001Uh mute everyone. Just make sure you're muted until it's your time. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. I am Mr. Davidson. I am the principal of the freshman academy. This event, the freshman forum is typically just for freshmen, but given the circumstances this year, it's a little bit different. So, we're excited that you all could join us today. We have an excellent program ahead of us. Um, and it's really to raise awareness about teen and teen drug and alcohol use. Um, it's usually at night just for ninth graders, but this one um will be recorded live here and also put on the website for you to view at a later time. Um, the guest speaker I'll introduce soon. Um, first of all, I want to remind everyone that at the end
002of the program, um, you'll need to click on a link in order to complete a survey so we can collect information about you, um, to use, uh, for future presentations so we know who's actually here. So, your Mentorlex teacher will share that with you. I want to thank the uh, committee that put this together. First off, Terry Budlong from MCCA, Miss Daniels, Miss Lewis, our crisis counselor, and Mrs. on deck school counselor in the freshman academy. So I don't want to take up too much time. So our first person I get to introduce is the president of the teen leadership health council Kazzy Beum. Thank you Mr. Davidson. Um as he said I'm the president of the teen leadership health council. And just a brief introduction about the club. Um we work in Danbury High
003School and across Danbury in tandem with Abbott um tech as well. and we focus on promoting mental health awareness as well as awareness about um teen drug uh use and abuse which is what we'll be focusing on in this forum today. So again, if any freshman want to join our club um feel free to do that. You can contact me later after or find out from your counselor. But um we do a lot of great work. Um and without further ado, I'd like to introduce our speaker for today. Our speaker is Dr. Sanuchi. Um she has been recognized by Yale University School of Medicine for her outstanding teaching and has received the award for exemplary performance as a clinician and educator. She's currently the chief medical officer at Greenwich Hospital and I'd like to introduce
004her to all of you guys and hopefully you guys receive her with a well warm welcome. Thank you so much. Hi everyone. I think we're going to go right into the program and um Miss Daniels, if it's okay, we can pull up the slide deck. It's truly an honor to be here today. And what we're going to be sp speaking about at the annual freshman forum is focusing on Next slide, please. We're going to be focusing on the effects of drugs and alcohol on the adolescent brain. And this is really science. And we're going to bring science into each and every one of your homes during an incredibly difficult time period in the world, but an amazingly exciting time period for each and every one of you as freshmen in high school. So some of
005the talking points that we're going to hit upon are the science of the adolescent brain, the impact of underage nicotine, marijuana, and alcohol use on the healthy development of your brain. We'll just speak very peripherilally about vaping hazards. We will speak about the consequences of underage drinking that may result in emergency department visits. and I'm a pediatrician who practices in pediatric emergency medicine and I've been doing that for about 28 years. So unfortunately have a lot of experience with that. And then I would like to share as a pediatrician, as an emergency medicine physician, and also as a mom, what it's like when you're making a phone call, when you see an adolescent come into your emergency department who's had an unoured effect from the use of drugs or alcohol. Next slide, please. So a
006little bit about the adolescent brain. Normally I would ask and we would normally be in the auditorium. What age group do we care for in pediatrics? And I can share with you that generally we will care for children up until the age about 21. And that's kind of interesting because those are really young adults. But one of the reasons why we care for people in that age group is and it's birth up until about 21 is because the brain is still developing. And it may come as a little bit of a surprise to some of you and even to your parents when your brain as a teenager is fully developed and in particular the frontal part of your brain. When is that actually fully developed? And we can go to the next slide. The frontal
007part of your brain honestly is not truly developed until about 25 to 27 years of age, which is really kind of crazy. But that fact in conjunction with what we're talking about today, the effects of drugs and alcohol on the adolescent brain is so important to understand because first of all, what we have to hit home is what's special about your brain. And if I were going to give you a really short answer, I would say as a 58-year-old person, everything is special about your brain. And you're able to do so many more things than what I'm capable of doing because of what your brain is made of, how it's functioning anatomically as well as physiologically as well as neurochemically. There's just so much going on there and it's still growing and evolving and pruning
