Parents Pay the Price

With two daughters approaching their high school years, I was uneasy about what I thought was the sympathtic tone toward some of the situation in which parents found themselves in "A Host of Trouble" [October 8].

Parents are responsible for the welfare and well-being of their children. Adults who purchase alcohol for minors should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Children need to be educated from the very start about what alcohol is and what it is not. It is never a solution to problems, a prerequisite for a good time, or required for anything!

Julie Foster
Indianapolis

"Psychologist and addiction expert" Stanton Peele needs to wake up and smell the alcohol. It's on the breath of far too many teens, and he is perpetuating the outdated and dangerous myth that drinking at home with parents reduces the risk of harmful consumption. The 2003 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs compared drinking, binge drinking, and intoxication rates of European and U.S. 10th graders. The results provided no evidence that the more liberal European policies and attitudes toward drinking contribute to more responsible drinking by youth. In fact, for a majority of those countries, a much greater percentage of youth report binge drinking and intoxication than their U.S. counterparts.

Judy H. Griffith
Coordinator
Safe and Drug Free Schools
Helena School District No. 1
Helena , Mont.

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