10/08/2007: "Community Forum On Underage Drinking"

Town Hall Meeting tonight (Oct 8th, 2007) is an opportunity for community members to join in a conversation about community and the important issue of underage drinking. The meeting will be held at the Commons at Friday Harbor High School from 6-7:30 p.m..

Community members of all ages are welcome as this is a community issue! Stark-Wickman will also be in the Commons from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m. for informal dialogue and sharing prior to the forum. For more information, call 378-9683 or email prevention@centurytel.net.

While most of our San Juan Island youth are making healthy choices, meaning not engaging in the use of alcohol and other drugs, there is still a percentage of our youth who are engaged in substance abuse. Like all communities across the nation, this is a serious issue that impacts the health and well being of our island.

According to a report from the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA), "Recent figures from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that while overall illicit drug use among youth 12 to 17 was at a five-year low, underage drinking among ages 12 to 20 remained unacceptably high at 28 percent.

Even more concerning is the rate of binge drinking among this age group -19 percent or 7.2 million youth.

According to the Washington Healthy Youth Survey (HYS) 2006 results, 100% of our Grade 6 students reported non-use of alcohol in the past 30 days. This survey was taken in mid-October 2006. That is a piece of data to celebrate! Similarly, 92 % of last year's Grade 8 students reported non-use of alcohol for the same time period. This is a 12% gain in non-use compared to the Grade 8 class of 2004.

Again, this figure is a just cause for celebration, but if we look at their reported non-use of 98% in 2004 as a Grade 6 class, we know that there is a group of youth who have commenced the habit of drinking at a very early age. Though this may be only a few youth, one is too many.

When we take a look at the results for Grades 10 and 12, we see that there has been a drop in non-use. The 2006 HYS results show that 39% of our last year Grade 12 students reported the use of alcohol, a 5% gain from the 2004 Grade 12 polled for 30-day use. Also, the survey shows us that binge drinking is on the rise for our high school youth.