A recent article in The Gazette, “Montgomery comes together against alcohol, substance abuse,” implied that county program budget cuts caused a backslide in the progress made in the fight against abuse.

Click here to read the full story.

I have said this before, and I’ll repeat myself: Montgomery County has no current teen risk behavior surveillance data on its young people, and therefore, it has no clue if budget cuts impact progress or not.  

I made this point in this blog post.

By the way, it would be wrong for me not to point out the history of the Maryland Adolescent Survey. Click here to read that history.

Like other school districts in Maryland, Montgomery County Public Schools participated in the MSA. Maryland’s last MSA administration, however, was 2007. So, it has been five years since any data on our young people and substance abuse was collected. That’s way too long a period for adults to be in the dark about what our teens are doing.

Wake up Montgomery County!

And until Montgomery County, and MCPS, commit to administering a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey on a regular basis, like other "civilized" communities do, whatever it says about teens and drugs and alcohol is just talk—talk that is not supported with statistics on how our teens behave.

Click here to read about the YRBS.