TRYING TO STOP KIDS FROM SMOKING

Prevention Group Discusses Child Behavior

NORTH PORT -- Some sixth-graders thought they would be sent to
military school if they were caught smoking. Others said they might
die if they smoked marijuana or drank alcohol.

Dee Dunlap, Safe Schools liaison, told members of the Community-Based
Prevention Marketing Community Advisory Committee, Tuesday, that she
learned of many different perceptions from sixth-graders while
surveying them on dangerous behaviors.

Dunlap worked in schools in the Sarasota County School District,
learning what sixth-graders thought about using tobacco and alcohol.

"Some said that they thought they could die if they drank," Dunlap
said. "The concern is if they try drinking and find out they don't
die, by the time they are in eighth grade, they continue to experiment
with alcohol or tobacco. That sometimes leads to other drug usage."

The CBPMCAC has been working for several years to develop marketing
strategies to prevent students from using alcohol and tobacco.

One of the marketing items used to encourage preteens against
dangerous behaviors was the development of a youth theater group.
Through 16 performances, students traveled to middle schools in
Sarasota promoting healthy behaviors. The play aimed to help students
recognize and deal with peer pressure as they witness the potential
consequences of unhealthy life decisions.

In order to continue efforts, CBPMCAC created recommendations they
could provide to communities and schools in order to help prevent
underage drinking and tobacco usage.

Members wrote a variety of wish-list items and ideas they would
suggest be used, regardless of the cost. Members recently gathered to
determine realistic recommendations, considering the actual funds
allocated. Some of the recommendations could also be funded through
federal and local grants.

Some of the ideas to help prevent underage drinking include: training
bartenders and retail sales personnel to identify minors and refuse
service, encouraging parents to limit the amount of alcohol kept in
the home or store liquor in places children cannot access, and
developing a policy to register keg sales so that people who purchase
kegs for minors can be identified.

Other ideas were to require coaches to enforce athletic codes
prohibiting underage drinking, encourage parents to hug and talk with
their children when they return home from evenings with friends, teach
students how to refuse alcohol from friends, older siblings and peers
and emphasize the opportunities youths have to be leaders by refusing
to follow the crowd.

Lastly, the group suggested teaching youth social and stress
management skills during the early grades and continuing throughout
high school to establish a lifelong ability to cope with emotional and
other life problems.

Under the tobacco recommendations, members suggested that teachers
emphasize in a positive manner that most high school students don't
smoke, a Students Working Against Tobacco club be established in every
middle and high school in Sarasota County, physicians be provided with
materials to deliver anti-smoking messages during mandated school
physicals, hot line and local phone numbers for reporting sales to
minors be advertised, local grocery store and restaurant owners be
encouraged to ID youth when purchasing tobacco products, local school
boards and state Department of Education be encouraged to legislate
kindergarten through sixth grade health education, sequential health
education that includes tobacco education, skills building, and health
decision making, a community service program be designed that exposes
youth to the consequences of smoking and tobacco addiction, and youth
activities be designed and implemented that focus on the development
of leisure/hobbies. Board members plan to review tobacco policies
involving youth in other states.

Once members select four or five recommendations from the two
categories, they will work on administering them in schools and in the
community.