Who We Are - Overview

27 December 1999
Y2K Resolution for Safer, Drug-Free Communities

As you make your New Year's resolutions this millennium, consider including in your list to support policies that create safer, healthier, drug-free communities. This millennium year, resolve that Y-2-K will mean Yes 2 Kids making healthy drug-free choices and no to alcohol, and drug use among youth.

Each and every one of us foots the bill for substance abuse one way or the other. The cost of alcohol and drug abuse in San Diego County adds up to $1.8 billion a year in treatment and health care, public safety and social welfare. This is not to mention the personal price families, friends and co-workers pay in destroyed lives.

Currently, alcohol, tobacco and marijuana pose major problems for teenagers. According to a survey of more than nine thousand San Diego high school students taken for the 1999 Substance Abuse Summit, fifty-seven percent feel alcohol is a problem, forty-seven percent say tobacco concerns them and twenty-seven percent consider marijuana a big issue. Consider 1999's shocking statistics:

	Most teenage suicide victims had methamphetamine in their systems.
	Children were present at one-third of methamphetamine lab busts in the county.
	More than half of all San Diego County high school seniors crossed the San Ysidro border into Tijuana to drink alcohol–many drinking themselves into a stupor, returning to the U.S. too intoxicated to drive, yet endangering themselves and others on the freeways.
	Four percent of high school students consumed alcohol every day. In the last month, fifty-two percent of twelfth graders in the metropolitan area drank alcohol–eighty percent in rural East County.

The community at large feels the impact of drug abuse:

	Forty percent of San Diego residents stayed in at night and secured their homes because they feared drug-related problems.
	Substance abusing employees were one-third less productive, absent from work twice as often, and filed five times as many workers compensation claims.

The facts about substance abuse are not a lot to celebrate as we move on to the brave new millennium, but they should fuel our resolve. Entire communities, including law enforcement, schools, businesses, government agencies, youth, parents and grandparents, apartment and homeowners associations, neighborhoods, congregations and faith communities can work collaboratively to address substance abuse.

	Businesses can encourage drug-free workplaces by setting policies.
	Adults can be encouraged to make low risk drinking choices and not drink and drive.
	Alcohol retailers can adopt policies to sell and serve responsibly, which means no sales to minors or obviously intoxicated adults.
	Community members can support police efforts to enforce DUI and zero tolerance laws against alcohol and drug impaired driving.
	San Diegans can participate in community-based, substance abuse prevention initiatives like Communities Against Substance Abuse.
	Neighbors can spread the word about the county's anonymous Methamphetamine hotline (1-877-NO2METH) to report suspicious activity or to get help.

In the past, substance abuse has torn at the very fabric of the family. In 2000, families can take preventive action.

	Parents can support laws that outlaw outdoor alcohol advertising where children live, play and go to school. Research indicates a direct correlation between advertising and underage alcohol use.
	Family members can talk to children about drugs and prevention. Research shows the more parents and community members become involved with their children, the less likely the youth are to be influenced by drugs and alcohol.
	Adults can resolve to never provide alcohol to youth. Drinking alcohol under age twenty-one is against the law. Plus, studies show that the longer a person delays first use of alcohol, the less likely he or she is to face life long alcohol problems.

Despite the gloom-and-doom of the millennium, things are better than they were. A recent survey commissioned by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America shows that across-the-board drug use is leveling off among teenagers and marijuana use declining. Drug use overall among Americans is falling, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Thirteen million Americans are currently illegal drug users, compared to twenty million in 1980.

Healthy, drug-free communities. It can happen! We can resolve to create communities where kids pass love notes instead of nickel bags. In the new millennium, children will fall asleep in class because they stayed up late–studying. Students will have lockers again because there are no more drugs. Adults will talk with and listen to children about drugs and alcohol–and lead by example. Let's start the new millennium with a resolution to advance community norms, values and standards to the point where substance abuse is just not an option. Let's consider substance abuse a 20th century dinosaur like the horse and buggy, and let's bury this dinosaur with the old year.