Teen Drug Use in Chesterfield: A Student’s Perspective
In Virginia, teen drug use isn’t some distant statistic, it’s here, and it’s part of daily life. Nearly one in five teens in the state reports smoking marijuana within the past month, and Chesterfield County is no exception. What’s more troubling is how casual it’s all become. As a teenager myself, I see it every day: friends joking about coke in the bathroom, classmates scrolling Snapchat to score, people shrugging off drug use like it’s no big deal.
That indifference is what pushed me to dig deeper. I wanted to understand why youth drug culture feels so normal now, and what’s driving it. So I talked with county law enforcement, recovery groups, and other teens. What I found is both surprising and urgent: drug use is cutting across every background, fueled by easy access and a lack of real conversation about what’s happening.
Trends in Chesterfield Youth Substance Use
Our community has severely underestimated youth drug use. We continue to profile teen addicts as stereotypical drinkers and smokers from troubled households, oblivious to the truth that now, a wider range of teens are using more dangerous drugs, and at a greater frequency. A local narcotics detective states, “Drugs are honestly in every demographic, every race, every gender. We deal with people who have perfect lives at home, or would be considered the golden child and are still using drugs. Their parents might make a lot of money, but that means they have money to buy [drugs].” A local student also testifies how it’s the people “you would never expect, [like] stellar athletes” that are the most shocking users, making other teens feel like everyone’s doing drugs now.
Apps like Snapchat have created a large youth-distributing-to-youth network in Chesterfield, allowing any adolescent to access a wide range of drugs within economic and physical means. This easy access also explains the surges in adolescent use of common drugs like nicotine, alcohol, and marijuana, as well as greater experimentation with harder drugs and prescription drugs.
Especially following the decriminalization of marijuana in 2020, there has been a rise in the youth consumption of marijuana. Both Libbie Roberts, a peer recovery supporter in Chesterfield, and local narcotics detectives emphasize a rise in emergency events for youth cannabis overdoses, especially with THC vapes. Illicit stimulants have also begun to dominate teen drug abuse: according to a youth member of the county’s emergency medical response, “You’re going to [see high schoolers using] more cocaine, and stuff like ecstasy and LSD, [especially in] the west side of the county.” It’s important to note how these youth patterns differ from Chesterfield’s typical drug overdoses among adults from fentanyl or opioids, which is where most of the county’s focus on drugs is prioritized.
Why More Youth Are Using Drugs
For most youth users, drugs have become a necessity. But what problems do drugs alleviate in so many teens’ lives? According to Elizabeth Whitney, the leader of the addiction recovery group at The Chapel Recovery Group, the number one facilitator for youth addiction is trauma. Taylor Ingram, lead clinician at the Chesterfield Recovery Academy, adds, “A lot of kids don’t know how to cope and deal with those complex emotions,” so using drugs is a way “to really numb those emotions and get through their day.” Beyond trauma, a majority of young addicts have comorbid diagnoses. In other words, they suffer from depression, anxiety, PTSD, or another mental disorder, and turn to addiction to deal with the mental struggles.
Aside from internal stressors, the social environment surrounding teens in Chesterfield plays a critical role in encouraging youth addiction. Whitney describes how from a young age, addicts “are surrounded by people who are drinking or using, and then they start to use, and then they fall into those habits. They see their friends grow up and start families and come out of that, and they’re still stuck in them [and] they don’t know how to get out.” It doesn’t help that social media, one of the biggest communities influencing teens, is desensitizing drug abuse at the same time recreational drug use is becoming more popular with adults in suburban communities, like Chesterfield, especially among white-collar families. As someone who is surrounded by teens every day, I’ve seen how the normalization of drugs in the media and with adults creates dismissive attitudes in adolescents, keeping teens oblivious to many risk factors while making drugs more enticing.
Community Perceptions Shape Youth Drug Use
It’s disappointing to watch how many people in Chesterfield hear teen addiction stories and react with pitiful judgements. Even among other teens, young addicts are considered hopeless, their reputations irrevocably scarred. It’s this shame that makes recovery the real hopeless reality in our county. If getting help comes with facing these criticisms first, how are teen addicts supposed to be vulnerable and want to recover?
