DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997                 TAG: 9703020055

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  132 lines

CURBING ALCOHOL'S ALLURE A PRIZED GRANT WILL HELP THE STATE GET A LIFE-SAVING MESSAGE TO TEENS WHO DRINK.

Weekends are the worst.

Mother and father pretend they're asleep, each waiting for the reassuring sound of their 17-year-old son rolling into the driveway in the prized old pickup he bought after he got his driver's license.

The parents have known for months that their son is running the roads with teen-aged friends who drink a lot of alcohol. Sometimes their son still smells beery in church on Sunday.

But so far, thank God, nothing awful has happened: Their son is still doing OK in school, keeping his nose clean, and fooling everybody, he thinks. . . .

FOR MANY YOUNG PEOPLE, boys and girls alike, few temptations seem more dangerously alluring than a pint of whiskey or a popped-top beer can circulating among school friends during a Saturday night cruise down Main Street.

It's no secret how much heartbreak is caused by the peer pressure that makes young people chug-a-lug too many drinks and end up in emergency rooms or on mortuary slabs.

Until this year, North Carolina has made no coordinated effort to find out how to get a message through to young people that sooner or later too much alcohol is deadly.

But last month a New Jersey Foundation announced the grant of nearly a million dollars to the North Carolina Initiative to Reduce Underage Drinking.

The proposal that won the $941,570 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, N.J., was written by 28-year Barbara Alvarez Martin, a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate who is recruiting a crew of advisers to design the four-year program for Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. and Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker.

Martin and her associates are running the Initiative to Reduce Underage Drinking as part of national efforts to curb teen-age alcohol and substance abuse. North Carolina is one of only nine states to receive an alcohol study grant from the Johnson Foundation, founded by an heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company.

During the first year, a 12- to 15-member steering committee will oversee the planning. Eventually a coalition of 60 experts from across North Carolina will be called on to contribute ideas and plans for a working program.

``Most people associate drinking by young people with automobile accidents,'' Martin said last week. ``But there is more to concern us than that alone. We're looking at suicides and homicides and other behavior that is directly connected to alcohol abuse.''

THE PROBLEM, as many heartsick parents know too well, is finding the right wavelength to talk convincingly to teen-agers.

Martin plans to recruit some of the young drinkers themselves to put meaning and verisimilitude into dialogues designed to break through to younger listeners who too often reject - and resent - advice from anyone over 25.

``We hope they'll listen to their peers,'' she said.

But Martin and her colleagues, aware they're asking for trouble, are pushing ahead with far more punitive plans to keep teen-agers away from alcohol.

Only cooperating communities can help police and restrict alcohol sales to young people, she points out.

And so, with the help of the governor and law enforcement agencies, Martin hopes her program will survive powerful counterattacks that are sure to come from alcohol providers.

``Changing the environment'' is Martin's blunt description of her proposals to separate teen-agers from beer and booze through strong measures:

Reduce access and availability of alcoholic beverages to youth.

Gauge community attitudes about advocacy and enforcement.

Conduct underage buying operations and server training.

Publicize buyer abuses (fake ID's) and seller compliance.

Reduce alcohol beverage marketing and promotions that target youth.

Raise community awareness about point-of-sale advertising displays.

Develop counter-advertising messages.

Reduce alcohol-impaired driving among youth.

Promote public awareness of the new zero-tolerance law for young drivers.

Explore innovative approaches that reduce youth alcohol use. Research shows that tax increases and relative prices cause decrease alcohol consumption.

Change the political climate with new policies and programs, including incentives and disincentives.

The Underage Drinking Initiative, Martin said, will be guided by community and state cooperation in developing the program.

``The momentum of the national program to reduce underage drinking gives North Carolina reason to be hopeful that effective changes in the social environment may occur over the next four years,'' she said.

Remarkably, Martin and her supporters reached out to virtually every public and private behavioral organization in the state to recruit the ``coalition'' of more then 60 leaders concerned about youth and alcohol abuse.

Small-town civic leaders found themselves rubbing good intentions with top state policy makers, cabinet members, and private business executives.

Hunt and Wicker promised hands-on help, and Martin and her cohorts are sure to make the underage drinking program a compelling part of future political campaigns.

In the list of coalition members who have signed on for the Initiative are the names of Ken and Cindy McGee of Wilmington, N.C.

Next to the McGees' names was this comment: ``daughter died from drinking-related accident.''

RIVERS OF STATISTICS and suggestions have flowed into the Research Triangle offices of the Underage Drinking Initiative, and an important part of Martin's preliminary efforts is finding out what doesn't work with young people.

A report last October from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism contained a particularly gloomy finding:

``Informational programs attempting to persuade students not to use alcohol by arousing fear DO NOT work to change behavior. Emphasizing the dangers of alcohol may attract those who tend to be risk-takers. . . . ''

MADD, the nationally organized Mothers Against Drunk Driving, effectively collects and broadcasts arguments against drinking and driving:

One in three college students drinks to get drunk, MADD found in 1993.

When young people are allowed to drink alcohol at home they are not only more likely to use alcohol and other drugs outside the home they are more likely to develop serious behavioral and health problems, MADD reports.

Each year students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol, more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee and books combined. On a typical campus, the per capita student cost for alcohol is $446, far exceeding the per capita budget of the college library, according to MADD.

Contradictory results from various anti-alcohol programs aimed at young drinkers is reflected in statistics compiled by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol.

Martin and her colleagues are confident that they can sort out programs that work with young people.

But they also sense there will be serious challenges ahead.

One of the best known anti-liquor programs in the country is DARE - the Drug Abuse Resistance Education that is typically taught by police officers to fifth- and sixth-graders. DARE's aim is to teach decision-making skills - temperance - to youngsters so they will stay away from alcohol by common-sense choice.

Does DARE work?

Here is an opinion from some of the sociologists who designed the program:

``Studies have found that DARE essentially has no impact on alcohol use.'' KEYWORDS: ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES TEEN DRINKING

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