DRUG PROGRAMS SHOULD START WITH NO. 1 PROBLEM: ALCOHOL

Red Ribbon Week is over now, but despite its very decent goal of
discouraging drug use among kids, I don't feel optimistic.

Take my campus, for example. We are so caught up in selfrighteous
platitudes about the evils of heroin and cocaine that we tend to overlook
the students' No. 1 drug of choice: alcohol. It's easy for kids to swear
off drugs they're never tempted to use. But if high school communities
started taking a serious look at the way students use and abuse booze, no
one would feel quite so complacent.

Some universities are finally having to deal with the problem because of
highly publicized student deaths from alcohol poisoning. But let's face
it, binge drinking behavior doesn't start in college. Alcohol use among
high school students is epidemic and knows no neighborhood boundaries. Many
of the same students involved in Red Ribbon Week activities will be putting
away enough Colt 45 and vodka screwdrivers come Friday night to put
themselves at risk.

Nobody kids around in class about shooting up, but jokes abound when it
comes to who drank how much over the weekend. If a teacher half listens to
the talk before class, it's not hard to get the picture. Even whispered,
the words "fake ID," "wasted," "hammered" and "kegger" come through clearly
in the Monday morning air. Nor can we soothe ourselves with the comforting
thought that these are somehow problem kids. Students who drink in high
school cover the spectrum, from song leaders to baseball players, from band
members to honor students.

Even if we can agree that there is a lot of underage drinking, the
response is far from outrage. Kids will be kids, right? We can't follow
them around, and besides, they could be using worse substances. Many
parents are so relieved that their kids aren't into hard drugs, they tend
to turn a blind eye to the weekend micro brews. But let's get real. A lot
more kids die as a result of drinking too many beers than from marijuana or
cocaine use.

There are any number of problems that alcohol can create for young people,
but the fact that mixing it with driving can kill them is what's most
scary. There's a reason for the legal drinking age in this country. To
learn to control a machine as powerful as an automobile is challenge enough
without adding an inexperienced drinker to the picture. That is one reason
many European countries with a younger drinking age also have an older
driving age. They know that beginning both activities at the same time is
crazy.

To allow our children to attend functions or go on vacations where we know
there's going to be drinking is asking for trouble. If put in a situation
where there's alcohol, most high school kids aren't going to "just say no."
They're going to drink. Once they're at the party, it's too late to mull
over the issue.

Even if your children go to the aftergame function and drink soda, they
still may be part of an atmosphere that encourages other kids to drink and
perhaps do something stupid. If they watch a friend down four beers and go
out and climb into a Jeep, the fact that they weren't drinking will be
little comfort to anyone if the kid in the Jeep or some innocent bystander
winds up dead.

If young folks are routinely around alcohol, there is an excellent chance
that someone is going to drive drunk or end up a passenger in a car with
someone who has no business being behind the wheel. They may make it home
safely; a lot of them do. But it only takes one incident to alter lives
forever.

We can wring our hands over the sad stories and gruesome photos in the
newspaper, but we'd be better off taking a long, hard look at what our kids
are doing and whether we, as parents, should just say no.

Christine Baron, a high school English teacher in Orange County, is
coauthor of "What Did You Learn in School Today?" You may reach her at
educ@latimes.com or (714) 9664550.

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