South Carolinas Response to Underage Drinking

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South Carolinas Response to Underage Drinking
Michelle Nienhius, Prevention Consultant South
Carolina Department of Alcohol Other Drug Abuse
Services mnienhius_at_daodas.state.sc.us
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2 Ways To Make Change

• We can focus on whats going on inside a person.

• We can focus on whats going on around a person.

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Solutions to the Problem

• South Carolina- Changes in law through the
  passage of the Prevention of Underage Drinking
  and Access to Alcohol Act of 2007
• Increased resources/partnerships for enforcement
  throughout the state based on award-winning
  model.
• Outreach to parents and students through the
  following
• Continued educational/awareness programs
• SC Statewide Media Campaign

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Prevention of Underage Drinking and Access to
Alcohol Act of 2007
Local deaths and other incidents involving
Midlands youth prompted the development and
passage of the Prevention of Underage Drinking
and Access to Alcohol Act of 2007.
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Prevention of Underage Drinking Access to
Alcohol Act of 2007
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Summary of New Laws

• Illegal to possess, consume, purchase or attempt
  to purchase alcohol by a person under twenty-one
• Fine 100-200 (257.50-465.00)
• And/or up to 30 days in jail
• Completion of an Alcohol Intervention Program
  (not to exceed 150)
• Drivers License Suspension for 120 days for 1st
  offense (conviction) 1 year for 2nd offense
  (conviction)
• Loss of Life Scholarship and other grants for a
  2nd offense (conviction)
• Liquor and beer/wine statutes identical

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Summary of New Laws Compliance Check
Participation Exemption

• Section 61-4-100. The provisions of this section
  (requirement to charge youth if you charge the
  seller) do not apply to a person under the age of
  21 who is recruited and authorized by a law
  enforcement agency to test an establishments
  compliance with laws relating to the unlawful
  transfer or sale of beer or wine to a minor. The
  testing must be under the direct supervision of a
  law enforcement agency, and the agency must have
  the persons parental consent.

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Summary of New Laws

• Illegal to transfer or give alcohol to a person
  under the age of twenty-one
• Fine 200-300 (465.00-672.50) first offense
• Fine 400-500 (880-1,087.50) second and
  subsequent offense
• And/or up to 30 days in jail
• Loss of license was removed

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Summary of New Laws

• Illegal to sell alcohol to a person under the age
  of twenty-one
• Fine 200-300 (465.00-672.50) first offense
• Fine 400-500 (880-1,087.50) second and
  subsequent offense
• And/or up to 30 days in jail
• Completion of a merchant education program (not
  to exceed 50)

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Summary of New Laws

• Keg Registration (Effective 1/1/ 2008)
• All kegs (5.16 gallons or more) designed to
  dispense beer directly from the container in an
  off-premises location, must be have an
  identification tag attached with the name,
  address, license number of the retail license and
  the keg ID number
• Violation of unlawful sale
• Fine 200-300 (465.00-672.50) first offense
• Fine 400-500 (880-1,087.50) second and
  subsequent offense

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Summary of New Laws

• Keg Registration (Effective 1/1/2008)
• Knowingly possess a keg without the proper tag
• Fine 500 (1,087.50)
• And/or up to 30 days in jail
• Purposeful removal, alter, obliterate, or allow
  to be removed, altered, or obliterated, a keg tag
• Fine 500 (1,087.50)
• And/or up to 30 days in jail

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Minor in Possession/Consumption cont.

• SECTION 20-7-8920.(cont.) Minors purchase or
  possession of beer or wine, attempt to purchase
  or consume, exceptions
• (B) A person who violates the provisions of
  this section also is required to successfully
  complete a DAODAS-approved alcohol prevention
  education or intervention program. The program
  must be a minimum of 8 hours and the cost to the
  person may not exceed 150.

