BEER: THE NUMBER ONE DRUG OF YOUTH

In a recent TV documentary on youth problems, a counselor in youth problems
said "Beer is the number one drug of youth." Some would not classify beer,
when drunk in moderation, a beer or two a day with meals, as a drug, but as
a food. They tell youth that children should not drink.

Many youth turn this rule around as an equation and say drinking makes them
adult, as in: "Look how adult I am. I am drinking beer." They find a way to
get a six-pack and go out onto the highway and make fools and corpses of
themselves. With apologies to the still-grieving un-named families, I would
like to present one situation.

Two boys got an older man to buy a six-pack for them. I hope he reads this
and has conscience pangs for the rest of his life. The boys picked up one
girl locally, whose employer said she was so sweet that "she was the
daughter I never had." They headed toward Maben to get another girl,
guzzling their beer and speeding on the way. Just before Cedar Bluff, they
cut the curve too short and piled into the bank at the culvert just before
the little hill. All three died instantly. The highway patrolman who
investigated the wreck said 95 miles an hour would be a safe estimate for
their sped. All three were from good families and were generally
well-behaved youth.

It is the firm belief of those who knew them that they would still be among
us if it had not been for that six-pack procured for them by a man old
enough to know better.

He deserves every conscience pang he ever had. With apologies to the
still-grieving families, it is hoped that this column may save lives. In
another situation, a man who was, if I remember correctly, in his 30's or
40's, stopped at a rural business in western Clay County and, according to
witnesses, left the place with a beer between his knees and his foot on the
floor. Before he had gone far, this man left the road on the left and died
on impact. The same documentary quoted at the beginning of this column said
the brewing industry spent $780 million on TV beer advertising last year,
and added that this was the lowest since 1998. One equation that we should
try to instill in our culture is that beer can much more easily make a
youth dead that to make him an adult. Some lawmakers have said that if
youth are old enough to fight for their country in the military at 18, they
should be old enough to drink beer at 18. That is a very dumb equation.
Youth make excellent soldiers because of their ingrained conviction that
they are in-destructible. That same sense of indestructibility is what
makes it dangerous for youth to drink alcoholic beverages. But even though
that documentary, quoted earlier, rated beer as the number-one drug of
youth, beer is not generally credited with causing birth defects.

But many women who have used drugs for a "high" have given birth to babies
with mental defects. Youth who use certain drugs that have medicinal values
have excused their use by saying "This is a medication that helps sick
people." But one thing they do not consider is that when a doctor
prescribes a certain medication for an ill person, he carefully considers
the weight of the ill person and the degree of illness, and prescribed just
enough dosage to counteract the illness. When a youth uses that same drug,
with no illness to counteract it, certain drugs can have dangerous side
effects in other wise healthy youth. No one, youth or adult, should use any
pharmaceutical except under the care of a physician. And if a physician is
nor sure about a particular pharmaceutical, he or she will ask a pharmacist
or check the printed reference materials. The cardinal rule is that we
should not play around with danger.

There is no escape from finality.