Teen alcohol use draws concern of county human services

Clarion County may have a problem with drinking, or so the statistics would say. County Drug and Alcohol and other human services departments met June 19 to discuss the findings of the 2007 Pennsylvania Youth Survey.

The meeting began with a short DVD called This Place by faceproject.org. According to their website, FACE is a “national non-profit organization that supports sensible alcohol policies and practices through the development of messages, strategies, and training designed to create public awareness and action on alcohol issues. FACE envisions a nation where public policy, community organizations, and individuals come together to reduce the negative effects of underage drinking and the misuse and abuse of alcohol by adults.”

This Place included some frightening statistics, including 1,700 college students die from alcohol related causes each year, and that alcohol kills more people than all illegal drugs combined. And of course, the number one place kids get alcohol is the home.

Through scientific research, the project hopes to explore how kids are drinking, and why the frequency and quantity of drinking is increasing.

The DVD noted that today, on average, kids in the United States take their first drink at 12 years of age.

Penny Norton, director of FACE appeared at the beginning of This Place and presented a historical perspective of how other public health issues had been brought to light and dealt with.

Norton said it all began in 1964 when there was a study done to draw relationships between smoking and health.

The study helped to change the way people thought about smoking and brought about changes including the places people are allowed to smoke, pricing for cigarettes, and advertising restrictions meant to protect public health.

Norton said a study of car crash deaths in 1988 conducted by then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had similar results, drawing a relationship between health and driving under the influence.

The next decades, Norton said, brought about large shifts in public policy including raising the legal drinking age, lowering blood alcohol limits for drivers, and implementing roadside sobriety checkpoints.

The DVD pointed out that the new alcohol-user-friendly environment may have crept up on adults, but for kids it is simply just here.

At the conclusion of This Place county drug and alcohol workers Erica Wanninger and Chrissy Rankin took the floor to review and discuss the findings of Clarion County ’s recent youth survey, which polled approximately 1,000 students in five area school districts.

When asked if they had ever drank alcohol, 55 percent of Clarion County eighth grade students reported drinking, compared to a national average of 39 percent.

Tenth-graders are no different, with 80 percent reporting drinking compared to the national average of 62 percent.

The trend continues with county seniors as 81 percent report drinking compared to the national average of 72 percent.

When asked if they had drank alcohol in the last 30 days, county students were closer to national averages with 16.6 percent of eighth graders, 37.5 percent of tenth graders, and 49.2 percent of twelfth graders reporting drinking compared to 15.9, 34.4, and 44.4 percent nationwide, respectively.

The survey defines binge drinking as drinking more than five drinks in a row in the past two weeks.

County students reported binge drinking at close to national average rates with 8.2 percent of eighth graders, 22.9 percent of tenth graders, and 33.6 percent of twelfth graders reporting binge drinking compared to 10.3, 21.9, and 25.9 national averages, respectively.

Rankin and Wanninger went over the results of a county-wide survey to see if alcohol-serving establishments would sell alcohol to someone between 21 and 23 without checking for positive identification.

Forty-one percent of the establishments completed a sale on at least one occasion.

Wanninger said that in Blair County a similar survey had showed that 37.5 percent of its establishments sold, but a year and a half later the same survey ended with only five percent of establishments completing a sale.

Establishments that did not complete sales were given a “We card” window cling.

Wanninger and Rankin expressed interest in conducting the survey again soon and hope that the number of establishments completing sales will drastically decrease.

Clarion News