008and setting down networking and there's just so very much that's going on. And one of the major points of this talk and this entire afternoon is that certain toxins and toxins would be things like drugs, marijuana, alcohol, what's found when we vape, those are toxins which will interfere with the healthy development of your brain. We can go to the next slide. So your brain continues to grow and to develop, some will say up until 27 years of age. As we discussed, you can learn things incredibly quickly. The reason why you can pick up another language much more quickly than a fully developed adult can is because of this fact. Because your brain is still growing and evolving. There are connections that are being made, neurotransmitters that are firing, nerves that are being laid down. There
009is this constant rewiring. And when there is something like a toxin that your brain is exposed to, there's an interference, an interruption of these processes. there's an acute event that occurs which means in real time there's a consequence to the use of things like marijuana, alcohol, and other substances. But there's also a long-term effect. And if we were going to talk a little bit about science, the amygdala, a center of your brain that actually controls a fight orflight mechanism that you have when there's danger or fear, that's directly affected by drugs and alcohol. And the other major area of your brain that's affected by these toxins is the prefrontal cortex, which is the very front of your brain, sort of where your forehead is. And that's the center that allows you to make reasonable decisions
010to weigh risks against benefits and also to exercise what we call executive function. That would be stuff like algebra, trig, geometry, um if you're taking calculus in a year or two. So the prefrontal cortex is really affected by these substances. Next slide, please. These are just a couple of cartoons which are visuals of the brain. The side view or what we call the sagittal view is the view that you see on the left and the prefrontal cortex is way towards the left and that's where your forehead would be. As you move towards the right hand side, um what you're going to see is that sort of striped area that looks a little bit like a zebra. That's the cerebellum. That controls balance. That's also affected by toxins. Um, and in particular something like alcohol and
011your cerebellum that helps you control balance. The coronal view or the cross-section view that you're seeing there, um, you can see the amygdala. Um, the amygdala, they're um, they're bilateral and they look sort of like little red peas on either side. And just to give you a sense of the neuroanatomy of the brain, that's the area that controls your fight or flight or how you respond emotionally to things. And I think it's important for folks to know this is science. The effects of drugs and alcohol on you is really science and it's how these substances affect your brain. And one of the most important points I could share is that because your brain is evolving and growing and developing, it's much more susceptible to these effects. And you're much more susceptible to things like a
012dependency on these substances if you start using these substances early. So to give you a sense, something like alcohol, the legal age when we permit folks to drink is 21. That that's no surprise to anybody. um on on this on this conference. But if someone starts drinking at the age of 16 or 15 or even earlier than that, we know from recent data that there's a fourfold likelihood. You're four times more likely to develop a dependency. And why is that? It's because your brain is still developing. So these substances are interfering with the development of your brain. These substances are interfering with how you respond to the outside world. And what happens is your regular neurotransmitters, your regular neurochemicals, you're not responding to them in a normal fashion. You're actually requiring more stimulation from the
013outside world to get the same sense of satisfaction from certain things. And so you will wind up seeking out these drugs, something like alcohol, more than someone normally would if they hadn't been exposed to these substances. So this is really, really important. Next slide, please. This is a little bit crazy, but it's true. And this is data that we did not have when I was growing up or even when my children were young. But not only does alcohol, which is truly a toxin, affect how your cells function and affect how your neurotransmitters work, but when we use a modality like a functional MRI, when we track people over time, we can actually detect changes, structural changes in the development of the adolescent brain. and the brain will actually not develop as fully as it should.
