DRUG PLEDGE SHOULD INCLUDE BUSINESSES THAT HIRE TEENS

At the town meeting in Long Beach, we were given a "Parents' and Guardians'
Pledge to Our Youth and the Greater Community of Long Beach" to sign,
promising that we will not allow alcohol or other illicit drugs to be
served to minors in our home or on our property. I think this should be
distributed all over the Mississippi Coast. There should be one for
business establishments as well.

I would put special emphasis on businesses, particularly restaurants,
because I know a number of such establishments that do not require drug
screening as part of the application process for employment of our youth,
and many do not do random drug screening of employees. Some employees go to
work high.

Then there is the after-work scene. The youth with no place to go hang out
in parking lots and drink or do drugs. They may end up at a friend's house
whose parents are not home or don't care what their kids do. My son's
friends are always welcome, but we will not tolerate drugs or underage
drinking! We signed our pledge and intend to enforce it.

Don't we have a curfew in Long Beach? Our police officers here in Long
Beach are great, but they can do only so much. We need to increase our
police force, especially during the weekends and in the wee hours of the
morning to get these kids off the streets! If you parents do not know where
your kids are at midnight, shame on you! Go find them, you could save their
lives!

Alcohol for teens is being purchased with fake IDs or by just about anyone
standing around a convenience store who wants to make a quick $5. Long
Beach is known as an easy, quick sell, right off the street corners.

Where do our youth get the money to buy drugs and alcohol? If they are
working, are they being drug-screened? Are they being allowed to work high?
If so, then the business owners are contributing to the drug problem. Are
the parents giving their kids a curfew and enforcing it? Home drug tests
can be purchased at our local drug stores. Consider one before it is too
late. Do you know who your kids are running with?

If all of us would pull together, especially the local business owners who
hire our youth, if we all put out the messages that we are opposed to drug
and alcohol abuse and are going to do everything we can to get in between
these demons and the youth of our beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast, then we
might save a life or two and run these demons out of our towns.

I challenge all concerned adults to post the pledge in their businesses,
schools, churches and homes and then act on it!

ALICE SCOGGINS Long Beach