No place for drugs

CHILLICOTHE — He used to think there was no one in the world just like him.

Dustin Baker would look around at his friends and their parents and see their nice clothes and cozy homes, their refrigerators stuffed with food and cars that actually ran. He watched as their families cried together at disappointments and hugged at the joys. And he compared it with his own life.

“We were angry and hungry and hurt and arguing and always moving, and there was all this yelling and hitting and drinking and drugs,” said Baker, a 16-year-old junior at Huntington High School, southwest of Chillicothe. “I don’t want that life again. Ever.”

So there he was Friday, standing on the steps of the Ross County Courthouse with his friends, leading more than 2,200 high school students jammed together in the street below in a chant about how they all are one. These teenagers, from all eight high schools in Ross County and from Circleville High School in neighboring Pickaway County, are just like Baker now.

They come from varied backgrounds, and each may have a different personal story, but the students who marched from Yoctangee Park though downtown Chillicothe on Friday are alike in that they have pledged to live drug-free lives and submit to random drug testing to prove it.

Together, the students who make up this local and largest chapter in the country of Drug Free Clubs of America stepped forward Friday at their second annual rally to say to their community that the drug epidemic swallowing the nation ends with them.

They carried signs with sayings including, “No dope, more hope” and “Hugs not drugs.” They danced and sang and celebrated promises to live sober lives. And they leaned on one another and cried as students took the microphone and spoke of parents who use heroin, of friends who overdosed, of families shattered.

Sarah Hayes, a 17-year-old Huntington High junior who is a leader in this Ross County chapter that calls itself MADE — My Attitude Determines Everything — said the students are changing the culture in a community ravaged by drugs. Ross County was 10th in the state last year for its overdose death rate of 32.8 per 100,000 residents (40 fatalities in total).

“Parents of our generation are struggling with addiction and kids are lonely,” Hayes said. “MADE has become a family. We stand with one another ... to literally break the chains of addiction. It sounds cliche, but we really are changing the future with our decisions.”

Drug Free Clubs of America serves about 7,600 students in Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia. But the Ross County chapter is by far the largest, said Angie Ferguson, the Cincinnati-based nonprofit group’s executive director.

Generally, about 24 percent of a student body signs on to the program. Countywide in Ross, about 60 percent of the high school students belong to MADE. Ferguson called that remarkable. But she said what’s happened at Huntington High, where 86 percent of the 264 high-school students belong, is nothing shy of extraordinary.

“That’s a culture shift,” Ferguson said. “The environment has been changed and a belief system for a drug-free lifestyle, one that they will carry with them when the random drug tests end and they go off to college, is being built.”

Students pay $10 to join MADE, but the per-student fee to cover the cost of materials and drug testing is $67. In Ross County, two local businessmen, Chris Scott and Dave Huggins, rallied the community and last year raised more than $100,000 through events such as what will now be an annual, 24-hour relay race called the Buck Fifty to cover all of the local MADE program costs.

MADE is an incentive program: some teachers give bonus points, there are open-gym periods at school, and candy and treats and weekly coffee gatherings. Almost 60 local businesses offer discounts for those with membership cards. That’s just the hook, though, to get kids to join, said Anita Rogers, the guidance counselor at Huntington High. It is the support of one another that keeps them in.

“Once the MADE members became the majority, then we were talking about a different kind of peer pressure,” said Rogers. “These students lead the program and set the tone, and they’re changing lives because of it.”

In the program, everyone is drug tested when they join, and then a computer in Cincinnati randomly generates names for drug testing five times each school year. The students are called out of class and tested right at school. The group’s executive director is the only one to receive the results, which are then given to the student’s parents along with resources for help, if needed.

A positive test requires the student to return their membership card, but it can be reinstated with a clean test. And because students come and go to various MADE events, no one ever really knows who is in and who is out.

Baker said the threat of drug testing gives kids an out.

“MADE is a spine for you,” Baker said. “It’s a way to tell people, ‘I can’t do this.’”

He said he thinks so many kids are joining the club because they are tired of watching their families and friends struggle. Tired of watching drugs erode their hometown. Tired of being told their generation has no hope.

The Friday rally, though, was nothing but hope. It was a raucous celebration of living drug free. After the hour-long event wrapped up at the courthouse, the students marched back to the park, where they were treated to lunch and a free concert from country music singer Shane Runion.

Baker sat around and relaxed and listened with his buddies. He hadn’t shared his story on the stage Friday. But he’s told it before and it never is easy. Since it comes from the heart, though, he hopes it helps others.

“People respond if you’re sincere,” he said. “It sends a message that we can separate ourselves from what everybody else around us is doing.”

Life is good for him these days. His father is sober; their lives are stable. He plays football and got all A’s for the first time last year. He plans to go to college and become a doctor.

Baker said being a student leader in MADE also has taught him more than a little about himself.

“It has taught me to stand up for myself and for others and to use my voice.” hzachariah@dispatch.com @hollyzachariah