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Drivers License Suspension

• Section 56-1-746. Drivers license suspension,
  offenses related to minors possession and sale
  of alcoholic beverages
• (A) The Department of Motor Vehicles shall
  suspend the drivers license of a person
  convicted of an offense contained in Sections
  56-1-510(2) (Use of fake, altered other ID),
  56-1-510(5) (Possession of fake, altered other
  ID), 56-1-515, 61-4-60, 20-7-8920, and 20-7-8925
  as follows
• (1) for a conviction for a first offense, for a
  period of one hundred twenty days and
• (2) for a conviction for a second or subsequent
  offense, for a period of one year.

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Minor in Possession/Consumption of Beer, Ale,
Porter, Wine or other similar Malt of Fermented
Beverage Consumption

• SECTION 20-7-8920. Minors purchase or possession
  of
• beer or wine, attempt to purchase or consume,
  exceptions
• . . . Notwithstanding another provision of
  law, if the law enforcement officer has probable
  cause to believe that a person is under age
  twenty-one and has consumed alcohol, the law
  enforcement officer or the person may request
  that the person submit to any available alcohol
  screening test using a device approved by the
  State Law Enforcement Division.

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Expectations of the AET Project
Enforcement coupled with active public education
through prevention strategies is the most
powerful methods to restrict use and access of
alcohol by youth.
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AETs- How did they come about?

• SC been funding AETs for years through OJJDP EUDL
  Block Grant
• For past 2 1/2 years, funded 4 counties to set-up
  AETs with mentoring from experienced sites in
  Florence and Lexington/Richland
• Lessons learned were instrumental in teaching us
  how to expand AETs

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Alcohol Enforcement Teams (AET)

• Specialized Team
• (ideally a multi-jurisdictional,
  law enforcement effort)
• Strong Prevention and Collaboration
• Utilize EUDL Best Practices
• Total Package Agreement
• enforcement
• merchant education
• public awareness
• additional environmental strategies (e.g, party
  patrols, checkpoints, fake ID checks, etc.)

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SCAET- What Do they Do?
SAVE LIVES!!
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Expansion of AETs Statewide

• Behavioral Health Services Association (BHSA)
  requested 1.6 million from legislature through
  DAODAS budget to expand AET to all 16 judicial
  circuits.
• DAODAS began the process in July 07 to allocate
  funds.

• Lead county BHSA authority in each circuit is
  responsible for coordination/ oversight. Lead
  agencies chosen by the authorities in that
  circuit, not DAODAS.

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Expectations of the AET Project

• Form AETs in each circuit to implement
  evidence-based environmental strategies to reduce
  underage alcohol use and its harmful
  consequences.
• Enforcement coupled with active public education
  through prevention strategies is the most
  powerful methods to restrict use and access of
  alcohol by youth.

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Expectations (cont.)

• All counties in the circuit will be served.
• One AET coordinator identified for circuit,
  should serve entire circuit equally.
• Strengthen partnerships between law enforcement
  and BHSA authorities.

• AET coordinator to oversee development of
  agreements between law enforcement agencies and
  the BHSA agencies.
• AET coordinator should provide training/technical
  assistance, information and collect data to be
  submitted to DAODAS.

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Financial Guidelines

• Up to 98,000 per circuit.
• At least 49,000 of the funds must be contracted
  to law enforcement or spent on efforts directly
  related to their training and enforcement
  activities (supplies/materials, travel for
  training, etc).

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Financial Guidelines (cont.)

• AET coordinator should be at minimum 75 FTE.
• Salary, travel, supplies, etc. for AET
  coordinator comes from prevention portion unless
  the coordinator is a law enforcement officer who
  does operations.
• Prevention/media efforts to support law
  enforcement activity must come from the remaining
  49,000.

