The Town of Somers, on behalf of the Somers Comes Together (SCT) coalition, seeks to address
and ultimately prevent youth substance use through the Drug Free Communities grant, focusing
on prevention of youth alcohol and marijuana use in Somers, Connecticut. Somers, located in
Tolland County, is a community with a population of 11,0005 with a long history as an
agricultural and mill community. There is a lack of available resources for the residents of
Somers, including no public transportation resulting in inequitable access to care for those who
do not have their own transportation. Almost a quarter of Somers families are facing economic
difficulties that leads to increased stress and risk factors in the home. A primary population of
focus in the community is the “Somersville” section of town, where there is a high concentration
of poverty. This section of town is where the old mills are located that was once temporary
housing for workers picking tobacco in the fields. The community has very limited resources to
support positive youth development and has relied on very little funding and no dedicated
staffing to oversee the implementation of concerted, evidence-based prevention activities.
Due to these limited resources and minimal services for youth outside of school, there is an
increased risk of students using substances with peers during their unoccupied time. Youth
marijuana and alcohol use are the primary substances of concern in Somers. Student substance
use data from the 2017 ERASE Student Survey, shows that Past 30-day alcohol use was higher
(17.9%) in Somers than the regional rate (15.6%). This remains true for past-month binge
drinking rates (10.2%, 8.2% respectively). Students grade 9-12 most frequently responded that it
is “very” or “sort of” easy to obtain alcohol (68.1%) and marijuana (58.5%).
There are marijuana dispensaries located right over the border from the Town of Somers into
Massachusetts, as close as 14 miles away. During the case investigations of youth caught with
marijuana, the Juvenile Review Board discovered that the marijuana is frequently obtained from
a dispensary either from a dealer or the youth’s parents. Ease of access to marijuana is already a
risk factor that needs to be addressed in Somers, which will only be heightened further as
Connecticut rolls out its own recreational marijuana dispensaries expected later this year. Mental
Health transports have mostly increased each year across the age groups. Overdose transports
increased amongst teens and young adults in 2020, possibly due to isolation and stress brought
on by the pandemic.
The mission of SCT is to reduce and prevent substance use among youth and adults by
collaborating with the Somers community to increase awareness, provide educational
opportunities and support youth and adults to engage in healthy activities. With the Drug Free
Communities funding, SCT will use the Strategic Prevention Framework to collaborate with key
stakeholders in the community to implement prevention strategies. SCT will focus its objectives
on reducing the past 30-day use of alcohol and marijuana as evidenced on its bi-annual student
use survey. The coalition will achieve its goals by implementing these strategies: 1) building the
capacity of the Somers Comes Together coalition to be inclusive of all sectors of the community,
2) development of educational campaigns targeting youth and their parents to address social
norms about substance use, 3) enhance the skills of parents in Somers to support substance use
prevention and improve protective factors, 4) provide supportive activities for youth and their
families to engage in healthy alternatives, 5) implement alcohol compliance checks at retails in
Somers to reduce youth access to alcohol, and 6) work with town officials to modify policies to enhance protection against youth marijuana use.