The problem of alcoholism is a huge a complicated issue. One of these days I may try to tackle it for a future blog post. This is not that day. Rather. I wish to address the issue of underage drinking. It may or may not be considered a "Peace and Justice" issue, but it is one that tugs at my heart.
The statistics related to underage drinking are staggering and easy to come by. Scores of advocate groups and institutional studies produce such an abundance of statistics that one can easily become numb to it all. Each study reveals slight variances in results but taken as a whole they represent a surprisingly consistent picture of a most disturbing phenomenon among American youth. For purposes of this article I chose to rely primarily on the Center for Disease Control's web site and most recent reports found therein. If interested in the details I encourage you to visit http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm yourself. Here is a summary of what you will find there.
"Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States, more than tobacco and illicit drugs. Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 - 20 years drink 11 % of all alcohol consumed in the United States. More than 90 % of this alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinks. On average, underage drinkers consume more drinks per drinking occasion than adult drinkers. In 2008 there were approximately 190,000 emergency rooms visits by persons under age 21 for injuries and other conditions linked to alcohol."
Source: Center for Disease Control web site
Here are some of the hard facts:
In 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys found that among high school students, during the past 30 days
· 42 % drank some amount of alcohol.
· 24 % binge drink.
· 10 % drove after drinking
· 28 % rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.
The problem is huge. The solution elusive. Two issues especially weigh on my mind at this time, however. These include the inadequate legal authority for police to bring charges of underage drinking against those who engage in it, and the difficulties in bringing charges against those who supply our youth with alcohol. Both problems are rooted, at least in part, to a thing called HIPAA.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a blessing and a curse, depending on how one views it. I am not about to bash the merits of HIPAA as if it were an evil piece of legislation that ought to be repealed outright. I readily admit that it has its place and is, when rightfully applied, a helpful tool in many scenarios. However, that does not excuse its moral obligations.
Consider this: I recently became involved with a situation where a young person under the age of 21 engaged in an evening of binge drinking. This person began vomiting and then passed out while a friend and the friend's mother watched. After numerous failed attempts were made to arouse the young person a call was placed to 911. An EMS crew arrived on the scene in short order along with the local police. Interviews ensued; facts were recorded; the young person was taken to the local hospital's Emergency Room. Tests were conducted and results came back: no evidence of any illicit drugs, but the presence of alcohol was detected to the tune of a blood alcohol count of 290. 80 is the legal limit. Of course for a person under the age of 21, such as this patient, the legal limit is 0. That is a very major point that easily is overlooked.
A blood alcohol count of 290 is near fatal for a young person. It is equivalent to a breathalyzer result of 0.290. It is nothing less than alcohol poisoning. Indeed this person remained unconscious throughout most the night.
Now here is the kicker. The young person's parent asked police to charge their intoxicated child with underage drinking. It was learned, however, that such a charge could not be made. As far as the police were concerned there was no alcohol involved. They did not see a bottle. They only saw a young person who was unconscious and non-responsive to stimuli. The parent argued that the doctor just informed them that this was alcohol induced. The police said, sorry, we don't know that. We have no access to records indicating that. Furthermore, the police are not about to seek those records for to do so they would need a search warrant from a magistrate and even if that could be obtained, the cost of getting the warrant and investigating the case would be greater than the resulting fine that would be leveled against the individual.
Now I admit that I am not the sharpest tack in the box, but we are talking about a life here. This is more than a statistic. This is more than a sum of money. This is more than a bureaucratic piece of red tape or an inconvenience to an important local officer dressed in a neatly pressed, gray uniform. This is a young person who nearly died, who has been charged with underage drinking once before simply because they had two cans of unopened beer on their person, and who is a prime candidate to do this again unless some drastic measures are taken to intervene. Such measures will not come with any assistance from the legal system, however, because it is not cost effective.
The next day, after the young person came out of the stupor by the Grace of God and some excellent care at the hands of the E.R. staff, more information came to light. The same parent learned that the alcohol was in fact supplied by the so-called friend in the friend's parent's house with the mother present. Another call to the police. Can charges be brought against the ones who supplied the near-fatal dose of alcohol? The answer again was no. Nothing really changed because, as far as the police are concerned, there is no evidence of alcohol being involved in this case. HIPAA says so.
The young man whom I described above told his parents this would never happen again. He went on this binge drinking one afternoon "as an experiment" he explained and he hated it. Seven days later he was again intoxicated, got into a fist fight with some other friends at a shopping center, the same police force responded to the scene and charged him with disturbing the peace. Upon doing a background check they discovered an interesting piece of information. This 19 year old male also had an outstanding warrant for his arrest on an unpaid fine for shoplifting. As I am writing this article he is doing time in the County Prison. It would appear that stealing a bottle of cough medicine from a store is much more severe than two responsible adults supplying a minor with enough alcohol to kill himself or someone else with. HIPAA says so!
By the way, not only was he charged with disturbing the peace and the unpaid fine for shoplifting, but once again no charges were brought against him for the real problem: underage drinking.
The more I think about this I suppose it is an appropriate article for Peace-Ability. This is clearly a case of injustice. For all its merits our legal system fails in this regard. A nineteen year old male is clearly intoxicated on two separate occasions in the presence of police and no charges are brought against the youth or, more importantly, against the supplier of alcohol. What would have happened if he would have died from that first instance when he was unconscious? Then the friend/mother duo would have been charged with murder, at least in theory. It was a real possibility. If the 911 call had not been made he would not have received the medical attention he so desperately needed. Does that one phone call leave the suppliers of alcohol off the hook? No. You see, they did not make the phone call. I did, when I was summoned to the scene of the crime.
I am not a lawyer nor have I consulted one in this case. However, from my limited ability to research the details of HIPAA and its application to this case I find myself challenging the position of the local police in making no effort to learn whether alcohol was involved. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) document entitled Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule there may be an exception. The HHS states that hospitals and doctors "may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes under the following six circumstances." It then lists the six circumstances. I will quote only two I believe may apply here. "in response to a law enforcement official's request for information about a victim or suspected victim of a crime,...[or] by a covered health care provider in a medical emergency not occurring on its premises, when necessary to inform law enforcement about the commission and nature of a crime, the location of the crime or crime victims, and the perpetrator of the crime." (Source: OCR Privacy Rule Summary, page 7, revised 05/03).
I am both saddened and infuriated by this entire situation and by our society at large. I find absolutely no redemptive value in alcohol whatsoever. I cannot begin to understand why anyone would want to put this poison in their system. But it is legal for consumption by adults over the age of 21, and I do not plan on leading a campaign to restore prohibition even if I would vote for it should the question ever come to a public vote. But we are not talking about the legal use of alcohol here. We are talking about an illegal volume of alcohol consumed by someone who is not permitted by law to have any alcohol and the two supposedly responsible adults who supplied it. We are also talking about police officers who are so intimated by HIPAA and potential lawsuits that they are unwilling to do the logical, reasonable thing. Consequently they failed to do their job.
As quoted earlier this is just one of the many cases of binge drinking among America's youth. This is the one-in four statistic that is threatening our young people. This young man was fortunate to have lived through it. This time. I pray for his sake that he has learned a valuable lesson from it all and will take corrective measures. Sadly not all his colleagues have, or will, according to the statistics. They are the ones for whom my heart aches as well.
-gdg February 20, 2011
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