Phil O’Hara, a one-time wrestling champion from Monmouth County, presented his “Steered Straight” talk on marijuana and vaping to a sparse audience of district parents at Haddonfield Middle School on Nov. 13.
The talk, offered first to a full house of HMS 8th-graders earlier in the day, was crystal clear: Ninety percent of substance abusers begin in their pre-teen and teen years (11 to 19) and the tobacco industry has been complicit in getting that target audience hooked with the so-called “safer alternative” to traditional cigarette smoking: vaping.
O’Hara began by acknowledging how he had existed for years on the edge of reality, taking as many as 20 pills a day by his early ’20s, and committing an assortment of petty crimes to feed an opioid addiction that started in his teens. His particular pathway was what he called an “allergy” to pills and alcohol, which normally suppress mood and reflexes. Instead, they energized him.
After several close calls with the law that failed to result in arrest, O’Hara saw the light, got himself into treatment, and, once cleared, wanted to give back by going into schools and talking about the dangers of drug addiction.
But O’Hara was deeply skeptical at first.
“When I was first presented with this information, I was a year and a half in recovery,” he revealed. “I was going to a funeral a month. When they told me I was going into schools to talk about marijuana and vaping, it was frustrating, like we were doing the wrong thing. But when this information was presented to me, how we’re getting kids addicted to nicotine at 13, 14, 15 years old, and how it’s leading to other addictions later in life, I was stunned.
“We were lied to; we were told that vaping was safer,” he added. “It just so happens that while tobacco’s revenue was going down because people stopped smoking, a ‘safer alternative’ happened. And now we have more people vaping than smoking.
“How many teenagers do you know that started vaping to quit smoking cigarettes? None.”
O’Hara then mentioned that R.J. Reynolds – still one of the largest tobacco companies in the world – is complicit in the vaping scourge.
“There’s also this lie that big tobacco is not involved — it is 100-percent involved,” he intoned.
According to statistics from O’Hara, the percentage decline among pre-teens and teens who smoked cigarettes was accompanied by a sharp rise in the number who turned to vaping. In 2001, 28 percent of that group smoked cigarettes, dipping to just 10 percent in 2016. While only 32 percent admitted to vaping in 2016, their number has skyrocketed to nearly 80 percent in 2019.
O’Hara also reported that as of this year, there were 8,000 documented cases of vaping-related lung issues. According to the latest CDC report issued in late October, there have been 34 deaths in 2019 alone related to e-cigarette or vaping associated lung injury (EVALI).
O’Hara also drove home the point that nobody can truly tell if a person is addicted just by looking at them.
“I was a very good kid, a very good athlete and I ended up a criminal for a good portion of my life,” he acknowledged. “And even during my criminal behavior years, I still was a good kid …
“I am your child; I could be anyone and it could happen at any point.”
HMS Principal Tracy Matozzo said she will work with teachers Daria Resnick from the middle school and Haddonfield Memorial High School’s Mike Romea, to bring O’Hara back for a talk with 6th- and 7th-graders.
Before departing the forum, she offered the following advice for parents to take back to their kids.
“Be mindful of peer pressure. Be mindful of what happens when you feel insecure,” she warned. “Be mindful of what happens when you have things going on at home and you can’t manage your emotions.
“Most of the time, those are the life experiences that have led students to us.”
For more information on Steered Straight and what it can offer parents, children and schools, visit: steeredstraight.org.
