KAPA‘A — “Someone should have told him that it’s wrong to drink and drive. Maybe if his parents had, I’d still be alive.” That one passage from a poem, “I Went to a Party Mom” by an unknown author, combined
KAPA‘A — “Someone should have told him that it’s wrong to drink and drive. Maybe if his parents had, I’d still be alive.”
That one passage from a poem, “I Went to a Party Mom” by an unknown author, combined with the words of guest speaker Kekai Seabury of the Kaua‘i Division of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Sgt. Ken Carvalho of the Kaua‘i Police Department to drive the point home as to the dangers of underage drinking.
“We do this to help save lives,” Seabury said.
Theresa Koki, the county’s anti-drug coordinator, said alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice that young people abuse.
She was joined by representatives of a number of community-based agencies offering information and statistics on underage drinking on Kaua‘i during a town hall meeting, the second in a series, at the Kapa‘a Middle School cafeteria.
“If we save one life, that life could be that of your child,” Carvalho said.
Carvalho, in charge of the Kaua‘i Police Department Investigative Services, Youth Services Section, said underage drinking statistics are on the rise on Kaua‘i.
If a liquor retailer sells to an underaged person, or anyone under 21 years old, that is against the law, he said.
But on Kaua‘i, there were six citations issued for this in 2006. That number rose to 11 citations in 2007, and with a month remaining in 2008, there have already been 12 citations issued, Carvalho said.
He noted that when a citation for selling to an underaged person is issued, there are consequences to not only the retail establishment, but to the individual who made the transaction as well.
Carvalho said in another area on the rise is a person of legal age purchasing alcohol for an underaged person.
In 2005, there were 15 arrests to adults under this law, the minor being only 12 years old in one incident, Carvalho said.
That number soared to 45 arrests in 2006. Following a decline to 36 arrests in 2007, the number of arrests has reached 46 for 2008 with a month remaining in the calendar year.
In some of these situations, Carvalho pointed out that the oldest person arrested was 48 years old, cited for purchasing liquor for five 15-year-olds.
“We cannot get them all,” Carvalho said. “But if we can help just one young person, that person could be your child.”
The meeting was called as part of the surgeon general’s “call to action.”
The report states that preventing underage drinking is a long-term project for parents, schools, community groups, community leaders and other concerned individuals that should start when children are young and continue through the teen years.
In any month, more youth are drinking than are smoking cigarettes or using marijuana, the report states.
Eric Honma, the director of the Department of Liquor Control, said the community needs to band together and contribute toward the protection of young people.
“It’s hard to grow up today,” Honma said. “But there’s more support and there are more successes in curbing the problem. We’re here at the town hall meeting to support parents with resources.”
One of those successes is the Shattered Dreams program headed up by Moana Ta‘a of the Keiki Injury Prevention Coalition and Lt. Mark Scribner of the KPD.
Scribner said the program has played to all three of Kaua‘i’s public high schools and extended over to two on the Big Island since its inception in 2003.
He said the program was developed by a Texas task force and Ta‘a took the ball and ran with it on Kaua‘i.
Shattered Dreams involves the setting up of a mock crash with students being involved. The first day is to set up the crash with all emergency response agencies responding.
“It’s treated like a real crash,” Scribner said, noting that during the initial stages of the crash, there are always the “macho” students who think it’s a joke. “But by the time the exercise is over, they aren’t laughing anymore.”
Support for the program came from Bill Arakaki, the Kaua‘i Area Complex Schools Superintendant, whose daughters were involved in the Kaua‘i High School program and he got first-hand experience on the effectiveness of the enactment.
“I have five children of my own,” Arakaki said. “But when I became principal of Waimea High School, I had 700 children. Now, as superintendant, I have 10,000 children and every time I hear a siren, I ask myself, ‘Is one of my children involved?’”
Seabury, who lost his father to a drunk driver, said he is not from Kaua‘i, but was forced to move here after an uncle recognized how disturbed he was following the loss of his dad to a drunk driver.
“It was about 4:30 or 5 on a Sunday morning when a 19-year-old crossed the center line and hit my dad,” Seabury said, choking back the emotion that came back despite six years passing since the incident. “I was just two minutes later and all I saw was a cloud of smoke.”
“My mom lost not only my dad, but a son as well,” he said. “I couldn’t drive or work for four to six months. My uncle from Kaua‘i asked me to move here because I wanted to waste two guys.”
Seabury said the incident took place six years ago, but it still feels like it happened only yesterday. The driver in that accident was sentenced to a year in prison, but was out in six months for good behavior, he said. And he’s still drinking, and he’s still driving.
“I do this now because it helps me heal,” Seabury said.
Underage drinking is everyone’s problem, the surgeon general’s report states, and its solutions are everyone’s responsibility.
