It's that time of year again; new beginnings, many goodbyes and lots of celebrating.
High School graduation is an exciting time for both students and parents. It represents the first step into adulthood, which I agree, is cause for celebration — without alcohol. However, from now until the end of the summer, most every weekend, graduated seniors will be able to celebrate by drinking alcohol at graduation parties with the approval of parents.
Parents and teens need to know that one night, one party, one incident, can change a family's life forever.
Alcohol is heavily promoted as an acceptable drug to be used during celebrations, and therefore, it is often considered benign by most parents. Underage drinking is often dismissed as a “youthful indiscretion,” or a right of passage from adolescence into adulthood. So, what better way to welcome graduates into the “real world?”
Stacia Murphy, the president of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence warns, “Sure, alcohol use by minors can be a rite of passage — passage for some young souls into a lifetime of broken promises, broken families and broken lives. Alcohol is not a kid's drink, plain and simple.”
Parents who allow their children to have alcohol at their graduation parties often have the attitude that, “It's safer to take away their car keys and let them drink at our house. As long as my kids drink at home or don't drink and drive, what's the big deal?”
Here's the big deal: Both parents and teens can face criminal charges for unlawfully dealing with a child and underage consumption of alcohol, respectively.
Parents need to know that any underage drinking that goes on in their home makes them completely liable. According to an Ithaca City Police officer, adults who supply alcohol to minors in their homes are legally responsible. The officer stated that even if you take the keys away, you have young, inexperienced drinkers. They may consume too much alcohol and then you have medical issues at hand.
Allowing underage drinking in your home could constitute a crime and lead to an arrest based on the laws that protect the welfare of children. Worse yet, if someone were to drive home after drinking and get into a car accident, the parents who supplied the alcohol could be sued. They would open themselves up to both criminal and civil liability. To push the issue is putting a lot of people in great danger. You don't have to have alcohol at a party to have fun.
Parents these days are in a tough spot. By the time teens turn 18, they will have seen over 100,000 alcohol commercials. The typical beer commercial spends 29 seconds advertising to young people how cool and sexy it is to drink and in the last second, reminds people to “drink responsibly.” Alcohol is everywhere and the message from society is to drink and drink hard. However, parents are not the enemy, but the most important ally law enforcement has in its effort to reduce the dangers caused by irresponsible drinking. Underage drinking is not a minor problem in this country. Underage drinking is a complex problem, which can only be solved through a cooperative effort engaging parents, schools, community leaders, and the children themselves. Let's make this special time of celebration a safe one!
For more information, please contact Stefanie Borglum at (607) 274-6288 or visit our Web site at www.alcoholdrugcouncil.org.
Stefanie Borglum is the Youth Services Coordinator at the Alcohol & Drug Council. The Sober Talk column is published in The Ithaca Journal on the first Thursday of each month
The Sober Talk column is published in The Ithaca Journal on the first Thursday of each month.