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State AET Liaison Role

• Coordinate statewide regional training
• Formulate implement EUDL best practices among
  16 circuit AETs
• Develop state local law enforcement
  partnerships
• Provide technical assistance to AET circuits
• Collect enforcement evaluation data from
  increased activity

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Training role

• Generally officer capacity to enforce UDL is
  increased with training
• State criminal justice academy does not provide
  UDL information in 9-week Basic Academy
• No specialized training focuses on UDL
• South Carolina training patterned after national
  PIRE UDETC training

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Regional AET Training

• Implemented based on needs assessment
• In 2008, held 6 Regional 2-Day classes
• Thus far in FY09 held 3 trainings with at least
  one a month planned for the remainder of the
  year.
• Trained 425 officers
• Obtained Advanced officer training credit through
  SCCJA

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AET Training Agenda

• Day One
• Environmental Strategies Why Worry with Underage
  Drinkers?
• South Carolina Underage Drinking Laws What can
  be done?
• Alcoholic Beverages Trends What are Underage
  Drinkers Consuming?
• Fake ID But You Dont Look 21!
• Enforcement Strategy Impaired Driving
  Laws-Checkpoints

• Day Two
• Enforcement Strategy Controlled Party Dispersal
  Classroom
• Wheres the Party? A Guide to Learning about
  Potential Parties
• Controlled Party Dispersal Hands-On Exercise

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Instructors for Training

• State level staff
• 4 experienced AET local Coordinators
• Retired law enforcement agent from SLED
• Experienced local law enforcement officer
• Continues to grow!

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Important Partnerships

• Lead alcohol drug commission, partners
• South Carolina Law Enforcement Networks
• Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center
  (UDETC)
• MADD SC
• SC Sheriffs Association
• SC Chiefs of Police Association
• SC Law Enforcement Officers
• SC Dept of Education

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Future Partnerships

• SC Parks, Recreation, Tourism
• SC Dept. of Natural Resources
• Potentially any organization that has contact
  with youth that may be consuming alcoholic
  beverages

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Operation Forms

• Compliance Checks
• Public Safety Checkpoints
• Party Dispersals
• Shoulder Taps
• Monthly Report
• Successes
• Other operations
• Media contacts
• Forms at chweb.pire.org/scdocuments

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What did we accomplish?

• Big numbers
• Major increases over prior years
• Harder to document impact, changes

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AET Activity

• Alcohol Compliance checks 4,910
• of Sales 953
• Violation rate 19.4
• Number of Media Placements 422
• Number of party dispersals / parties
  prevented 123
• Number of tickets during party dispersals 709
• Number of underage violations 584

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AET Activity

• Number of checkpoints 419
• Number of tickets during checkpoints 12,703
• Number of underage violations 278
• Violations from Other Operations 3,507
• Merchants served through PREP 2,627

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Statewide Media Campaign
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• Building local capacity
• to enforce social host
• laws and minor in
• possession laws
• Dawn HancockCircle Park Prevention
  ServicesFlorence, South Carolina

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What we will talk about

• Developing Coalition Capacity
• Building Relationships
• Community Awareness and Education
• Community Support
• Environmental changes take time

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Essential Elements of Effective Prevention of
ATOD Problems
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Why Coalitions?

• Shared Vision and Decision-Making
• Shared Resources Responsibility
• Avoid Duplication
• Improve Communication
• Strengthens Ability of Advocacy Get Policies
  Changed

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Developing Coalition Capacity

• TAKE TIME TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS
• This will be
• INVALUABLE
• to you in the long run

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Three Key Principles

• Local people solve local problems best
• People support what they help create
• Science matters

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Florence County Coalition for Alcohol and Other
Drug Abuse Prevention

• Established in 1993.
• What we knew from the grantors that we were
  working with at that time was that environmental
  prevention would have the greatest impact,
  however, Coalitions needed the programmatic,
  tangible successes to lean on in the beginning.

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Florence County Coalition for Alcohol and Other
Drug Abuse Prevention

• MISSION
• To develop and implement, through interagency
  and community collaboration, a comprehensive and
  community based strategy for the prevention of
  alcohol and other drug abuse.

