SURVEY: ROCKLAND TEEN ALCOHOL, DRUG USE DIPS

Drinking and drugging among Rockland eighth-graders dropped significantly
from three years ago, even though a recent survey shows that more than a
third of 10th-graders are still drinking monthly and a fifth are smoking pot.

That's the good news and the bad, according to a preliminary look at the
2001 PRIDE survey being released today.

Those findings didn't surprise local high schoolers who got an early look
at the findings this week and a chance to talk about them with one of the
people behind the survey that studies drug, alcohol and tobacco consumption
among young people in the county and nationwide. The survey also examines
safety issues in schools.

It's easier to mold younger children's ideas, said Erica Binotto, an
Albertus Magnus High School senior and one of five Teen Talk panelists who
discussed the Parents Resource Institute on Drug Education survey, which
gathers countywide and national data on teen-age issues, including
substance abuse, alcohol consumption and school safety.

"You can't tell many 16-year-olds anything they don't think they already
know," Binotto said. "And that includes drug and alcohol use."

Walter Schneider acknowledged that wasn't far off from some experts'
beliefs. He is dean of students at St. Thomas Aquinas College and the
person who collates the results for the county. He joined the panel Sunday
at The Journal News to give students the survey results, but also to take
any advice they could give on making a dent in the older students' rate of
substance and alcohol abuse.

The recent PRIDE numbers come from surveys given in 2001 to Rockland public
school students in each district except Nanuet.

The survey showed that 9.7 percent of eighth-graders consumed beer at least
once a month. In 1998, more than 17 percent of eighth-graders said they
drank beer monthly. General alcohol use showed a similar drop, with 12.4
percent of eighth-graders in 2001 saying they drank at least once a month,
down significantly from the 21.8 percent who fit that category in 1998.

In the 10th grade, the changes weren't nearly as dramatic. In 1998, 34.9
percent identified themselves as at least monthly beer drinkers, and 39.7
percent as users of alcohol. In 2001, 30.1 percent of 10th-graders said
they drank beer at least monthly, and 35.4 percent for all alcoholic beverages.

Teens said direct "don't try it" messages might work with youngsters, but
older students experienced a more complex world and needed a multi-layered
message.

"I had DARE in fifth, DARE in seventh. After a while, it's the same song
and dance," said Binotto, referring to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
courses most schools have.

References to marijuana and alcohol as "gateway drugs" is an example of how
an effective message in fifth grade becomes ludicrous to teens, said Anya
Degenshein.

"True, crack heads start with pot," the Nyack High senior said. But by 10th
grade, she said, most teens figured out that "not everyone who smokes pot
becomes a crack head."

Elana Yudman, a North Rockland senior, said the curriculum for teaching
about drugs and alcohol needed to change as students got older. She cited
health curriculum on teaching abstinence versus safe sex as an example.

"If there are students who are sexually active, it's prudent to teach them"
ways to keep healthy and pregnancy-free rather than try to change their
already established behavior, she said.

If an educator knows that students are likely to be confronted with
opportunities to drink, it would make sense to give them information about
moderation along with advice to avoid alcohol.

Most students said they'd had wine at religious ceremonies or had sipped a
parent's beer just to taste it. "If you really think about it, drinking
isn't bad," Yudman said. "Drinking too much is bad."

But Schneider pointed out that drinking alcohol was illegal for minors.
And, he said, seeing your parents have wine with dinner or try the new
trendy wheat beer wasn't the problem.

"When it's, 'When mom and daddy fight, daddy drinks,' " he said. That's a
pathology of using alcohol to handle stress or to numb or control anger, he
said. At least, he said, that was what the child saw.

Schneider said the information gathered in PRIDE could track which kinds of
students were more frequently admitting drug and alcohol abuse.

"The first survey showed that most kids using are unsupervised at home," he
said. Their use was primarily at home on the weekends.

Several teens mentioned parents who wanted the school to take charge and
others who didn't want the school to interfere at all.

They also wondered how a parent who had smoked pot or used more serious
drugs could push a complete anti-drug message without acknowledging a
discrepancy.

But their ire was saved for the parents who thought they were being
responsible by taking teens' car keys at a house party before permitting
them to get fall-down drunk.

That acceptance needs to stop.

"Young people are getting in cars, getting hurt, hurting other people,"
Schneider pointed out.

Degenshein said schools and parents needed to capitalize on real-life
situations.

"People forget Emily Bushkin 10 minutes after they walk into the party,"
she said, referring to the Suffern High senior who was killed in a morning
accident in which the driver, her friend, was charged with drunken driving.

"People are blaming (Bushkin)," she said, instead of being forced to see
that their behavior could bring the same result.

The PRIDE survey is officially released to the public from 6:45 to 9 p.m.
today in the Adler Community Room on the fourth floor of the Palisades
Center mall in West Nyack. The forum for parents is sponsored by the
Coalition for Drug-Free Schools and Communities of the Rockland Alliance
for Prevention.