Underage drinking still a problem here

BY JULIE MURPHY
STAFF WRITER

Lax attitudes about drinking and parental denial/enabling were cited as the biggest contributing factors leading to underage drinking at the town hall meeting held at Carmel High School to discuss the problem on Tuesday night.

About 100 people attended the meeting, held in the school's auditorium.

"The problem is exhibited by the lack of people in this room," said Jon Murnik, a Libertyville resident. "Parents should be involved - talk to your kids is the solution."

The goal was to gather input about the top problem and solutions - or ideas toward solutions - to curb underage drinking. A follow up meeting has been scheduled for April 25.

This Place, an international Telly Award winning film created by FACE Resources, offered a graphic presentation of the underage drinking problem. Two shocking statistics were presented: the first place children get alcohol is in their own homes; and alcohol alone kills more children than all other drugs combined.

Co-president of the Lake County After School Coalition and Mundelein Police Chief Ray Rose described underage drinking as "potentially epidemic."

Rose said children are putting alcohol into water bottles, drinking at school, as well as drinking at sleep-over parties - condoned by parents because driving is not involved.

"These kids are not able to have fun unless they are high," he said. "What concerns me is conversations with parents."

Rose said as recently as Monday he had a mother in his office complaining that her 16-year-old daughter had been in a car that was stopped. She was asked to take a portable breath test and blew a .08 blood alcohol concentration - the legal limit.

"The mom said, 'It's OK - everybody does it,'" said Rose.

Jackie Fagan, an 18-year-old senior from Grant High School in Fox Lake, said it is assumed some drinking has occurred by one's senior year.

"We were supposed to be talking about World War II, and we got on the topic of alcohol. We started asking who had drank," she said. "I said I never drank, and my classmates and teacher didn't believe me. That's where we are with this."

Compiled results submitted by a dozen breakout groups will be presented at 6:30 p.m. on April 25 at Carmel High School, located east of the intersection of Route 176 and Hawley Street.

Julie Murphy can be reached at jmurphy@pioneerlocal.com