REMARKS BY: | Steven Galson, Acting Surgeon General |
PLACE: | Washington, DC |
DATE: | Thursday, February 14, 2008 |
"Helping Our Kids Make Positive and Healthy Choices"
Remarks as prepared; not a transcript.
RADM Steven K. Galson, M.D., MPH
Acting Surgeon General
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Remarks at the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA)
National Leadership Forum Breakfast Plenary
February 14, 2008
Washington, DC
"Helping Our Kids Make Positive and Healthy Choices"
Thank you, Michael (Michael Kramer, CADCA Coalition Leader, Board Member and Juvenile Court Judge), for that gracious introduction.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I am honored to be here today to deliver this plenary address.
Thank you General Arthur Dean, and to your Chairman, and members of the CADCA Board for inviting me to be here.
Events like this one are especially important.
I say this because effective community coalitions are what your organization is about.
And we know that commitment and concerted action at the grass roots level is critical to being effective, to making progress, in reducing the misuse of alcohol and drugs by young people.
I know that CADCA is making a difference, bringing about cultural and attitudinal change, and offering resources - such as substance abuse prevention and treatment information - “on the front lines” where they are most needed.
You are familiar to your neighbors. You give a ‘human face’ to public policies designed to reduce substance abuse.
You are the members of your community who care.
Moreover, a 2007 publication illustrates just how important your outreach to young people is.
The report, “A Day in the Life of American Adolescents: Substance Use Facts,” presents a stark picture of the daily toll substance abuse takes on America's young.
Among the report's major findings is that on any given day during 2006
- nearly 1 million adolescents ages 12 to 17 smoked cigarettes,
- 631,000 drank alcohol,
- and 586,000 used marijuana.
The report concluded that on an average day nearly 8,000 adolescents drank alcohol for the first time; and approximately 2,500 adolescents abused pain relievers for the first time.
To provide some perspective on these figures, the nationwide number of adolescents using alcohol on an average day vastly exceeds half of the number of all students registered in New York City schools.
So the common challenge we face to prevent substance abuse remains quite real.
I applaud CADCA for its leadership in familiarizing young people with the perils of drug and alcohol misuse.
You help demonstrate that prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery support services pay dividends.
Your work resonates throughout your community. It promotes productivity, employment, healthy families and healthy communities.
In providing accurate information about addiction and substance misuse, you contribute to diminishing rates of HIV/AIDS, crime, violence, suicide, homelessness, injuries, and health care costs.
We know that alcohol and drug misuse is reduced as we prevent or intervene early with the best services available.
Today, treatment and recovery is no longer the privilege of a few exceptional people, but a possibility for all.
Treatment and recovery restores lives.
I commend everything that CADCA has done throughout your history and in so many different ways to further substance abuse prevention and underscore the power of recovery.
Priorities
As the Acting Surgeon General, I serve as our nation’s chief “health educator” - responsible for giving Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.
I want to mention certain priorities in my office.
They include:
Disease Prevention - what each of us can do in our own lives and communities to make ourselves and our families healthier.
Public Health Preparedness - an all-hazards approach to preparing America to meet and overcome challenges to our health and safety, such as those of human origin, an emerging illnesses or a natural disaster.
This includes being ready, physically, mentally, and spiritually; being able to exercise public health principles and practices, and resiliency of mind and spirit.
Eliminating Health Disparities - we note the disheartening data that too many of our people from minority groups still suffer from certain illnesses at a disproportionate rate.
While, overall, our nation's health has improved, not all populations have benefited equally. Many Americans who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups experience disparities in health outcomes and health care.
It is imperative that things change.
And woven through all of these priorities is an issue we call health literacy.
It is the currency for success in everything that we are doing in the Office of the Surgeon General.
Health literacy is the ability of an individual to access, understand, and use information and services to make appropriate health decisions.
More than 90 million people cannot adequately understand basic health information.
And health illiteracy is impacting people of all ages, races and education levels.
In order to most effectively support substance abuse prevention - your messages must be truly understood by the individuals you are trying to reach.
When a student does not understand the reality of alcohol poisoning…that is a problem.
When a 10th grade student does not understand the effects that alcohol abuse can have on the development of his or her brain… that is a problem.
We all have a responsibility to ensure that we translate the science and data into medical and health information that can be heard... understood... embraced... and ultimately put into action.
