Greene County SRO’s host parent academy on dangers of adolescent drug use

AFTON, Tenn. (WJHL) – The Greene County Sheriff’s Department along with the Greeneville Police Department, The Greene County Anti-drug Coalition and others came together to host the 5th annual Parent Academy “What Your Kids Don’t Want You to Know” event to inform parents about the many dangers kids face.

A big segment of the event focused on drug use. Guest speakers who are recovering addicts shared their journey with attendees.

Corey Greenway is a former drug dealer and a recovering heroin addict. He spoke about his background and how he is getting the help he needs.

“Don’t be naïve and think that it can’t be your child or it can’t be somebody that you know, because addiction doesn’t discriminate, whether [the] color of your skin, your background, none of that [matters] to addiction,” Greenway said. “So anybody can get hooked on drugs.
Anybody can get sucked into addiction. So it’s not like something for poor people or rich people. It’s everybody. There’s no in-between with that. It does not discriminate on who it grabs and chews up and spits out.”

Anna Graham also shared her personal struggles with drug addiction.

“I originally was put on Adderall in high school and I was looking for that and then a friend was like, ‘hey, do you want to try this? It’s not meth,’ but it ended up being meth and it just kind of spiraled from there,” Graham said. “Like once I did it, I did not know how to stop. All the loneliness and the emptiness in my heart all of a sudden felt okay.”

Graham said having her daughter pushed her to seek recovery.

“So I continued to use substances when I was pregnant, and then I had my baby at 24 weeks and knowing that I didn’t want my daughter to experience the pain that I had gone through of an absent mother and a mother not fighting for her I knew that I had to do something different,” Graham said. “So since she was born addicted, she was in the NICU for four months and there was a case plan that I had to work in order to get her back, but I knew that was my goal and that I wanted to be reunified with my daughter.”

Graham now works with 16 to 25-year-olds with Frontier Health as a peer at Healthy Transitions.

Also at the event, school resource officers (SRO) talked about the dangers of kids on social media apps and where kids can hide substances. A National Guard van was parked outside of the event that showed parents where kids might hide dangerous substances.

Greene County Sergeant and supervisor of SROs, Bryan Henderson, said vaping is a big problem in schools.

“One of the worst cases I had was a kid modifying a vape to put battery acid in it and shared it in the bathroom,” Henderson said. “And that caused another kid to have holes develop in his lungs from the battery acid and he had to go into the hospital and was in intensive care for three days.”

Lynn Broyles, Executive Director of the Greene County Anti-drug Coalition also sees vaping in schools as a problem.

“We see so many kids vaping and thinking that it’s not really smoking or it’s not really this or that, and we’re finding that it’s more concentrated and much more dangerous than things were in the past,” Broyles said. “And that includes marijuana and things like that. The concentrations are just through the roof and so that’s definitely a concern.”

Many resources were available for parents at the event. The Greene County Anti-drug Coalition can be reached through its website .

Henderson said reaching out to SROs and the Greene County Sheriff’s Department can also help direct you to resources for help as well. Many resources can be found on the state’s website as well.

“With the right help and the right tools and the right motivation, you can overcome all of that,” Greenway said. “If you know somebody is dealing with addiction or any of that, there are places to help.”

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