Whitney states: “I think the majority of the people don’t want to come into the church and expose themselves as an addict because there’s a stigma there. This is my church. I’m an addict. Those two things don’t go together. I’m going to hide it. So I think a lot of people aren’t capitalizing on the resources available to them. These people have to make that decision to park in the parking lot, walk through the building, and run the chance that they might run into somebody that knows them, and there’s just a lot of people that aren’t willing to do that.”
Unfortunately, this judgement doesn’t just reside in religious groups; family and other social supports may respond to drug use in ways that discourage struggling youth from getting help locally. Justin Savoy, the program coordinator of the Chesterfield Recovery Academy, describes how “Some families don’t really talk about feelings, or [feelings are] a stigma within families,” or how “facing the fear of judgement from staff” in schools holds many students back from finding help for their addictions. Avoiding sensitive or difficult topics in conversations does nothing to create an open community where teens feel comfortable and accepted.
Effective Solutions for Chesterfield’s Young Addicts
According to local narcotics detectives, programs like the Chesterfield Recovery Academy are working to improve youth recovery in the county. The county’s emergency response guidelines have also changed to approach overdose calls more holistically and humanely. Chesterfield has significantly helped incarcerated addicts re-enter the community with programs like the Helping Addicts Recover Progressively (HARP) program, which inspired greater initiative from other organizations, such as with The Chapel’s live streamed services in the Chesterfield County Jail.
However, what the community really needs is to address the denial around addiction. To create a proactive approach in youth substance abuse education, Whitney describes how “there needs to be more educational programs … to provide them with an understanding of what addiction really is.” While removing misconceptions about addiction is a crucial step to improving the community’s response, there also needs to be more education about how teenage drug abuse personally impacts unaffected citizens’ quality of life. Ultimately, people won’t care about youth addiction until it’s their teenage neighbor who fatally overdoses or their child who falls victim to drugs.
Beyond raising awareness, Chauncie Beaston, the founder of the Where You’re At Foundation serving Chesterfield and surrounding counties with harm reduction resources, also suggests adding more counseling in local schools for struggling adolescents: “Some kids don’t have access to therapy and things outside of school, or maybe their parents don’t allow it, or don’t have time to take them. So having those things available in school, where [students] are already going to be, is where we really need to focus.” The need for addiction resources in schools comes from the lack of space in preexisting recovery opportunities in the county. Roberts also mentions that “There is a tremendous shortage of treatment programs that accept juvenile participants” in Chesterfield, which just adds to the capacity barriers making teen recovery unachievable in our county.
Given the conversations I hear around me, it’s apparent teens need better drug education too. Most of my peers don’t understand the impact drugs have on their developing minds—and futures. Beaston highlights the potential benefits of implementing personal and real life perspectives in addiction education for youth: “We need to really have drug education in schools that is put on by people with lived experience, rather than cops, politicians, people who have never gone through it. I think that kids could be better educated and get real answers [that are] not just fear based.” Schools have the greatest access to a concentrated population of youth, and yet it’s frustrating as a student to see how the county’s current drug education, consisting of a yearly flier on opioid use, wastes this opportunity to educate them. Lowering teen addiction rates in our community starts with schools giving quality drug education at younger ages around real testimonies, from actual addicts, to portray the difficult realities of addiction.
These issues emphasize the critical need for more specialized programs, including religious recovery groups, in our county. Whitney emphasizes how there are members of the Chapel’s recovery group who drive up to 40 minutes for each meeting to “walk in their sobriety and recovery with Jesus,” demonstrating that while general support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous offer purpose for addicts, religious-centered support groups can offer a more spiritual or personalized path to recovery. With recovery being such an individual experience, it is essential to create more opportunities like these for teens to best serve youth coming from a variety of different backgrounds and struggles within our county.
Ending reckless teen drug abuse starts with building a county that allows adolescents to turn to the people for support, not drugs. Although I recognize that there are teen addicts who are resistant to addiction resources right now, it’s important to have an open community to support them when they are ready for help. Creating this initiative requires a revolutionary change in Chesterfield’s attitudes, starting with volume: the more people who care, the more effectively the community can act against addiction.
— Isabelle Lee, Youth Coalition Member
Sources Cited
Virginia Statewide Needs Assessment on Adolescent Substance Use: Executive Summary