The fight to end health illiteracy should start with substance abuse programs that promote health literacy and awareness of the consequences of alcohol and drug misuse.
These programs should be developed with involvement from the people who will use them.
Everyone in the audience today can help by becoming an ambassador for health literacy.
The Purpose of Your Visit
As you may know, the main reason I am here today is to talk with you about underage drinking.
From the beginning, it is important to understand that our efforts to reduce underage drinking are meant to ensure that our children have the greatest opportunity to succeed.
Our goal, whether as parents, educators, addiction professionals, service providers, or caring adults, is to provide kids with the tools that enable them to make positive and healthy choices.
Most of you already know that alcohol is the most widely used and abused substance among our Nation’s youth: a higher percentage of young people between the ages of 12 and 20 use alcohol than tobacco or illicit drugs.
Scope of the Problem
The 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimated that the rate of current alcohol use among youths aged 12 to 17 was approximately 17 percent.
In 2006, about 11 million persons aged 12 to 20 reported drinking alcohol within the 30 days prior to being surveyed. Approximately 7 million were binge drinkers, and 2 million were heavy drinkers.
Nationally, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die every year as a result of underage drinking; this includes about 1,900 deaths from motor vehicle crashes,
- 1,600 as a result of homicides,
- 300 from suicide, as well as hundreds from other injuries such as falls, burns, and drowning.
In people under age 21, alcohol is a leading contributor to “death from injuries” – the main cause of death in that age group.
Findings like these are one reason we released the "Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking" in March of 2007.
Science makes clear that the effects on young people can be profound.
Alcohol use during adolescence is pervasive and it ramps up dramatically between the ages of 12 and 21.
Research shows that the brain continues to develop well beyond childhood – and through adolescence. This research raises concerns that underage drinking may affect short-term and long-term cognitive functioning, and may even change the brain in ways that lead to future alcohol dependence.
Research also shows that young people who start drinking before age 15 are five times more likely to have alcohol-related problems later in life.
Secondhand Effects
Alcohol also plays a significant role in risky sexual behavior including unwanted, unintended and unprotected sexual activity.
It increases the risks of physical and sexual assault.
- Approximately 600,000 students are unintentionally injured while under the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al. 2005).
- An estimated 700,000 students are assaulted by other students who have been drinking (Hingson et al. 2005).
- About 100,000 students are victims of alcohol- related sexual assault or date rape (Hingson et al. 2005).
The data are compelling.
They confirm what everyone here knows: Underage drinking is not a harmless “rite of passage.”
The reality is our young people are being harmed by underage drinking.
The Call to Action articulates the Federal commitment to the underage drinking issue and outlines the need for action on the state and community level.
Objectives
Its goals include:
Fostering social changes that contribute to healthy adolescent development and that help prevent and reduce underage drinking.
Engaging parents, schools, communities, all levels of government, all social systems that interface with youth, and youth themselves in our coordinated national effort to prevent and reduce underage drinking and its consequences (this is the essence of what CADCA does so well at the community level).
Promoting an understanding of underage alcohol consumption in the context of human development and maturation that takes into account individual adolescent characteristics as well as environmental, ethnic, cultural, and gender differences.
Conducting additional research on adolescent alcohol use and its relationship to development.
Working to improve public health surveillance on underage drinking and its risk factors.
Ensuring that policies at all levels are consistent with the national goal of preventing and reducing underage alcohol consumption.
The Call to Action identifies certain activities of particular promise:
Efforts directed toward the establishment of parent "safe home" type coalitions that involve pledges not to serve alcohol to youth and to host only alcohol-free parties;
Youth involvement with underage drinking law enforcement activities;
Community-based efforts to hold accountable university and campus groups that encourage and engage in underage drinking;
Efforts to reduce easy access to alcohol around college campuses and military bases, and
Efforts to restrict drinking in public places.
The Federal policy effort to address underage drinking is coordinated by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD).
The committee's member agencies support a wide range of programs in a comprehensive response to the challenge of preventing underage drinking.
Federal Initiatives
Through the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) (pronounced You-dul) initiative, the U.S. Department of Justice devotes dollars to enforcement, to holding young people, parents and communities accountable.
Concurrently, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) uses a variety of approaches to reach out to parents, their children, educators and others. SAMHSA convened more than 1,200 Town Hall Meetings in all 50 states in 2006 alone.
