June 10, 2010

School District unites with law enforcement, community services, and health care authorities on North Shore Anti-Bootlegging Campaign

For the second year in a row, representatives of North Shore law enforcement, health care, community services, and school districts have united in an “anti-bootlegging" campaign stressing the need to reduce the accessibility of alcohol to minors.

At a press conference on Thursday, June 10, 2010, North Vancouver School District Superintendent of Schools John Lewis joined representatives from Vancouver Coastal Health, Lions Gate Hospital, North Vancouver and Bowen Island RCMP, West Vancouver police and the North Shore Action on Prevention Committee in an effort to raise awareness of the risks and consequences of selling or providing alcohol to minors.

“We partner with community agencies to educate our students about the risks of drug and alcohol abuse throughout the school year,” says Lewis. “This work begins at the elementary school level with our Safe and Caring Schools program.”  Lewis explained that by partnering with the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, (DARE), intermediate students receive the information they need to make good, healthy decisions.

In secondary schools, counselors work with planning classes and Parent Advisory Committees throughout the year to ensure the risks of underage drinking are understood. They promote awareness of appropriate alternatives, including “dry grad” events, and strategies for young people and their parents to help them avoid the risks associated with underage drinking.

“In our society, alcohol is socially-sanctioned,” says Trustee Linda Buchanan, who attended the press conference and serves as Trustee-Liaison to the North Shore Substance Abuse Working Group Committee. “This makes it that much more important to impress upon young people that this is a drug which can negatively impact their thoughts, their moods, and their judgments. Alcohol may give the drinker a sense of immunity or invincibility that is the prelude to a host of risk-taking behaviours. For this reason, adults need to model responsible behaviour by not supplying alcohol to minors and help the youth in their lives understand the risks that come with underage drinking.”

“We need parents, older siblings and friends all to recognize the risks associated with providing alcohol to minors,” says Lewis. “Particularly during grad season, we need adults to recognize that they are not enabling a healthy ritual or right of passage by providing alcohol to teens, they are actually putting them in harm’s way.”