014And if you focus your attention on the right hand side of the screen, the upper panel, you'll see within the cross-section and the side view of the brain that there's a little bit more dark in the center. That's the area, those are called ventricles where we have cerebral spinal fluid. The take-home message there. If you look at those three views compared to the lower pan panel, white is nerve tissue. Dark in the center is fluid. There's less brain matter when someone has been using alcohol for a protracted a prolonged period of time. So, sort of like if you're an athlete and if you haven't exercised or if you weren't eating a healthy diet, your muscles may not develop very well for your brain. If you're not feeding your brain appropriately, if you're actually poisoning it
015with a toxin like alcohol or marijuana or something else, this will affect the structural component of your brain. And we know that now scientifically and we can see this atrophy or this lack of development or impaired development of the brain. Next slide please. So some consequences of underage drinking because alcohol is a toxin. This is actually what happens if you drink too much. Your body's pretty smart and your body doesn't want to get hurt. So one of the reason why people will throw up while they why they will vomit after drinking your body actually says whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa what is this alcohol what the heck is this if this stays in our system if we absorb this this could actually affect my brain in real time if it's too much it can
016actually slow down my breathing and I can actually die as a human being so the body's response to that is to make that human being throw up. Okay, so that's one of the responses to alcohol. If someone's drinking alcohol and they're kind of spacing it out a little bit, they may have some difficulty with balance as we discussed with the effects on the cerebellum. People know sometimes they may say things or act a little bit disinhibited after drinking alcohol. They may take some unnecess unnecessary risks doing things they wouldn't normally do like drinking and driving. In a year or two or three, you may be going out to get your permit. You may not even realize that you had too much to drink, may get behind the wheel of a car and hurt yourself or
017hurt someone else. Um, so we see an increased incidence of things like motor vehicle crashes, falls. If someone drinks a large amount and there's a very high alcohol level, and I've seen this way too many times, you can have respiratory depression. And if someone's respiratory center is effective enough, what will happen is someone will actually stop breathing and that will lead to death. Next slide, please. There's so much about vaping in the media. Just a couple of slides on that. When folks are vaping, not only is this affecting your pulmonary tissue, your lung tissue, introducing all sorts of uncontrolled toxins into your lungs, but this is also affecting your brain in a very similar fashion to what we described with alcohol and other drugs. Next slide, please. So with vaping, you're affecting your brain, you're
018affecting your lungs, you may develop respiratory depression, respiratory distress, and using certain substances, drugs, alcohol, what we find, nicotine, and other substances within vaping devices, ecigarettes. You're much more likely when you start to do something like this early on in high school to develop a dependency because your brain is still developing and you're affecting how your brain is functioning and that's why that dependence is much more likely. Next slide, please. Okay, we pretty much discussed that so we'll go on to the next one. All right. So, a as I mentioned early on, um I am a pediatric emergency medicine physician and I work at Young New Haven Children's Hospital and I also work at Greenwich Hospital in the emergency department and I've been working in EDs across many states um for about three decades. And
019unfortunately, I've seen events like this far too many times. And what's the most amazing thing about today and one of the reasons why I believe this to be one of the most important things that I can do each and every year is we have an opportunity. You're here. You're listening to this information. Hopefully you'll share this information. We truly have an opportunity to affect change. And sometimes we don't always have that opportunity. I would like to share a situation that occurred a few years ago. It was a day in June that started off as a great day. There was a young man named Jeremy who graduated from high school. He was a star. Um, he was a star athlete. He was a star student. He had a full ride to college. He had his whole
020future ahead of him. Next slide, please. His family could not have been more proud of him. They had a little family graduation. This was before COVID. People were actually able to get together and be able to do that safely. Um, being a teenager, they weren't sure what to get him. Gave him a bunch of gift cards. He was pretty happy. Grandma and grandpa were absolutely thrilled. After the party ended at home, they had a little barbecue. He asked his mom and dad if it was okay to hang out with his friends. And they're like, "Oh my gosh, absolutely. Why don't you go out, relax with your buddies?" Next slide, please. So Jeremy was hanging out with a couple of his friends. They thought it would be a good idea. They had a little bit of
