Documentary review: 'Devil's Playground'

Over the weekend I had the chance to watch “Devil’s Playground,” a 2002 documentary on the Old Order Amish community and the first to provide an in-depth look at life in this endlessly fascinating subculture. It’s available at the Richmond Memorial Library in the documentary section, catalog #3147.

Director Lucy Walker follows four teens during their Rumspringa, which is basically a rite-of-passage in Amish culture.

At the age of 16, Amish youth are released from the bonds of the Amish community and allowed to experience life among the “English” (which is what they call mainstream society). After spending time in the outside world, they decide if they want to take their vows to join the Amish Church, thereby officially becoming adults in the Amish community, or break their ties with the Amish community and enjoy the benefits of “the world,” like cars, electricity, etc.

As you might be able to tell by looking at the DVD cover, not all of what they discover outside of the shelter of Amish culture is good or healthy.

Think about this for a second: These young people grow up in a setting with very strict rules, staunch religiosity and virtually – if not absolutely – no use for any modern conveniences of any kind. Now, at an age at which their hormones are in an uproar, they are exposed all at once to the temptations and pleasures of parties, drinking, cigarettes and drugs. Now if this isn’t a recipe for disaster, I don’t know what is.

According to the film, over 90% of Amish teens return to their home communities and join the Amish Church – and, in fact, as of 2002 the Amish community had the highest retention rate since the order was founded (I don’t know how much that has changed since then, if at all). Some of these teens, on the other hand, choose to make lives for themselves within mainstream society. And then there are those of them who, unfortunately, get into some harmful stuff. If you watch this movie, you will see Amish teens smoking a lot, getting drunk, using drugs and, in one case, getting into the drug-dealing game.

I might not mention this if not for the fact that we have some Amish/Mennonite communities in this area – there are none in Genesee County, but I know that Orleans and Wyoming are home to such communities.The work of GCASA’s Prevention Resource Center, which helps to foster other community coalitions in the Western New York area, was also a factor in my decision to post this review on GCASA Cares.

One of the things the PRC folks are always trying to keep in mind is that different communities have different needs and that even if they are experiencing problems similar to those in our community, they may have their own unique risk and protective factors that require attention.

Alcohol more dangerous than illegal drugs, according to UK study

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng wrote an article entitled "Study: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine," which was published on Yahoo! News on Monday, Nov. 1, at 7:54 a.m. ET (so I guess it's not really news at this point, but it's still important).

The article covers the results of a study that was published online in the medical journal, Lancet. Funded by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, this study was designed to assess the dangerousness of various drugs/substances. Researchers determined final "scores" based on harm to individuals, environmental damage, how often families are broken up, and crime and health care costs.

On the whole, alcohol surpassed all other substances. Cheng noted that "[e]xperts said the study should prompt countries to reconsider how they classify drugs."

I haven't read the study itself, so I'm not sure if it was restricted to the U.K. or included other countries as well. If it was strictly a U.K. study, it may be that the enormity of the problem is due, at least in part, to Britain's deregulation of alcohol (see Oct. 15 post). Personally, I would not be too surprised if similar results were found in the U.S. -- but, to be fair, the differences between our countries in this area should be kept in mind.

For the whole article, click here.

Current popular song contains a number of coded drug, drinking-and-driving, and other unsavory references

This song by Far East Movement is very popular among high school students right now. It made #2 on the charts recently, if I'm not mistaken.

See the Urban Dictionary for definitions of terms used in this video -- especially G6 (which has many very disturbing definitions -- in fact, I'll give you the direct link to that right here), 808 and sizzurp.

GCASA celebrates the Great American Smokeout

Psych professor and students to have paper published on "big pharma"

Here is a link to a piece on the research study that Brent D. Robbins, PhD, of Point Park University, recently did with two undergraduate students in the Point Park psychology department.

Dr. Robbins is actually a former professor of mine. I took his Social Psychology class as an undergraduate at Daemen College. He is a brilliant man with a lot to offer the field of psychology.

He and his students are dealing with the over-medication of children, which relates to our concerns with the abuse and/or overuse of over-the-counter and prescription medication.

Click here for more...

GCASA staff member makes the news with William Morgan thriller

As we all know, one of our own had a book published in August.

Tom Talbot, our grant writer and data evaluator, put his academic background in history and prolific writing experience to work in penning "The Craft: Freemasons, Secret Agents, and William Morgan," a historical thriller based on the disappearance of famed 19th-Century Batavia resident William Morgan.

Chad Zambito (Jen's husband) just recently sent out a press release to local media. The Daily News will likely be doing an article soon; in the meantime, Tom was gracious enough to consent to an interview for The Batavian.

Go to http://www.thecraftthebook.com/ to learn more about the book. You might also want to check out Tom's blog, Tom's Book Pages, where he writes book reviews.

Photo taken by Jen Zambito

Coalition member's nephew-in-law has high hopes for Attica teen center

There are many reasons for teen drug use, and we would be hard-pressed to trace so complex a problem to just one factor.

However, many times the motivation to use is very simple: “There’s nothing else to do.”

This tends to be a problem in poorer, urban communities, but also in rural areas such as those that surround Batavia. Take Attica, for example. How often have we heard youth lament the fact that there is just “nothing to do in this town?”

The Drug Free Communities (DFC) Coalition has, of course, worked hard to engage young people in positive activities towards which they can channel their energies and attention, and it is very important that we encourage any such effort in our region.

The reason I’m talking about this is that Attica resident Wittnes Smith, whose wife is the niece of Coalition member Mary Ellen Wilbur, is hard at work trying to get a Teen Center started in Attica. It’s called Club ALT – as in alternative (to negative behavior) – and will be open to 6th-12th-graders in Attica and all surrounding areas. This is a very ambitious project that would have something to offer just about every teen, regardless of his/her interests.

As a per Diem correspondent for The Batavian, I was recently asked to write an article on Wittnes’ efforts to raise funds for the project. I hope that we here at GCASA, and anyone else who is interested, can in some way help to support his mission.

Click here to read more about it.