Don’t ignore teen drinking

Kids will be kids, right?

Teenagers can be rebellious and make poor choice, but it’s all part of growing up. Heck, who hasn’t snuck past their parents and “borrowed” the family car for some late-night fun? Cruising, hanging out with friends and even the occasional tipping of a cow may seem innocent enough and often draw little or no parental response because, hey, we did it too.

Now add alcohol or drugs to our hypothetical late-night romp. The teens still have a car, they’re still cruising and hanging out, only they’re passing around a bottle, sharing a case of beer or rolling joints. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so innocent, yet many adults in our communities adopt the former attitude while our teens are doing the latter.

Reportedly, only about 50 adults attended Tuesday’s meeting sponsored by the United Way of Mat-Su Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition Education Committee, Mat-Su Health Services and Mat-Su Borough School District. For some reason, teen alcohol consumption and abuse hasn’t been on the Valley’s radar, the Frontiersman included. Like most, we also failed to attend Tuesday’s meeting.

It’s a problem that’s been under the Mat-Su Valley’s noses for too long and deserves attention. The law enforcement reports increasingly involve teen alcohol consumption, which is representative of a community problem greater than a few silly teens sowing some wild oats.

In 2007, the Alaska State Troopers alone cited 248 minors for underage drinking in the Valley, 38 percent while driving a vehicle. The 2007 Alaska Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows 23.5 percent of our high school students report riding in a vehicle driven by a drunk driver in the month prior to the survey, while 73.6 percent admit to drinking alcohol at least once. And 26 percent of youth admit to having five or more drinks in a couple of hours at least once in the month prior to the survey. Ask teens in your sphere about alcohol and drug use among their peers and chances are they will affirm that these numbers are real — maybe even low.

This is what our teens are telling us. These aren’t expert guesses or predictions, this is what our youth are telling us about their own drinking habits. We are torn over what’s more problematic, that more than one of every four teens admits to drinking heavily, that nearly that many are riding in vehicles with drunk drivers, or that as a community we allow this to happen.

The Frontiersman supports the United Way of Mat-Su, the school district and Mat-Su Health Services in their efforts to tackle a difficult problem for our communities. We’ll continue to report on this issue and expand that coverage. Let’s not wait for the next highway tragedy involving teens and alcohol or drug use before making a positive change to address teen substance abuse in the Mat-Su Valley.