HSFPP Weekly Update #71 / 72 - Risks Not Worth Taking

Message from Flashman: Despite the wealth of information available about the effects of alcohol and drug abuse, many high school and college students continue to ignore this information, and more than a few are affected negatively by drugs and alcohol. I feel this is an important subject, so we are providing you two articles with questions on this topic for this week and next week. As a result, you will not receive a lesson next Monday.

Receiving a DUI or being convicted of assault, manslaughter, and/or wanton endangerment in a vehicle accident as a result of being intoxicated, as Larry Mahoney was in the infamous Kentucky bus crash that killed 27 people in 1988, will hinder a person throughout his or her life and career even if he or she stops abusing alcohol or drugs. Just having a DUI on your record could make it tougher to get a good job and to advance in certain careers. High school students need to know that, if they drink and drive, the effects could last the rest of their lives and might cost them and others their lives. We also discuss teenage drinking in Update # 6, available from the archive page on our website.

The Mothers Against Drunk Driving site is very informative, with links to research and statistics on drunk driving, and lists and ratings of each state’s laws regarding drunk driving. By clicking on the “Stats and Resources” link, you can get statistics on impaired driving in Kentucky. After that, go to “Drunk Driving Research,” and then “Costs of Impaired Driving in the United States State by State.” This gives a listing of all the states. There is a very good “Under 21” link with helpful information for elementary, junior high, and high school students, and even college students. It explains some of the myths and facts about alcohol and has individual sections for teenage boys and girls and why they often feel pressured to drink. In this section of the website, a link addresses what parents and teachers can do about underage drinking. The site also includes all the latest news on topics related to drunk driving.

There are six True/False questions below. The answers can be found at the following website:

Next week, have students go to the following sites and read these articles about the infamous 1988 Kentucky bus crash:

“Once, but briefly, it was hip to be square. But times they are a changing. Despite growing up amid the health-kick craze of the 1990s, many young Americans today still think that smoking, drinking, drug use, gambling and even refusing to wear a seat belt are cool activities, a recent study finds. For example, according to the study, two-thirds of young women ages 14 to 22 and more than half of young men say that a popular kid would be more likely than other people their age to drink alcohol. The study was conducted by the Adolescent Risk Communication Institute at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

“The National Adolescent Risk Survey of Youth, now in its second year, is a nationally representative poll of 900 young Americans ages 14 to 22. The study, conducted by phone between March 3 and June 30, looked at participation levels in five risk behaviors: smoking cigarettes, smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, gambling, and not using seat belts. As a way to gauge peer-group influences, researchers also quizzed respondents as to whether they perceived those who engage in such behaviors as popular.

“Ironically, as kids get older and supposedly wiser they tend to engage in risky behaviors at increased levels. While just 18 percent of boys and girls ages 14 to 17 say they had consumed alcohol in the prior month, 58 percent of men ages 18 to 22 and 43 percent of women fess up to imbibing. The same participation pattern is seen for marijuana use, gambling and smoking. The exception is with seat belts, where the risky behavior decreases with age, especially among females. Almost half of teen girls ages 14 to 17 (46 percent) say they had ridden in a car sans seat belt at least once in the prior month, compared with 36 percent of 18- to 22-year-old women.”

“Black and Hispanic young people tend to stay out of trouble more often than their white counterparts. White youths, for example, are more likely to have engaged in binge drinking defined in this study as four drinks in a row for females and five drinks in a row for males. For 14- to 22-year-olds, more than half of white males (54 percent) and of white females (51 percent) say they have had an episode of binge drinking in the prior month, compared with about a third of black and Hispanic males (35 percent) and females (29 percent). The exception here is gambling: Black and Hispanic male youths were slightly more likely (25 percent) to have bet their money in the prior 30 days than were white males (21 percent).”

Source: Written by Rebecca Gardyn, excerpt from American Demographics, September 2003.

The purpose of this Web site is to assist county extension agents, credit union educators, and high school teachers in improving the economic well-being of our constituency, beginning with today’s students; and also, to assist teachers in Kentucky in meeting KERA’s goal that all students become technologically literate. Weekly Updates are provided by the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, and are free to all educators.

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HSFPP Weekly Update #71 / 72—Risks Not Worth Taking