Town Hall meeting to address underage drinking

By Angie Thompson/senior reporter

TIFTON May 16, 2008 09:12 pm

— A town hall meeting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Leroy Rogers Center to address the problems associated with underage drinking and brainstorm for possible solutions to the problem. The Drug Free Task Force Coalition is sponsoring the event and encouraging any concerned member of the community to attend.
Lt. Steve Hyman of the Tifton Police Department serves as the chairman of the Tift County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. He said that the meeting is for parents, grandparents, teachers, officials, youth, members of faith-based organizations and any community member who wants to voice concerns about and move toward solutions for preventing underage drinking.
“We want to increase awareness of the threat of underage drinking,” Hyman said.
Sandra Wright, director of the Tift County Commission on Children & Youth, said that the high local arrest rate for underage drinkers is a problem in the community. In 2006, 175 young people were arrested for underage possession of alcohol. That number was 104 in 2007 and so far in 2008, 100 young people have been arrested and charged with the offense.
According to statistics furnished by the coalition, underage drinking cost the citizens of Georgia $1.5 billion in 2005. Those costs include medical care, work loss and pain and suffering associated with the multiple problems resulting from young people using alcohol. Also, youth-associated violence and traffic crashes attributed to alcohol use by underage people in Georgia represents the largest cost for the state.
Young people who begin drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence and are two and a half times more likely to become abusers of alcohol than those who begin drinking at the legal age of 21.
The coalition said that Tift County has a high rate, 156 of 159 (with 159 being the worst) for alcohol and drug-related hospital discharges. A Tift County survey showed that 73 percent of youth in grades 9-12 said they have had at least one drink of alcohol in their life; 40 percent have had a drink in the last 30 days; 21 percent have had five or more in the past 30 days; and 4 percent have had a drink on school property in the last 30 days.
“We have a problem with this in our community,” Wright said. “We would like for parents and the public to join us in an effort to change the statistics and make our community a safer place for young people. We also want young people to be aware of the consequences of underage drinking.”
Wright said the coalition will have informational brochures and other items for parents who attend the town hall meeting.
Panelists who will be on hand at the meeting include Herbert Benson, judge of the City of Tifton Municipal Court; Jim Smith, Tifton Police chief; Gary Vowell, Tift County sheriff; Chad Hall, youth minister at First Baptist Church of Ty Ty; Michele Walker, a clinical therapist at Greenleaf; Marie Bryant, prevention specialist; Lakesha Sims, Tift Teen Health Center; Dr. Willie Miles, principal of Tift County High School; Randy Childers of the Department of Juvenile Justice; Austen Edwards, of the TCCCY’s Teens for a Change; and Bernice Hughes, housing director at ABAC.

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.