021weed. They had some pot. They went out. They had a couple of um fake IDs. They were able to grab some alcohol. Um, and they thought, you know what, we worked really, really hard. Let's just go. Let's chill. Let's just go to a park. We're gonna hang out. They climbed up on some rocks and they were sitting there smoking some weed, drinking some alcohol, and just reminiscing about the year that they had an amazing senior year and what was to come. An amazing summer, and then the start of college in the fall. Next slide, please. What no one could have predicted and happened on that beautiful June day, the same day that Jeremy graduated from high school was he was a little bit disinhibited. He was disinhibited from the alcohol. He was disinhibited from the
022marijuana. They were talking, they were laughing, they were smiling. Jeremy stood up. They started dancing. He got a little bit too close to the edge and he fell and he fell backwards and he fell about 40 feet and landed on some rocks in a supine position which means face up. He landed on his back on these rocks. He was awake and he was alert but he could not move. Next slide please. Jeremy was transported to our emergency department at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital. He We had advanced notice. We had everybody in the room. And this is actually what the room looked like. We had our neurosurgeon knowing what happened. We had orthopedic surgeons, anesthesiologists, radiology. We had protective services. We had our pediatric emergency medicine providers. We had our residents, our medical students. The
023room was full. nurses, texts, we were all there for Jeremy. We got his history, we did his physical, we had surgery ready and from all the standards of care. Everything from that moment on was done right. Everything was done correctly. Next slide, please. So, how can it be that everything turned out so wrong? The fact of the matter is the damage was done. Jeremy landed on his back. He sustained a major injury to his spinal cord. Jeremy was paralyzed and he would not regain the function of his legs. Jeremy, a young man who graduated from high school, who was supposed to go to college to play ball, who would have been a star athlete and a star student, is now wheelchair bound because of what happened one afternoon, one evening, the day of his graduation.
024Next slide, please. So, as a pediatric emergency medicine doc, as someone in that room, as someone who is a mom, I have a 24 year old and now a 19year-old, to walk out into the waiting room to share with a waiting room full of his family and his friends this devastating information that Jeremy is not going to walk again. The hopes and dreams of this young man, the hopes and dreams of this family. Perhaps if they had been armed with the information that your school that Danbury High School that this service is providing to each and every one of you, if they knew what you're learning today, might they have approached things a little bit differently? Next slide, please. I've seen Jeremy quite a few times in the emergency department since then. He was a
025ball of fire. He had a tremendous spirit before this had happened. His entire life has changed. He can't go to the bathroom by himself. He can't walk by himself. He can't get out of bed in the morning. And so hopefully when you're doing those things, even tomorrow morning, if you think about today and what you heard, when you get up and you're like, "Oh my god, that alarm is going off again. I've got to get up. I'm really kind of tired." When you put one foot on the ground and then that other foot on the ground and you stand up and you recognize the potential that you have and the future that you really have and what you can do and how amazing you are and how amazing your brain is, maybe it'll change your
026perspective on life a little bit. Next slide, please. This was a devastating event for Jeremy, but hopefully we can learn from something like this and he's allowed us to share this story. Next slide, please. Sometimes we can't change a trajectory, but sometimes we can. And with everyone who helped put this day together, I think everyone is hoping that we can change the trajectories of certain people and keep our students at Danbury High School safe. And so maybe we can intervene. Once in a while, we do get a second chance. A day like today, a partnership like this one with the high school and with the community, having a school that cares about you as much as your school does, having parents like your parents and your grandparents and your aunts and uncles who care about
027you. There's tremendous hope here. Next slide, please. What I would hope for you to remember is there's a power in just one. You have only one body. Please, please, please take care of it. You have only one life. Please respect that life that you were given. And you have only one brain, but may I tell you that it's an absolutely it's an amazing brain that's capable of so many things if you just give it a chance and don't hurt it. And think about the things that we spoke about today. It's an amazing brain. So, develop it and protect it. Next slide, please. Never, never, never underestimate the power of one. You can do just about anything. Stay healthy and take good care of yourselves. Next slide, please. And thank you so very much for allowing
