Report from Town Hall Meeting to Discuss Underage Drinking
Published by Joe Burgess April 3rd, 2008 in HHI.
On April 1, 2008, Drew County Hometown Health Coalition held a Town Hall Meeting focused on underage drinking. Fran Flener, Arkansas State Drug Director was the key- note speaker for the meeting. Along with Ms. Flener, there was a panel that consisted of Southeast Emergency Medical Services, Monticello Ambulance Service, Monticello Police Department, Drew County Sheriff Department, ABC Enforcement, and DASEP Coordinator for Delta Counseling.
The meeting provided information about the issue, such as prevention, education, treatment, awareness and enforcement. Anyone interested in more information on underage drinking can contact the Drew County Hometown Health Coalition at 870-367-6234.
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The story below posted on March 30, 20083
Did you know Drew County has one of the highest percentages of 6th graders
who have consumed alcohol in the last 30 days in all Arkansas counties?
Want to learn more about this and other underage drinking issues?
There will be a Town Hall Meeting, sponsored by the Drew County Hometown
Health Improvement Coalition, on Tuesday, April 1, at 5:30 PM.
The program will be held at the Southeast Arkansas Educational Cooperative,
with guest speaker Fran Flener, the Arkansas State Drug Director.
For more information, contact Jill Pennington at 870-367-6234, ext 230
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to make sure under age drinking stops,you’ll have to do 1 important thing to make it stick.
if a child is caught,than if he/she should be treated the same as others,and children who have police officers as relatives should not be treated as special.otherwise,city residents will claim unfair justice and the county will get sued.
make a example out of someone,if a police officer protects a relative for breaking the law,he/she should lose the badge,$350.000.00 fine and 6 years in prison,just like it’s done in little rock.
to make a long story short,All children needs to be given same punishment for under-age drinking re-guardless of who they are related too,otherwise, under-age drinking will get much worse,drinking and driving/wrecks/deaths
will cause this town to become a FBI runned town,where we the citizens will have no rights at all,what this means is,liqour can’t be owned by no means.
not in your house,not even in the county.
48% of the state of geogia has a liqour ban due to the number of casuties from under-age dring and driving and in those parts of that state,if a kid is caught with liqour,parent are fined 50 bucks for every fluid ounce that the kid has.
whew,don’t wanna see arkansas turn up like that
Stopping underage drinking begins at home. If parents drink, how can they expect the children to listen when they tell them not to. O.K. lets put the blame on the police like always. Instead of blaming the police, dont write letters from the background, get involved with MADD or safe prom, maybe even come to the meeting tonight. Do you really want to put a child in the drunk tank in an adult jail, cause that is what you will have to do if you give the same punishment. While your at it, why dont you send them to the pen for being out past curfew or playing music to loud. Part of a police officers job is to help kids, talk to them and get their parents, who somtimes dont know, involved. My daughter got a DUI a couple of years ago while in college. The police officer, who is a frien of mine, called me. Guess what, she still has a DUI on her record. Oh, did I forget to mention, i’ve been a police officer for 10 years and went to the academy with the officer who wrote that DUI. Imagine that!
I agree with ya Hank. In fact, every cop i know is generally harder on their own kids because we are held up to a higher standard simply because of what we do.
I can say that in my years as a police officer, I havent helped any cops relative near as much as I have tried to help people I didnt know but encountered through working.
You said it- get involved with the youth- a kid playing baseball or doing something constructive with their parents stands less of a chance to be out drinking to start with.
I was unaware that Little Rock has such stiff penalties ;)
You know today it is not only friends supplying other friends with beer but parents are now buying their children beer. You know just look on facebook and myspace of all the children with pictures up of them and their friend underage drinking. What is truly amazing is a lot of the children that are from Monticello doing it. And believe me there are so well known names in the town of Monticello that have children with pictures up of them underage drinking.
blame SCAN, if you whip your kid for wrong-doings,SCAN will fine you and take your kids away.
that the goverment for you
What in the world will make a 6th grader consume liquor? Show them a picture of a how they liver will look in 10 years. That ought to scare them.
I get a big kick out of the way people who are not willing to get involved hide behind the saying “blame the goverment”.
I agree with ya hank stopping underage drinking does begin at home, but parents don’t always know what their children are doing behind their back. that’s why it take a village to raise a child now and it takes caring adults like you and other adults to inform parents and try to get the kids back on track!! because they are our future. We have to continue to pray for our youth because this world is getting worse and it’s gonna take Prayer. it’s so many lost souls I have so much compassion for our youth. and it’s good to see others like you do too! Keep up the good work and may continue to bless you and family
In responce to “WALT” if someone calls “scan” on you and you have done nothing wrong, then your children will not be taken away. It is the guilty ones that have kids taken away. So people believe that since they are your kids, you can treat them how you want. Well the kids have the right to be treated with respect too. A call to “scan ” should not worry someone that has nothing to hide!
As an older fella, I’ve seen a few things. I don’t hold a degree, I’ll never be famous. But I will always be amazed by all of the nashing of teeth and highminded wails of worry. The question seems to be how the reduction of underage drinking can be acomplished? And I wonder how much money will be wasted just so some politico can look wise and caring? OK, news flash, as long as you tolerate “BOOTLEGGERS”, kids will get it and drink it. I moved here five years ago, don’t drink myself, but knew how to reach five purveyers of booze within two weeks. Now folks we don’t even pretend that a “bootlegger” asks for proof of age, only the pictures of dead presidents. Why do you folks keep legal products illegal so that only the outlaws control distribution and price and who can purchase? Is it true (but misguided) concern, or a money issue, or just plain stupid? Monticello should honor the constitution, and allow free market and regulations, to occur. Instead of hanging on to BS, oh yeah as George Carlin says “its all BS and its not good for you”. Have a good day. Jay
1st and foremost I am a mom of 4 children 3 of which are teenagers. There is not one thing for them to do on the weekend but try to find some trouble to get in. As a community we need to start finding things for them to do that is fun rather than giving them so much time on their hands. When i was a teen we had teen dance clubs where you had to be under a certain age to get in and it was monitored completely. Monticello at least has the movies. In our small town we dont even have that. There were skating rinks and movies back in my day the kids hung out in town at a local pizza dive. Those days are long gone due to our generations idea of our kids needed more. oh and do they have more yes they do. They have fewer punishments from parents and more time to do what they want. Another thing we had was dances at the schools or some kind of school function going on just about every Friday night. These are becoming extinct because of parents and administrators wanting to do something else on Friday night that doesnt involve kids. It takes time and energy to keep kids and teens off of alcohol and drugs these days we seem to fall into the because we talk to them about it it wont happen…. well im sorry to tell you but my parents talked to my brother about it and it still happened… it happened because he found nothing else to occupy his time. He is considerably younger than i am and found plenty to get him in trouble. It is time that we took back our kids. It starts at home and at school so for all of you admins out there and parents start by going to pto meetings and making a plan for some activities for weekends. save your child…. I plan to!!!!