JUDGES WILL HELP CHILDREN RESIST TEMPTATION OF BOOZE

Issue: A Special Program For Middle School Students. We Suggest: Kids Need
The Tools To Cope With Peer Pressure, Elements Of Area Lifestyle.

For too long, Louisiana has focused its outrage against drug trafficking
among children on substances like marijuana, cocaine and GHB. The most
commonly used drug of all gets only fleeting attention. A recent survey
showed that the overwhelming drug of choice among young people is alcohol.
For the most part, the public declines even to recognize it as a drug.

References are commonly made to "drugs and alcohol," as though there were a
distinction. We need to accept the fact that alcohol is a drug - a
dangerous one when misused - and that too many Acadiana children are
involved with it.

In our area, the lifestyle is conducive to underage drinking. Alcohol use
is accepted at fairs, festivals, sporting events and other activities
involving children and teenagers. Kids can't legally go into bars, but they
can go to parades where people all around them are drinking as freely as in
any lounge.

The culture of Acadiana is such that kids easily conclude that good times
involve booze.

Hopefully, a new program of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission and the
National Judicial College, to be launched this fall, will impact the
problem. As part of the program, local judges will lay aside their robes,
slip into jeans, and go into middle schools to teach students the threats
of alcohol abuse and how to deal with temptation and pressure. The program
is called "Courage to Live." It addresses impaired driving issues as well
as alcohol.

The program has great potential. Today's children seriously need the tools
it will provide for coping with peer pressure and other factors involved in
underage drinking.