028me to be part of today. Thank you, Dr. Sanuchi. We really appreciate you and the information you shared today. I believe we have some questions that were submitted throughout the presentation. Miss Daniel's going to put them in the chat and I can read them. I believe mistaken. Yes. Can you guys hear me? I am going to quickly read out the first question that was sent by several students who just uh watched the presentation and the question is in what aspects of life do marijuana and alcohol affect a teenager's life? So that that that's a very very good question and an astute question. It can affect every aspect of your life. So it can affect everything from judgment um to IQ. We have data that folks will lose about eight points of their IQ. Um someone
029who uses marijuana regularly um it's amazing data will have on average a one grade point reduction. So if someone could potentially be an A student, they have that natural innate capacity, that work ethic, they may be a B student or if they were naturally a B student, they may be a C student because of the interference of these substances in the functioning of your brain. Um whether it's the drive to study, to focus, um there are increased levels of inattention. So it's everything from cognitive ability to exercising good judgment to motivation and functioning well. It's everything. Good question. Thank you Dr. Sanuchi. The next question is since vaping, smoking, and alcohol is bad for you, why is it even being sold in stores? Ah, another amazing question. So, whoever wrote that question, um, I think
030you're going to go into business and focus in marketing, but hopefully you'll be different from some of the folks that we deal with today. So, what's that all about? It's all about money. It's all about profit. It's about drawing someone in. And these folks who are doing this are really quite wise. They're not truly thinking about the effects of these substances. what they're thinking about is personal gain. And they're also recognizing they're they're smart and they're going to have a lot of money. They're smart because what they're recognizing is if you're 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, if you start using these substances in that age group, you're going to need those substances later on. So once you're hooked on this, you're going to be hooked on this for quite a long period of time.
031So that's why having this information and not starting and not falling prey to these marketing ps. I mean if you look at vaping vaping um there is like unicorn blah blah blah or cotton candy flavor. I mean they're not marketing these vaping um flavors for a 70year-old. It's for our teenagers. It's even for middle school kids. And so this is purposefully being done. But you know what? I would venture to say if you're at Denver Danbury High School, you're smarter than that. And so don't fall prey to these marketing ploys. And that's what that is about. And that was an amazing question. Thank you. The next question is um whether or not communities are being targeted to vape and why do they target these communities? Hm. So I think I can answer that question in
032a couple of different ways, but certain communities are being targeted and I would say there are communities if you look at them from an age group perspective that age group is being targeted. There are other areas where from a socioeconomic perspective certain areas or communities are being targeted like an affluent neighborhood may be targeted and I would see that in a more affluent area whereas I have to say in a region that I work in like New Haven Connecticut or in Bridgeport vaping wasn't something that we saw very much but in other regions like southwestern Connecticut or upstate New York we will see that a little bit more because of afford affordability and so there are certain communities that are targeted depending upon what we're talking about. Yes. The next question is whether or not
033medical marijuana has the same effects as traditional marijuana. Um so medical marijuana um which is approved for certain illnesses whether it's the treatment of neuropathic pain or treating someone who has what we call hypermesis which is vomiting vomiting vomiting with chemotherapy. There are certain reasons why um some folks would be eligible for medical marijuana and those are very finite and specific situations but once again these are folks who are generally older who have a fully developed brain. One of the major points that we have to I think recognize today is we are talking about the utilization of these illicit substances, illegal substances in an underage population with a brain that is still forming that is so vulnerable to the injurious effects of these substances. Once a brain is fully developed, 25, 27 years old, I'm
034not saying run out and start to drink or run out and start to smoke marijuana. But what I'm saying is if someone goes to a wedding at the age of 25 or 27 and has a glass of wine, that's very different from someone drinking alcohol at the age of 12, 13 or 14. You develop a dependency much more frequently with that young developing vulnerable brain. When a brain is fully developed, you can have a glass of wine, you can go to a wedding, you can be at a family function, and that's it. And you're done. There's not that likelihood of developing a dependency. And this is science. It's neuroscience. It's feedback loops. It's the amygdala. It's what we've done to neurotransmitters over time when we start to utilize these substances, whether it's marijuana or alcohol,
