April is Alcohol Awareness Month. Let's think about the problem of underage drinking in Curry County.

As reported by our students in the 2016 Oregon Student Wellness Survey, 6th graders were 9, 8th graders were 12 and 11th graders were 14 when they started drinking alcohol regularly placing them at a four times greater risk of lifetime alcohol-related problems.

As to binge drinking, which is five or more drinks of alcohol in a row with in a couple of hours (https://bit.ly/2H9UOER), 2% of 6th and 8th graders and 27% of 11th graders had done that within 30 days prior to the survey.

When asked how easy it would be to get alcohol, 117% of 6th, 40% of 8th and 70% of 11th grades said sort of or very easy.

11th graders were asked which of these they had experienced in the last year: got sick to my stomach (10.4%), not been able to remember what happened (12.2%), later regretted something I did (4.3%) and/or worried that I drank alcohol too much or too often (7.0%).

Alcohol remains one of the four leading causes of death for 15 to 24 year olds: motor vehicle crashes, suicides, homicides, and drugs and alcohol

Take an active role to make our schools, streets and homes safer places to grow up. Check out https://bit.ly/2uOT41p today to find out how to talk with your kids about tough issues like alcohol and drugs.

Gordon Clay
Brookings, OR
541-469-5124

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Resources: All information except the second to the last paragraph are sourced from the 2016 Student Wellness Survey at https://oregon.pridesurveys.com/dl.php?pdf=Curry_Co_2016.pdf&type=county

The next to the last paragraph comes from https://www.verywell.com/top-causes-of-death-for-ages-15-24-2223960