Muskingum County Prosecutor’s Office Empowers Schools in Drug Education

ZANESVILLE, OH – For the third consecutive year, the Muskingum County Prosecutors office is once again at the forefront of drug education and prevention by rewarding area high schools with funds.

The prosecutor’s office invited local high school students to submit essays that discuss the most effective methods for promoting drug awareness and prevention. The quality of these essays played a role in determining which schools received the funding.

“I really went into the students rather than the drug aspect of drug prevention. I elaborated on how we should start focusing on the students and how we can help them, so they don’t want to turn to drugs rather than just straight preventive measures because when I researched, I saw that a lot of those haven’t been successful, and we needed to take a new approach,” Essay Winner Bailey Ryan said.

These awards were funded exclusively through the Law Enforcement Trust Fund, a resource that consists of cash and property confiscated from criminals involved in drug-related crimes within the county.

“There’s no taxpayer dollars used. What we’re doing is we’re taking money that we’ve seized from drug dealers, and we’re turning around and using it for good instead of drug dealers being able to use it to poison our streets,” Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch said.

The winning schools were FoxFire, Bishop Rosecrans, Tri-Valley, and West Muskingum High Schools.