035early on. So the utilization of medical marijuana, it's the same drug, but it's used in a very different and controlled fashion in the older population. Thank you. And the next question really has to do with access. Um, how are kids getting all this stuff if you have to be 21 years old or older to purchase? and then what efforts are being done in order to help make it less access accessible to teenagers. So I don't want to go into too much detail about how it's being accessed because I don't want to plant any seeds. But I think sort of the umbrella statement would be there are many people who are out there who will make themselves available to students, to young people, to folks who are somewhat vulnerable. And what does that mean vulnerable? you
036know, as a teenager, as an adolescent, I have to say, God's honest truth, I would not want to go through adolescence again. Um, it's kind of a it's an amazing time period in your life, but it's also a very challenging time period. There's a little bit of a discordance, a mismatch. You may have students in your class who are 6'2. You may have students in your class who are 4 foot nine. There's a lot of um variation and differences amongst students. The same way you can have that there can be a discordance between body development and brain development. And it's really kind of confusing to be a teenager. And so by and large, teenagers are susceptible to certain things. We as a teenager, if I were a teenager right now, would spend a lot more
037time in front of a mirror than I would as a 58-year-old because I'm really, really concerned as a teenager about my appearance, how someone perceives me. I don't want to stand out in a crowd. I just want to fit in. We know this about teenagers and so that's a stress factor. Um, you're in school. You're in school for seven, eight hours a day. Then you get homework at night. You, there's a lot of pressure. You may have pressure to work a part-time job, pressure to study. There's a lot that's going on. And at the same time, it's an amazing thing. You're growing and evolving and you're learning and you've got the the rest of your life ahead of you and tremendous opportunity. So there are adults who are very very savvy who recognize that there
038are a lot of stressors on the lives of teenagers and at least in the short term being introduced to these things, alcohol, certain drugs like marijuana, you know, in the short term, oh my god, oh my god, I I just smoked a joint. I actually feel kind of good. Oh my god, I just drank something. You know what? I'm not as worried about stuff as I was before. That's how it starts. But that is awful because that moment of maybe feeling okay will lead to another moment of maybe I need that and then that dependency evolves. I will share with you. You can feel really, really, really good about achieving something, really, really, really good about helping someone, really, really, really good about being on a team, whether that's an athletic team or some sort
039of a team or a club at school where you get the same neurotransmitters affecting your brain with a feedback loop making you feel very, very good. So kind of a vulnerable time period with adults who are assessing this situation and seeing it as an opportunity to introduce these toxins and then what are we doing about it as a society. It's what we're doing today and it's what we're doing by way of regulation and having you know people have to show their ID. You can't buy a a can of paint at Walmart without someone coming and checking your ID to make sure you're over a certain age group. So there is enforcement, there are regulations, but nothing is 100%. So we have to be 200% and make sure we're arming oursel with knowledge and knowledge is
040power. Thank you. Another question is that the use of marijuana is being legalized and spreading across the United States. Does that mean that marijuana is no longer addictive? So, it is addictive. That has not changed. And there are some folks um it's actually sort of interesting and that was um it's a complicated um question and a thought process. Some people think that if you legalize it in certain venues that folks won't find it quite as appealing. It's almost like when we were little kids and your mom said to you, "Don't don't touch that. Don't touch that vase. Don't don't touch it. Don't touch it." And what do you want to do? You want to grab the vase and then you drop the vase. Um, so that's the thought process there. Whether or not we're going
041to see an ill effect of that, I think is yet to be seen. And for someone, uh, a student asks, "How would you tell the difference if it's abuse? How do you know that you are at a place of abusing um drugs or alcohol? So what the embedded question is there is um when is it a problem? And I would say for the age group that we're speaking about it's a problem from the very first drink. You don't want to start. You don't want to introduce it. You don't want to be exposed to it. When is it considered abuse? When is it considered something pathologic? When there's something that interferes with your daily functioning, when it's something where you're craving this, it's something where you're thinking about this and it's something where you need it.
