Arkansas: Dying to Drink
Dying To Drink
Police found Brandon Scott Williams in May lying in a yard at Garden Park Apartments on Mount Comfort Road in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
His mother told police the 19-year-old of Lowell was at a party with his baseball teammates. He died of acute alcohol intoxication, according to a preliminary medical examiner's report.
Amber Devault, 19, of Farmington,Arkansas, was headed home during the early morning hours of April 30. She never made it. Devault was killed in a head-on collision with 20-year-old Jessie McGarrah on Interstate 540 near the Porter Road exit. McGarrah had been out drinking all night, was driving north in the southbound lanes when he hit Devault, said Fayetteville, Arkansas attorney Jim Rose.
Drugs and alcohol are being investigated as possible causes in the deaths of eight people younger than age 22 who have died since January, according to the Washington County,Arkansas Coroner Roger Morris. This includes a 20-year-old University of Arkansas student who was found dead in his apartment earlier this month, Morris said.
Underage drinking in Northwest Arkansas continues despite educational programs and events from the University of Arkansas, stepped-up police efforts in Fayetteville's entertainment district and a constant drumming of anti-drug and drink messages for kids, teens and young adults.
"This is a long-standing and deeply entrenched problem in American colleges. It is not going to go away overnight," said Henry Wechsler, director of the college alcohol studies at the Harvard School of Public Health. He has seen no decrease in the number of college students, under or over 21, abusing alcohol.
Indications are University of Arkansas students are downing liquor as much now as any time in the past.
The university's office of community standards and student ethics referred 180 students to counseling programs for violations of the school's alcohol policy. That number was up 60 students from the 2003-2004 school year when 120 students were referred into the programs. Numbers were not available for the previous year.
"They fluctuate a little bit, but that is not out of the norm," said Lt. Gary Crain, spokesman with the University of Arkansas Police Department.
Kamilah Brown drank when she was 18.
"It was the thing to do," said the 28-year-old Fayetteville,Arkansas resident. "Forbidden fruit."
Each fall brings a new crop of freshman who go down to Dickson Street with fake identifications and the desire to taste some of that fruit.
"We go after the kids trying to buy inside the establishment," said Sgt. Shannon Gabbard, Fayetteville,Arkansas police.
The rates of underage drinkers stay about the same each year, the sergeant said. The department organizes up to eight enforcement nights a year where officers go out and actively try to find underage drinkers.
University police made 79 arrests for public intoxication in 2004, nearly double the 2003 number of 39. The department arrested 82 people in 2002 for public intoxication and 79 in 2001, Crain added.
"Really the 39 (in 2003) is low and the rest of the numbers are pretty close together," he said.
Alcohol is the number one drug of choice of young people, said Teresa Belew, director of the state Mothers Against Drunk Driving chapter in Little Rock,Akansas.
"Many adults think alcohol consumption is a rite of passage."
The Legislature attempted to target that thinking earlier this year with four laws carrying stiffer penalties on underage drinking. The laws include suspension of driving privileges for people under 21 who are caught in possession of alcohol, along with placing identification tags on beer kegs. The tags make it easier for police to identify who bought a particular keg.
The legislation was sparked by Rep. Johnny Key and Sen. Shawn Womack, both R-Mountain Home, after three teenagers were killed in 2004 from accidents involving alcohol.
Another law makes it a class D felony for someone to knowingly furnish alcohol to a minor if that minor is involved in a wreck causing property damage of more than $500. The supplier of alcohol could face a class C felony, punishable by three to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine, if the minor is killed in a wreck.
"When you mix teenagers with alcohol you can have really tragic results sometimes," Womack said.
The senator said he thinks the laws will immediately start to reduce underage drinking.
"This is aimed at teenagers in light of the reality of what can happen. It is also aimed at giving law enforcement the tools they need to reduce teenage drinking," Womack said.
But more is needed to stop underage drinking, according to Wechsler. For starters, he said, alcohol is cheap and easy to come by on a college campus.
Drink specials or $1 gelatin shots are commonplace. Thirty-eight liquor stores, bars and restaurants are within two miles of the University of Arkansas campus or less than five minutes by car.
"People can get drunk on the weekend for less than the price of a movie ticket," the researcher said.
| 
