Combating Underage Drinking

By Larissa Lytwyn

Community education and media coverage strategies predominated Newtown Prevention Council’s 2003–04 NO SUDS (Newtown Organization to Stop Underage Drinking Soon) plan, unveiled during the council’s November 20 meeting.

NO SUDS was created in 2002 with the aid of a $40,000 state grant, allowing Newtown to collect local data so anti-underage drinking programs could be implemented according to Newtown-specific figures, not national averages.

The plan was divided into four specific goals.

The first is to improve “parent understanding of the facts of underage drinking in Newtown, including the school anti-use policy” and results of the 2002 Governor’s Prevention Initiative for Youth Survey.

Through the use of surveys and focus groups, NO SUDS hopes to have 75 percent of Newtown parents “demonstrate awareness of school anti-use policy” and other information concerning underage drinking.

Information will also be disseminated to families attending ninth grade orientations and school open houses, as well as being delivered through direct mailings.

The task force’s second goal is to “work toward increasing parent and community involvement in the effort to reduce the social accessibility of alcohol by minors.” NO SUDS is preparing to create a network of at least 150 parents to share information with other families about underage drinking. Networks can be developed within town youth groups, school organizations, and faith communities.

The third goal is to “promote ordinance changes, enforcement actions, and other measures to increase parental, youth, and retail accountability for actions.”

Last August the Legislative Council passed a town ordinance fining adults and youth engaged in the provision of alcohol to underage youth, including the possession or consumption of alcohol by underage youth on private property.

The final goal may be the most difficult.

NO SUDS wants to change youth-oriented perceptions “that fun equals alcohol.”

During Prevention Council’s November 20 meeting, Newtown Middle School health teacher Gail Seymour said that students often receive mixed messages from society relating to underage drinking.

“Underage students are told to not drive if they drink,” she said. Alternative health care advocates praising the medicinal benefits of marijuana have threatened to undermine the message about the drug’s serious health risks, she said.

“I have a lot of students doing projects on how marijuana can be helpful to people in severe [physical] pain,” she said. “What isn’t mentioned is how the drug is still damaging, how it is illegal, and how studies indicate that marijuana is often a ‘gateway’ to harder drug use.”

The NO SUDS Youth Group hopes to have at least half of Newtown High School students become involved in nondrinking events. Efforts include promoting the creation of a skateboard park, sponsoring family activities, and thereby generally reducing “social access” to alcohol.

“We all have to work together,” said public schools’ Health Director Judith Blanchard. “This has to be a communitywide effort.”