Substance abuse is at an all time high in schools

After just graduating from our school district, I was able to see that we have a problem in our town. My name is Cameron Cardinale, a Steinert graduate and candidate for the Hamilton Township Board of Education. I have come to notice that our town is facing a substance abuse crisis. It is way too often that we hear of a young person dying from an overdose.

It’s in our schools, and it’s growing at an alarming rate. The New Jersey Department of Education found 48 cases of substance abuse in the Hamilton Township School District in the 2015-16 school year, which is their most recent report. So how did we compare to the rest of Mercer County? Well we were actually at least four times higher than any other town in Mercer County. The towns that were next up were Trenton and Ewing, tied at 12 cases of substance abuse. Hamilton Township alone made up about 45% of substance abuse cases in all of the school districts in Mercer County.

This is not something that is decreasing or eventually going to fade away. In fact, since the 2013-14 school year the number of substance abuse cases in Hamilton schools went up by 30%. It is something that we all see getting worse and worse, yet nobody is doing anything to stop it.

The Board of Education needs to do more to fix this problem. We need to bring more community and parental involvement into our schools through a comprehensive plan over the next decade. Community groups need to be able to come into our schools to spread drug awareness and to let students know that there are places to get help. This is an issue that needs to be vocally spoken about and addressed at board meetings by the members of the Board of Education. As of right now, it is not addressed enough, and if it isn’t addressed than it cannot be solved.

— Cameron Cardinale, Hamilton

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