Westbrook High School sophomore Ericka Leary said almost every student at the high school drinks alcohol.
She said kids find places to drink anywhere they can-at parties, just hanging out, in the woods, at houses where parents let kids drink and even in cars. She said kids drink most every weekend.
On April 5, families and community members will join educators at Westbrook High School for a meeting to discuss underage drinking. The meeting is being held to increase understanding of underage drinking and to encourage the community to come together in an effort to curb the problem.
Leary said she doesn’t think underage drinking is a major problem because kids today are just doing what their parents did when they were their age. She said some parents don’t even care that their kids are drinking as long as they’re not being unsafe. She said kids are unsafe when they drink and drive. “I don’t get in the car,” she said.
Junior Jen Smith said parties tend to move as police locate and break them up, but that most kids seem aware enough about drunk driving that they choose a designated driver. Otherwise, they just plan on spending the night wherever they are. She said kids tend to drink in the car on the way to parties, although the driver will abstain.
As for who’s doing the drinking, Leary said kids in every crowd at some point or other will drink.
“I think that parents try to say that it’s more of a jock crowd that does it, but I think that everyone does it, every crowd,” she said. “I’m not saying everyone, but every crowd. I think that at different times every crowd does it.”
Sophomore Diana Quinlan said all the athletes are required to sign contracts promising they won’t drink but the athletic teams tend to be the ones organizing the parties.
“It’s really everybody,” said Quinlan. “It’s just most of it is the kids you wouldn’t think. Like the kids who do every single sport, you’re like, ‘Oh, well, they can’t do that because they’re worried about getting thrown off the team.’ Well, they’re the ones who know how to do it without getting caught.”
Travis Jordan, a freshman, said none of his friends drank before they got to high school. “Nobody did it in junior high,” he said. “And then once everybody came up here and made friends with upperclassmen, all my friends started to do it.”
Brazilian senior exchange student Thais Vieira thinks drinking is a problem. “People just don’t think it’s a problem anymore, (but) it’s not right,” she said. “I think if you start accepting your kids to do something like that, they start losing their respect for you. They will be like, ‘Well, I can do drugs then, and I can have sex, and I can run away from home, and I can call you whatever I want.'”
Although she doesn’t drink herself, she said 90 percent of her friends here and back in Brazil drink, which makes her feel like the minority, both here and in Brazil. She said one difference between the two countries is the fact that both the driving and drinking age in Brazil are 18, however. While kids will drink before they turn 18 like they do here, they can’t drive because they don’t have a license.
According to School Health Coordinator Sandy Hale, “underage drinking is the number one drug problem in the state, contributing to teen depression, suicide, academic failure, and violence, including sexual assault and homicide. Underage drinking is also a serious problem here in Westbrook.”
According to 2004 data from the Maine Youth Alcohol and Drug Use Survey, over a third of Westbrook high students reported drinking alcohol in the last 30 days, while about 15 percent of junior high students reported drinking in the last 30 days as well.
Westbrook parents and residents are encouraged to attend the underage drinking summit tonight at 7 p.m. in the Westbrook High School auditorium where Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe will speak about the problems of underage drinking.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
