is carrying around to cover his red eyes from marijuana use,” Dryer said.

Officials in Ventura, Oxnard and Simi Valley said they are also arresting far more young drug abusers as the county follows a nationwide trend toward increased use by teen-agers.

In Simi Valley, drug arrests are up from 27 to 121 in three years. In Oxnard, arrests increased from 189 to 264 over the same period. And Ventura police reported an increase from nine to 39.

Oxnard Detective Gino Rodriguez, who is completing a two-year program that has helped more than 500 teen-agers arrested for using drugs, estimates that about 45% of students have used drugs by the time they graduate from high school in his city. And most of them first tried narcotics in the sixth or seventh grade.

“We’ve found the problem is a lot worse than we thought,” Rodriguez said. “The No. 1 problem is marijuana. Almost to the kid, they don’t perceive marijuana as a drug. After we put them through classes, they’re more aware.”

Methamphetamine is also popular, and cheap--less than the cost of a school lunch.

“Everything is two bucks,” Rodriguez said. “Kids can get a bowlful of marijuana or a good-sized rock of meth for two bucks. A hit of acid, what cost $20 a rock in the old days, is two bucks. That’s why alcohol consumption is down. Why buy or steal alcohol when you can go to campus and get drugs for two bucks?”

Ventura Police Lt. Pat Miller said drugs are prevalent on high school campuses around the county.

“Ask any kid at any high school and they’ll tell you, ‘It’s here,’ ” Miller said. “It’s easy to get and much more prevalent than it used to be.” One of Miller’s daughters, a Buena High School graduate, told her father last year: “You can get something every day if you want it,” Miller recalled. “I don’t want to indict Buena; it’s at high schools in general that it’s available.”

Some local educators say they have seen a dramatic increase in the use of narcotics, especially marijuana and methamphetamine.

At Ojai’s Nordhoff High School, administrator Susanna Arce said alcohol remains popular with students, marijuana is “all over the place” and methamphetamine--a cheap, highly addictive chemical known as crank--is frighteningly fashionable.

“Outside the school, the more pervasive problem is crank,” Arce said. “I look at it as a real serious problem. It’s more addictive, and it causes paranoia and violence.”

And to her dismay, Arce said, some young girls are even using methamphetamine to diet. “That’s been an issue lately,” she said. “But instead they end up looking like rakes. They look haggard and old. They can’t concentrate. And they’re spacey and darting.”

Camarillo High School Assistant Principal Kathy Greaves started a special drug education program for freshmen this year.

“There’s a problem on every campus,” she said. “I have definitely decided that this is a priority. From the school standpoint, if you want to deal with this problem, it’s there.”

Teen-agers themselves say drugs are so available and cheap that it is often easier to buy narcotics than to purchase beer.

“It’s really easy to get weed on campus. You can basically walk up to even preppy-looking kids and you’ll find it,” said Lu, a Camarillo High freshman who was a heavy user.

Marie, another Camarillo freshman, said the distinctive odor of marijuana often wafts across the campus.

“There’s people on the senior patio smoking it, or in their cars in the upper parking lot and the lower parking lot,” she said. “They do it at McDonald’s across the street. They just sit right out of the [restaurant] and do it.”

Increasingly younger students are becoming users, Marie said.

“I’ve used pot and acid and ‘rooms [mushrooms] and crank and cocaine and PCP,” the 15-year-old said. “And I’ve used lithium, to help you not come down so hard from crank.”

Although many students use marijuana and alcohol abuse is rampant, the girls said methamphetamine is not considered cool at Camarillo High.

“They like crank, but people make fun of tweakers, because it’s an evil drug,” Marie said. “It makes you look stupid.”

With the help of Greaves, both girls said, they had stopped taking drugs recently.

“It was overtaking my life,” Lu said. “I was failing school. I had problems at home. I was losing my boyfriend. I lost everything I had.”

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Juvenile Drug Charges

1991 1992 1993 1994 Camarillo 5 17 42 73 Fillmore 4 14 8 24 Moorpark 4 9 33 64 Ojai 4 4 23 20 Thousand Oaks 18 16 40 110 Unincorporated 11 24 48 150 Sheriff’s total 46 84 194 441

Source: Ventura County Sheriff’s Department