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MERRITT HERALD FREE
TUESDAY, MAY 6, 2014 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
Results of 2013 Adolescent Health Survey in By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
LEADER OF THE PACK Approximately 160 Grade 7 students from across School District 58 convened on the fields at Nicola Canford on May 1 for the second annual knobby-ball tournament. The tournament is organized by the district to introduce Grade 7 students to one another before they enter high school in an effort to ease the transition. The tournament also plays into the district’s Aboriginal Education Enhancement Agreement. Students quickly learned that scoring in the centuries-old First Nations game is harder than it looks. For the full story and more pictures, pick up a copy of the Thursday, May 8 edition of the Merritt Herald. Emily Wessel/Herald
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The results of the 2013 Adolescent Health Survey (AHS) are in, and they show marijuana and alcohol use are above the provincial average in School District 58. Fifty-seven per cent of SD58 students surveyed indicated they have tried alcohol, which is higher than the provincial average of 45 per cent. It is on par with the survey from a decade ago which showed 58 per cent of students had tried it. Marijuana use in the district is higher than the provincial average, with 32 per cent of students in NicolaSimilkameen reporting they’d tried it compared to the provincial average of 26 per cent. Across the province, the most common age for first trying alcohol was 14, with nearly a quarter of respondents indicating that’s when they’d tried it. Merritt Secondary School principal Bill Lawrence said he’s noticed more issues with marijuana use at Merritt Secondary School than alcohol. “We had a real rash of it at the beginning
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of the year,” Lawrence said, noting over the past two months students smoking marijuana at school seems to have died down. “The main thing is you can’t learn when you’re high,” he said. He said he thinks the district’s higher-thanaverage alcohol use is indicative of small, rural communities in B.C. He also pointed out Merritt’s low rankings in socio-economic statistics and the prevalence of drug and alcohol use in the community as a whole. “Your school is a reflection of your community, for the most part,” Lawrence said. “And much of it’s a really good reflection. There’s a lot of really wonderful things about our community, but, definitely, I think we struggle a little bit with kids who get high and come to school, and kids who drink,” Lawrence said. Self-esteem reports in SD58 were on par with the provincial average in the survey, with 84 per cent agreeing or mostly agreeing with the statement “I usually feel good about myself.”
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