The Haines Alcohol Task Force is sending a two-pronged message aimed at underage drinkers: Don’t drink, but if you do, act safely.
“Our focus coming up here in the next couple of weeks is going to be parental workshops,” police chief Gary Lowe said. He serves as the group’s leader.
“It’s going to be on how to raise an alcohol-free teen, so we’re going to work on those family relationships and parental relationships, and we’re going to do that on a workshop basis,” Lowe said.
Although few students have attended task force meetings, some are helping get out its message by producing radio spots and posters. Interviews this week suggested youths are getting a message, but that may be coming from their peers.
Haines High School junior Jimmy Thomsen said he was aware of task force meetings and he’s seen posters addressing the issue around the school. He said he believes student behavior is changing.
“I don’t know if they’re cutting back because of the posters and stuff. I just think that everyone’s smartening up,” Thomsen said. He cited alcohol-related accidents last summer. One killed a recent graduate and another seriously injured a student.
“Because of the incidents that have happened, people realize that alcohol is not ‘all that.’” The student’s injury “opened up a lot of people’s minds,” he said.
Eighth-grader Harley Morden, 14, said his teacher had talked to students after attending a task force meeting and a friend’s parent went, as well.
“(Our teacher) told us if you go to a party, it could affect you for the rest of your life and to wait until we’re older (to use alcohol). And if you do, be responsible,” Morden said.
He didn’t think talks from teachers would be very effective, though. “Kids would rather listen to their peers than teachers,” Morden said.
Senior Brook Cinocco this week said she hadn’t heard of the task force, but she did find Red Ribbon Week activities to be valuable. Programs inluded talks by residents and presentations by professionals ranging from demonstration of goggles that simulate drunkenness to health effects of drug abuse.
Cinocco said students should be made aware of the consequences of underage drinking.
“I don’t think anybody is too young to be exposed to the information, but just tell them everything that they need to know, and let them make their choices,” Cinocco said.
Task force meetings were to shift to the high school to draw additional student participation.
Task force member Bruce Bauer, a recovering alcoholic who abused cocaine and alcohol as a Bering Sea fisherman, said parents can bring a message that school and law officials can’t – that youths be responsible if they drink.
“(Not drinking) is still the law, and they have to acknowledge that,” Bauer said. “There’s no sideways for them, but as parents, we have the option to see reality and accept it or not accept it. We’re the first generation to be able to admit we did these things the same way our kids are doing them.”
Bauer spoke during recent Red Ribbon Week activities. He told students he “missed the 1980s, kind of” due to daily use of cocaine and booze. “I can’t even believe that I’m alive.” Alcohol abuse was socially acceptable when he was growing up, he told students.
“I can’t expect you not to wonder about things in life,” Bauer said. “I know everybody’s going to experiment in their own ways, whether that’s with drugs and alcohol or with religion or lifestyles or relationships. Here’s the deal: Can we keep you alive and safe? That’s the most important thing.”
In his talk, Bauer acknowledged that he was asking students to sometimes be more responsible than their parents who drink.
“Some of your parents aren’t that way, so you have to be the responsible one,” he said. “You have to make the right choice.”
Bauer also told students he would be willing to speak to them confidentially about drug and alcohol problems.
Senior Anna Jacobson delivered a message of responsibility as part of teacher Sam McPhetres’ radio class at the high school.
“We wanted to go the extra mile, so the kids added sound effects and researched all of the background information,” McPhetres said. “We had to make them exactly 30 seconds long, so that was kind of a big thing.”
Jacobson said her “intense” public service announcement used screaming and crashing noises to emphasize that driving drunk “can be the worst decision you ever make.”
“It was kind of hard to do, because you didn’t want to go to the point of making people angry or sad, but it’s supposed to scare them, I think, a little bit,” Jacobson said.
McPhetres also assigned digital design students to produce advertisements for print, and some of the work was “really hardcore” to drive home a strong message.
“I wanted to give them as much creative expression as they wanted,” McPhetres said. “Some of them were very simplistic and had the laws there and what would happen if alcohol was purchased for underage kids, and then the others wanted to say, ‘Hey, do you want to contribute to this?’ and have the car (split) in half, and so forth.”
A task force meeting set for Wednesday was cancelled due to this week’s storm. No parent workshops have been scheduled.