Another 1,082 meetings are already scheduled in 2008. They will take place all over America during the week of March 31–April 4, 2008. For more information and a list of sites, visit: www.stopalcoholabuse.gov
These meetings are an opportunity for community-based organizations to bring people together and to help raise awareness about the issue of underage drinking.
With the Ad Council, SAMHSA also developed an underage drinking prevention campaign directed at parents of 9- to 15-year-olds. Products include four television PSAs as well as PSAs for radio, print, and Internet.
“Reach Out Now,” a unique school-based underage drinking prevention initiative designed specifically for use by fifth- and sixth-grade students, their families, and their teachers, is another SAMHSA project.
Publications
Underage drinking is multi-dimensional. To effect change we must approach underage drinking from many different levels.
I am confident that - when broadly discussed among parents, teachers, community leaders, and young people themselves - the goals of the Call to Action To Reduce and Prevent Underage Drinking, will be understood, appreciated, embraced and will literally save lives.
To facilitate this process, the Office of the Surgeon General has created Guides to Action for Families, Communities, and Educators.
They empower families, communities, and educators with the knowledge and tools useful in delivering the underage drinking message in a way that is easy to hear and understand – they promote the health literacy we so badly need.
These plain-language guides help people understand what the Call to Action says and what it means to them.
Collaboration
Rather than working separately, we need to “connect the dots” from all sectors of society: federal, state, and local levels.
We need to create linkages among public health, law enforcement, public safety, public education, parental involvement and, always, to young people.
And by tackling an issue—a public health issue, law enforcement issue, mental health issue—from a group perspective rather than an individual perspective, we can have a greater impact.
We must understand that underage drinking is not about spring break and it’s not just about parties
Another stark reminder: nearly one-third of youth begin drinking before the age 13.
This is unacceptable. It needs to stop.
Underage drinking is everybody’s problem, and its solution is everyone’s responsibility.
A perception exists that young people, adolescents, will as a matter of routine drink alcohol – “no matter what.”
Not so.
When the American people rejected the use of tobacco and illicit drugs as a culturally acceptable behavior, the use of those substances declined, and the culture of acceptance shifted to disapproval.
The same change is possible with underage drinking.
At CADCA, you are well aware that the process begins at home. I commend the organization for tailoring your message accordingly.
I am referring to CADCA’s recent production of your “Raising Drug-Free Kids” TV program.
Anyone, from policymakers to parents, guidance counselors, coaches, mentors, and prevention professional, can benefit from hearing its message.
As the program notes, parental opinion is actually one of the reasons young people choose not to drink.
Parents must talk to their children. Parents must talk with their children.
And they must talk early and often.
Students should talk to their younger siblings about alcohol.
Parents need to become involved and remain involved with their kids’ decision-making.
And send a clear, unequivocal and consistent message that underage drinking is unhealthy, unsafe, and unacceptable. Period.
When parents do so, they won’t be popular. However, they will be responsible.
I know this, because I have three teenagers of my own. I know talking to your children can sometimes be uncomfortable and challenging.
It is never too early to talk to kids about alcohol, to give them accurate information about drinking, to answer the questions, even those they do not ask.
We are following the evidence where it leads. And it points the dangers of drinking for young people.
As CADCA coalitions certainly understand, underage drinking’s worst consequences are not inevitable, but they are real and can be indelible.
Look around.
Think again for one moment about the spike in violent crime, suicides, injuries, and traffic fatalities directly attributable to underage alcohol use; the costs of addiction treatment; the families and lives disrupted; the futures of young people lost.
These outcomes are why you are here. They are CADCA’s reason for being.
I strongly encourage each of you to redouble your efforts to reach out to your friends and neighbors - to connect the dots in every way possible - because together we can accomplish more than we can alone.
I look forward to working “side by side as one” with CADCA and your many allies to discourage underage drinking and promote responsible substance use. Together, we are agents of achievable environmental change.
Our cause is a common one. Alcohol’s worst consequences are not what we want as a society, as a culture, as a nation.
They diminish what is otherwise possible…for our kids, what we want for them, what they deserve: healthy bodies, healthy minds, and healthy spirits ... healthy and safe communities!
Thank you. I would like next to hear from you, get a sense of what you see at the community level as it pertains to kids and substance use. I’m pleased to take a few questions.
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Last revised: March 23, 2009
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