TALK ABOUT DRUGS IF YOU LIKE, BUT THE PROBLEM IS ALCOHOL

What do politicians and high school drug-testing programs have in common?

When the going gets tough, they both prefer to deflect attention from
the difficult problem at hand.

Perhaps politicians can't help themselves, the propensity for dodging
difficult issues being in their mothers' milk. High schools that
institute drug-testing programs, on the other hand, make a deliberate
choice.

They choose to see adolescent drug use for what it is not: It is not
the most pressing substance-abuse problem afflicting teen-agers. That
distinction belongs to alcohol, which experts nationwide say is the
drug of choice for minors. In southwest Alabama, state agents call
teen-age drinking "an epidemic."

The epidemic includes teen-age "field parties" featuring beer on tap,
plus house parties sanctioned - and sometimes even arranged - by
kids' parents. Obtaining alcohol for everyday drinking is apparently
easy, too; seems there's always an older sibling or friend who's
willing to buy a couple of six-packs for a minor.

We adults don't seem to know what to do about the teen-drinking
epidemic. Therefore, like the politician who answers a different
question than the one that was asked, we focus on a different issue -
teen-agers who are using "real" drugs, in particular marijuana.

And we know what to do about that: We'll snip a lock of hair or
demand a urine sample from each and every kid who crosses the
threshold of our local high schools. Then, when the encouraging
results come back, showing low numbers of kids testing positive, we
can congratulate ourselves for having solved the tough problem of
teen-age drug use.

Our kids, meanwhile, go on with their booze-laden parties while we
look the other way. If forced to think about the underage-drinking
problem, we focus instead on the other issue, and wish that we could
extend drug testing to all of our schools.

For now, though, the courts haven't been cooperative when it comes to
across-the-board drug testing at public schools. Private and
parochial schools can require drug tests as a condition of admission,
and some in the Mobile area do administer them, including my son's
school. The Alabama School of Mathematics and Science - a residential
public high school in Mobile for gifted students - is in the process
of implementing drug tests, despite the American Civil Liberties
Union's threat of legal action.

My husband and I are not pleased that our son (and, later, his
younger sister) must submit to random drug tests, but not because we
think he'll flunk them or even because we're so naive that we'd
insist that "our children would never use drugs." In part, our
objections are rooted in the judicial system's "presumption of
innocence," in which American citizens aren't supposed to have to
prove that they've done nothing wrong.

But mostly, our objections are rooted in statistics, like the fact
that local police say the number of minors arrested for possessing
alcohol more than doubled from 1999 to 2000. And that car wrecks are
the leading cause of death among people 15 to 20 years old, with
alcohol playing a role in 30 percent of those crashes. And that
people who begin drinking before they're 15 years old are four times
more likely to become alcoholics than those who don't drink until
they're 21. And that the average age at which 12- to 17-year-olds say
they first tried alcohol is 12.8.

Smoking dope is a problem among teen-agers, but alcohol is the
problem. At best, underage drinkers learn difficult lessons about the
consequences of drunkenness; at worst, they are killed or maimed, or
they kill or maim others, or they embark upon a path toward
alcoholism.

Partly through education and partly through disciplinary tactics, we
adults are obligated to help kids abstain from alcohol at least until
they're grown.

Granted, some of them may not listen. But one thing's for sure: They
won't get the message if we're busy focusing on side issues that
don't address the real problem.