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Community Awareness and Education

• SALE THE PROBLEM
• WHAT is your problem?
• WHY is it a problem?
• Does your community KNOW it is problem?
• Do they think it is a PRIORITY?

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Underage Drinking is a 899 Million a Year
Problem in South Carolina.
Total Costof Underage Alcohol Usein SC for
2005 899 million US Total Cost 61.9 billion
Medical Care80 million
Work Loss Other Costs247 million
Pain Lost Quality of Life 572 million
Costs of UAD Handouts
PIRE, 2006
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Costs of Underage Drinking by Problem, South
Carolina 2005
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Underage DrinkingWhy Worry?
Underage drinking is related to suicides,
homicides, sexual assaults, unplanned sex,
unprotected sex, physical assaults, humiliation,
car crashes, school failure, secondary affects on
others, physical injury, falls, sexually
transmitted diseases, property damage, police
involvement, alcoholism and DEATH.
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Community Awareness and Education

• News stories
• Media campaign
• Information dissemination

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Community Support and Mobilization

• There is a difference in community awareness and
  community support
• As a Coalition, it is our responsibility to build
  the community support for the problem.
• We must offer support for those we are asking to
  participate in the strategies we have prioritized.

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Community Mobilization

• Reshapes community norms
• Get youth involved as spokesperson
• Shows support for local law enforcement
• Involves the community in monitoring retail
  outlets
• Encourages merchant visits by parents and you for
  compliance buy-in
• Allows local merchants to lead no-sale policies
  peer pressure

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Community Support

• Press Conferences
• Letters of support for agencies
• Media announcements.
• Public Service Announcements (PSAs).
• Invite media to training and events.

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Environmental Prevention

• Rather than focusing on the individual, and
  conducting programs for individuals,
  environmental prevention strategies focus on the
  environment that surrounds people and how that
  can be an effective way to to implement change.

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KNOW THIS..

• Environmental changes do not happen overnight

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Challenges with Environmental Prevention

• Individual strategies have been around longer
• Individual strategies offer a quicker fix
• Individual strategies often come in pre-packaged
  curricula
• Environmental strategies implicate all of us in
  the problem
• Environmental strategies require challenging the
  existing power structure

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Environmental Strategies

• Multi Jurisdictional Law Enforcement
  collaboration
• Merchant Education and Compliance checks for
  alcohol and tobacco
• Public Safety Checkpoints
• Merchant Education
• Use of advanced technology such as passive
  alcohol sensors

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4 Types of Environmental Strategies
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Limitations on Access
Limitations on Access

• Vigorous use of compliance checks
• Application of appropriate sanctions to violating
  merchants
• Education of merchants regarding techniques and
  responsibilities
• Development of community support for enforcement

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Limitations on Access

• Increase price throughexcise taxes
• Controls on hours of sale
• Controls on outlet location/density
• Special enforcement campaigns to prevent parties
  where alcohol is served
• Keg registration laws
• Enforcement of laws against buying alcohol for
  minors

Limitations on Access
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Expressions of Community Norms
Expressions of Community Norms

• Controls on alcohol advertising
• Parent coalitions to reduce use
• Media campaigns, media advocacy, and
  counter-advertising

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Prevention of Impaired Driving

• Enforcement of Zero Tolerance laws (0.02 BAC for
  lt21)
• Sobriety Checkpoints
• Vigorous and well-publicized enforcement of
  impaired driving laws
• Alcohol Merchant Education

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Strategies Based in Schools

• School policies regarding alcohol use on school
  propertyor at school-sponsored events
• Zero Tolerance Policies
• Prevention curricula
• Media Literacy programs

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Over time
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Overtime what we have seen

• Environmental Prevention Strategies have become a
  part of state and local public health agendas
• A coordination of efforts with agencies and
  advocacy groups
• Visible support from local authorities and
  politicians
• Institutionalization of enforcement efforts
• Sufficient training to ensure continuity