The need for a comprehensive statewide legislatively- supported comprehensive substance abuse prevention program for Middle School students has never been clearer. Policymakers and substance abuse experts agree that the Middle School period is a critical development period for our children as they face difficult challenges and choices in and around using and abusing illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

Parents, and all citizens throughout our state, have always been fully concerned, if not fearful, of this period for the children, but at his point of time, there is even greater cause for concern. The findings reported in the Attorney General's 1999 report, "Drug and Alcohol Use Among New Jersey High School Students" are more than frightening.

The Attorney General study was intended to construct an overall view of substance abuse by the state's high school population. The findings were obtained from several series of items in a survey instrument, which was administered to a random sample of, 2,851 tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students in forty high schools throughout the state. The findings included the following:

	About four in every five students (78%) report use of alcohol at some time in their lives.
	About one of every two students reports substance use other than alcohol at some time of their life. Of those students, slightly more than one of three have used marijuana (35.7%) of those reporting any drug use; 17.9% of the total sample.
	Marijuana is clearly the most illicit drug, with 42.3% reporting use at sometime in their lives; 36.8% reporting use in the past year, and 21.5% reporting use in the past month.
	Almost one-third of the students (32.3%) report substance use other than marijuana or alcohol at some time of their lives.
	The most widely used illicit drugs other than marijuana, are hallucinogens and amphetamines. Between one-seventh and one-eleventh (14.3% and 10.9% respectively) of the students report use at some time in their lives.
	Following hallucinogens and amphetamines of lifetime prevalence of illicit drugs are cocaine (7.2%), tranquilizers (6.3%), and barbiturates (5.8%).
	With the exception of marijuana, more students (5.1%) report use of inhalants in the past month than any other drug for which monthly prevalence data were obtained.
	While 5.1% of the students report using inhalants in the past month, the monthly prevalence for the remaining substances (hallucinogens, amphetamines, cocaine, barbiturates, glue, tranquilizers and heroin) is less than 5%.
	Almost one in every five students reports the use of inhalants as intoxicants, while about one in every nine students (11.0%) reports having sniffed glue at some time during his or her life.
	Heroin use is the most infrequently reported; 4.0% of the students report use at least one time in their lives.

It is abundantly clear that something must be done prior to the high school years in order to stem the tide of this proliferation of substance use and abuse.

Prior to the full implementation of the Rockaway Township Substance Abuse Program, a similar survey instrument was administered to the over eight hundred middle school students, with similar disturbing findings. Without a doubt, the findings of both surveys indicate a serious problem of substance abuse among the young people of our state, a problem that must be met with a comprehensive substance abuse program.

The Rockaway Township Substance Abuse Program Model reflects one community's collective efforts to organize as a partnership and provide preventive programs to our youth. The Rockaway Township Model is based on two foundational premises. The first premise is that drug prevention programs subscribe to a multitude of modalities. Everything seems to work a little and nothing seems to work completely. As such, the program reflects a full and comprehensive approach, taking the best of all known approaches and applying them not only to the student and family populations of the school, but to the entire school community. Faculty, administrators, staff, and community members are also included in the various components of the program. The second foundational premise is that the program must be administered during the eighth grade year since the vast majority of studies indicate that the summer between eighth and ninth grades is the time period of greatest threshold involvement with illegal substances, alcohol and tobacco.