Ways sought to curb teen drinking

A group at a town hall meeting held Monday to find ways to curb underage drinking came to a consensus on the best first steps to take — reaching out to adults and better enforcing laws in place, especially Havre’s social host ordinance.

“Teenagers will do what teenagers will do, but when we have parents colluding, we really have our hands tied,” said Rich Jesperson, prevention specialist for the Havre Encourages Long-range Prevention Committee.

The meeting, sponsored by Bullhook Community Health Center and held at HRDC in Havre, had low attendance, which was a crux of the discussion of the group.

Debby Knudson, clinical supervisor and licensed addiction counselor at Bullhook, said she was disappointed with the low turnout.

“The parents have got to get involved,” Knudson said. “We hear them crying out, ‘We want this help,’ but where are they?”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded a grant to Bullhook to hold the meeting, with the intent to find ways to reduce underage drinking.

The meeting saw 11 people attending, mostly health care professionals, along with Jesperson, Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger and Havre High School Principal Craig Mueller.

Not just an alcohol problem

Mueller said an issue that is crucial to address is prescription drug use by Havre’s youth.

“That’s just as great a concern as alcohol and marijuana use … ,” he said. “The vast majority of cases we have, where prescription drugs are being used that are not the students drugs, they are getting it from home or getting it from a friend’s house. That’s something we need to address.”

He added that in his 20 years in education he used to see students coming to football games drunk, every game.

“It was a mindset, it was acceptable,” he said.

In Havre now, with police at every game, that has changed.

“Those students don’t even bother coming to events any more …,” he said. “It’s not worth their time to get caught.”

Trying to change the culture

A common theme discussed was the need to change the culture of acceptance of drinking, in adults and in children, to curb underage drinking.

Lynne Nash, nurse practitioner at Bullhook, said she moved here from Colorado and was surprised at how prevalent alcohol is in the state.

“It is everywhere in Montana … ,” she said. “It’s everywhere, and (the children) see it everywhere, so it makes it seem like its a common, acceptable thing, when really, it’s not.”

Northern Montana Hospital psychologist Chris Laviola, who said he practiced in California and Wyoming before coming to Havre this year, recently went to a play and was “blown away” at how much alcohol was there along with a large number of children.

“The message we’re sending is kind of a mixed message,” he said.

Limits on what the courts can do

Barger said she sees many children in court with alcohol-related charges — but there is not much she can do until they become adults.

“I see a lot of it, but as I have discussed before, I don’t really have any teeth to do anything,” she said. “I tell them to pay their fine and to do their community service, and if they don’t do it, I don’t have anything I can do except for call them in and tell them, shake my finger at them, and finally, when they turn 18, I can issue a warrant for their arrest.”

Barger said if people want a change in that, they would have to talk to lawmakers.

Underlying problems

She also said there often are underlying causes for children drinking that need to be addressed. Barger said she often is dealing with children caught drinking while she is dealing with their parents in the Hill County jail.

“This is all great, but it’s a tough world,” she said. “It’s a tough time to be a child.”

Laviola said he experienced the same thing while practicing in Orange County, California. He sometimes would have to go to the jail to have parents sign a consent form so he could treat their children, he said.

Jen Durward, psychological nurse practitioner at Northern Montana Hospital, said the children’s guardians often aren’t even parents. Many local children are being raised by their grandparents or aunts and uncles or other relatives or family friends, she said.

Trying to change the attitude

Jesperson said, something has to be done to change the attitude of adults. When children drink, adults are providing the alcohol and often the place to use it, he said.

He added that Havre passed a law two years ago to give some teeth to enforcement — a social host ordinance that holds adults liable if they own, rent or lease a space and knowingly allow underaged people to drink there.

The state and Hill County do not have social host ordinances, although Jesperson said more and more towns and cities are passing them.

But, he said, most people don’t seem to be aware that the Havre ordinance exists, and it is not being used.

“It’s been virtually invisible,” he said. “It’s just there.”

The Havre Police Department reports that its officers issued seven social host violation citations in each of the last two years.

Applying social pressure

Jesse Bergren, licensed addiction counselor at Bullhook, agreed that social pressure needs to be placed on the parents and adults. They need to be stopping children from drinking, rather than enabling it or ignoring it, he said.

Adults just saying they don’t want to know that their children are drinking, “that’s not good enough,” Bergren said.

Jesperson made a couple of suggestions, along with volunteering to speak with the Havre Police Department to see what more could be done to enforce the social host ordinance.

One, he said, was designing signs people could place in their yards or on their house similar to neighborhood watch signs. Having a “No-Host House” sign in a yard would pressure others to stop hosting parties, he said.

He said he would like to borrow another idea to raise social pressure to stop the hosting of underage drinking parties. Jesperson said he saw a billboard in the Kalispell area that showed a police officer, sheriff’s deputy and highway patrolman.

The caption of the billboard said, “If you’re hosting an underage drinking party, consider us invited.”