VIEWPOINT

As a community, Nantucket cherishes its youth. We cater to their needs, providing myriad year round and summer recreational and educational programs and activities. Unfortunately, it is also the adult community that often provides alcohol to youth as well, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

Youth drink alcohol within the context of a society and culture where alcohol use is the norm, and images about alcohol are pervasive. Known worldwide as a tourist destination, Nantucket's influx of vacationers promotes a "party culture" atmosphere that sustains favorable alcohol use attitudes throughout the year, including underage use. Any initiatives to reduce underage drinking and to change that normative behavior must therefore focus on adults as well as youth, and must engage the whole community, including our extended summer families and visitors.

To that end, the Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention, Inc. has made measured progress over the last several years. ASAP, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) formed in 1995, is a cross-sector collaborative of various local organizations, committees, town departments, and the public at-large, which together serve as a communitywide prevention coalition. ASAP's mission is to provide leadership, education and support in the community for the prevention and treatment of alcoholism, addiction, substance abuse and related problems. In 2006-2007, a comprehensive strategic planning process engaged many community partners to create a Nantucket Substance Abuse Prevention Plan for Youth (to view the plan and connect to links on underage drinking visit www.asapnantucket.org).

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, implemented in Nantucket High School in 2006, 2007 and 2008, identified alcohol as the drug most commonly used by NHS students in both 2006 and 2007 (results are pending for the 2008 YRBS), with 2007 results as follows:

Fifty-five percent of students reported current

use, higher than that of

Massachusetts (48%) and of the U.S. (43%);

The rate of high-risk (binge) drinking among NHS students (38%) is also higher than that of their state (27%) and national (26%) peers. Highrisk drinking behavior is defined as five or more drinks in a row within a couple of hours, at least once within the last month;

The average age of first use of alcohol among NHS students (who have reported alcohol use) is 13.46 years;

Forty-three percent of NHS students reported riding in a car with a driver who had been drinking (within the past 30 days), higher than that of Massachusetts (27%) and the U.S. (28%);

Sixteen percent of NHS students reported driving a car (within the past 30 days) when they had been drinking, higher than that of Massachusetts (11%) and the U.S. (10%);

Sixty-eight percent of NHS students responded that there are times when his/her parent(s) allow him/her to drink alcohol;

Eighty-one percent of students believe that alcohol is "easy to get";

When asked, "how wrong do your parents feel it would be for you to drink regularly," 52 percent of NHS students perceive that their parents believe regular alcohol use is "NOT very wrong";

Many parents are ambivalent about underage alcohol use, with strongly held "underage drinking is a rite of passage" beliefs ("I did it, and I'm okay" or "its only beer"), a norm that leads to a low perception of harm and promotes a perception that parents approve of youth use.

While they may not realize it, parents have the most influence on whether or not their child will drink alcohol. Youth report that parental disapproval of underage drinking is the key reason they have chosen not to drink.

Underage alcohol use is not a 'rite of passage" - its illegal and dangerous, not only because it's linked to injury and risky behaviors, but also because of the threat to youth's long-term development and well-being. Recent research indicates that the brain continues to develop into a person's early 20s, and that exposing the developing adolescent brain to alcohol may have long-lasting effects on intellectual capabilities and may increase the likelihood of alcohol addiction, with the risk increasing the younger the onset of alcohol use. Underage drinking is associated with increased injury (including car accidents), violence (including sexual assault), suicide, educational failure, risky sexual activity, and an increased likelihood to use other drugs (National Academy of Sciences, Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility, 2003).

The ASAP Coalition prioritized alcohol as a focus area and selected Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol as an effective sciencebased, program strategy to reduce underage drinking on Nantucket. CMCA is a community-mobilizing strategy that has been proven not to only reduce youth access to alcohol, leading to a decrease in youth use of alcohol, but also to strengthen and improve healthy community norms by communicating a clear message that underage drinking is inappropriate and unacceptable. Our CMCA Project Coordinator, Mary Beth King, hired in July 2007, has mobilized the grassroots, broad diversity of Nantucket to form a Strategy Team to examine the problem in depth. Together with the ASAP Coalition, they're working closely with key partners (youth, parents, school administration, the Nantucket Police Department, the business community, and others) to make institutional and policy changes, and to implement environmental strategies that limit social and commercial access of alcohol to youth.

If you're concerned about underage drinking and substance abuse on Nantucket and would like further information, or want to support the efforts of the ASAP Coalition and/or the CMCA Project, there are many ways you can help. Please call the Executive Director at 508.776.0704 or email at nantucket.ma@ncadd.org, or call Mary Beth King, the CMCA Project Coordinator at 508.228.1362, or email at cmcanantucket@nantucket.net to discuss ways you can get involved - we invite and welcome your participation.
Karyn Lindsay,
Executive Director