By Robert Barron, Staff Writer
Sareva Greenhaw starts with a video of her son, Cody.
Cody is shown as a baby playing with toys, learning to walk, swimming. He gets older, developing into a typical teenage boy, a boy whose life ended at age 16 from an accidental overdose of alcohol and drugs.
Her voice sometimes shaking, Greenhaw, speaking at a Safe Schools Summit Monday night at Autry Technology Center, talked about how Cody was introduced to drugs and alcohol by visiting the house of a friend whose parents allowed alcohol use in their home.
“He was a boy with a good heart, the boy next door,” she said.
Greenhaw said she and her husband witnessed the signs of drug use in Cody, including moodiness, sleeping a lot, depression and wanting to spend more and more time at the home of his friend. They attributed it to a medication he took for acne until his father found a plastic bag with marijuana residue in his pickup. Then, he confessed he not only used marijuana, but had sold it to his friends to get the money to buy more. They punished him and talked with a drug consultant, who did not think counseling was needed and that Cody would quit since his parents had intervened, she said.
With adults enabling him, Cody tried cocaine and shared it with his friends.
The video shown Monday night by Greenhaw was the one played at her son’s funeral.
Cody spent the night at his friend’s home, she said, and was found dead there. Police notified Greenhaw and her husband while they were at church.
Through Greenhaw’s efforts, the state passed Cody’s Law, the state’s social host law, which holds adults liable when they post parties where underage teens have access to drugs and alcohol. She has been working to get the law strengthened since it passed and has called for accelerated punishment, making the crime an automatic felony for the third offense. There are now 53 communities in Oklahoma, including Enid, that have passed similar ordinances.
The adults who enabled Greenhaw’s son were convicted of 11 misdemeanors relating to another incident. They paid a fine and were released.
“For a parent, there is no harder thing than watching the lid close on your child’s casket,” she said.
The Safe Schools Summit was designed to educate parents and youths about issues involving substance abuse and violence prevention in schools, homes and communities. It included break-out sessions for adults and youths. Topics included drug trends, methamphetamine and the social host ordinance, along with a session about preventing tobacco use by youth.
The summit was sponsored by PreventionWorkz and the prevention division of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.
Keynote speaker Kirk Weisler, a motivational speaker, presented a story about initiative and talked to the audience about how to become remarkable.
“The mindset of becoming is a very becoming mindset,” he said.
