Meeting to focus on issue of underage alcohol use

The issue of underage alcohol use will be in the national spotlight March 28 as over 950 communities across the U.S., including Corbin, will hold town hall meetings to reemphasize a problem organizers say is lacking attention.
Locally, the Corbin Community Coalition will host a town hall meeting to focus on underage drinking next Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Corbin High School auditorium. On hand will be a distinguished panel of guests – from prevention experts to law enforcement personnel – to discuss the problem and answer questions.
“We’ve kind of forgotten about this problem,” Project ACE Coordinator Chris Hart said. The program, based in the Corbin Independent School System, is funded by a $1.2 million grant and specifically targets underage alcohol use.
“We are talking more about drugs and methamphetamine and prescriptions pills and all that, and that’s still an issue … but by and large, the number one drug of choice, and the one that’s used the most by teens, is alcohol.”
Three out of every four seniors at Corbin High School have tried alcohol at some point in their life. Hart said that statistics, and others related to children drinking, parallels national averages.
“Kids, I think, see it as a right of passage or something that is not harmful,” Hart said. “It’s an issue in the Corbin school system just as it is with Laurel County and Whitley County and Knox County and across the country. We need to bring it back out as something that is an issue and something that causes bad decision making.”
Consequences of drinking is a topic Hart said he focuses almost exclusively on in the classroom, teaching freshmen students at the high school a special curriculum for Project ACE called “Class Action.” Students study underage drinking from different angles through study of civil court cases. The cases range in focus: fetal alcohol syndrome, drunk driving, drinking and vandalism, drinking and sexual conduct, etc. Hart said the class has been well received because it involves a high-level of participation. Students, broken up into legal teams, often get to argue different sides of the case as though they were lawyers in court, while others act as jurors trying to assign blame and decide damage rewards.
“It’s designed to teach them that negligence can be costly and that they are responsible for their actions,” he said. “They need to think ahead about what could happen and they or their parents could be held liable for what they do. The great thing about this is every student says, ‘this could really happen here at Corbin High School.'”
The town hall meeting is open to the public and will be presented in a two-part format. Hart will address those gathered and talk about local issues, then present a 12-minute video about underage drinking. Afterward, panelists will describe how their jobs intertwine with the issue, and then field questions. Panelists scheduled to attend include: Corbin Police Chief Carson Mullins, Prevention Specialist Joy White, CHS Assistant Principal Randall Sawyers, District Judge Dan Ballou, Commonwealth’s Attorney Allen Trimble and an unnamed professional from the medical field.
Hart said Kentucky First Lady Glenna Fletcher has been invited to attend the town hall meeting, but also has invitations to about 30 similar meetings in Kentucky during the same day.
“We’re keeping our fingers crossed. We should know later in the week if she will be able to attend.”
Fletcher held a press conference last week at the capital building in Frankfort solely focused on the problem of underage drinking.