042That being said, I would say even occasional use can be a major problem. And we look at the case that we presented. This was a true case with Jeremy. Jeremy was not a drug addict. Jeremy utilized alcohol and he utilized marijuana on this afternoon. But because of the acute the real time effect of those substances on his brain, it changed the trajectory of his future. And so the question is an amazing one, but we've got to take the information in total and recognize the hazards of these substances. Thank you. Sure. And I think there were about two questions here just about responding to peer pressure. Um they're very similar um and they were upvoted. So, um, is peer pressure what makes most students, um, engage in drug and alcohol use? You know, I wouldn't honestly
043be able to say, um, if it's most students, but I would say that there is a factor there. And, um, you know, it's kind of interesting with regard to peer pressure. Um there may be an individual who tries to force something on someone else or wants to make someone feel like part of a group and to be part of that group you have to participate in a certain activity. I would venture to say, and I've seen this countless times, um, for any person who might be doing something like that and wanting to get someone to engage into something, there are probably 10 times as many people just like yourself who would like to say, you know what, thanks so much, but I really don't want to participate. I really don't want to do that. Um,
044and I've got other things that I need to do, and I I don't need that to have a good time. I enjoy your company just like it is. Um, and so I think if someone has the courage to say something like that, that person next to them, they have the courage to say that as well. Um, and something I didn't mention and I usually do, um, in addition to affecting your brain as it's evolving, there's a genetic component to all of this as well in terms of addiction and dependency. And for each and every one of us who are on this call today, we don't exactly know the extent of our genetic loading and which ones of us are more likely to develop a dependency or a need to have these substances. There is absolutely
045a genetic piece to this too. But the fact of the matter is, if someone has an addict addictive personality, if they never start to use marijuana at an early age group, we're not tempting fate and making that happen. If they're not starting to use alcohol at 14, 15, 16 years of age, we're not challenging that genetic coding, that DNA. And this is really, really important. And I can't tell you how many children, young adults, older adults in the m midst of COVID where it was all hands- on deck. And I was taking care of adults where they would come in the victims of alcohol abuse for 20, 30, 40 years and come to find out that their mom, their dad had a problem with addiction. They didn't know that when they were growing up and
046got introduced to alcohol. Um, and so that was another piece that I usually talk about that I think is just so important for folks to be aware of. Thank you. And the last question that I have is are there varying effects between different genders? So the effects of alcohol and drug use are there different effects amongst the gender? So that's kind of um a multi-layered um question. So there are effects from the standpoint of um who or what someone may be genetically in terms of personality types and things like that and levels of activity and propensity of things like attention deficit disorder and things along those lines. And so um alcohol may affect someone and make them much more outgoing and boisterous if they're a young man. and alcohol may make a young woman um
047just feel a little bit more relaxed but that may lead to that person getting into a little bit more trouble. So acutely there are behavioral differences that we may see. Um in terms of longterm the effects are really quite similar in terms of the effects on the body on the brain and we didn't even talk about things like the effects of alcohol on the liver and increased likelihoods of things like cerosis or even even hpatic cancer which is liver cancer. Um, and so there are many similarities, but there are gender nuances that are there as well. And I have to say, Terry, um, and and and Fallon, I don't remember us ever having these many intellectual amazing questions um, in prior years. This is really amazing. It's amazing. Thank you. I I'm also amazed at
048our students and I want to thank them as well for being very honest and candid and open and asking questions and not being afraid to to ask those questions that are on their minds and thank you for for answering them. Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. I'm so impressed. I'm so impressed. Thank you. Um so that's all I have for questions. So we're going to move into the the next part. I think that's Mr. Davidson's going to close us out. Thank you, Dr. Sanuchi for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come talk to us. We really do appreciate it. We had a record attendance this year. Thank you so much. We had well over 700 people at one point watching which is which is pretty awesome and it was going back and forth.
049So so really great turnout. So thank you all for coming. Um the freshman forum committee, thank you for the time that you put in to make this happen again. Kazzy, thank you for joining us today. Um stand together make a difference. Danbury substance abuse prevention council for bringing us this program. And ultimately, if if um if you guys fill out that survey, we need to make sure that we get as much information as we can so we can continue to bring this program to you. So, if you haven't done so, please fill that out. Um I want to lastly say if you have questions or you need help, please uh don't be afraid. Reach out to your counselor, um your family doctor, or a trusted adult. Help is out there and and we'll get it
050for you. You just have to to reach out and tell us that you need it. So thank you all.