By Michael Murray
Collegian Staff Writer

A new state law that shields underage drinkers from prosecution when calling for medical attention for a sick friend will take effect on Sept. 5.

The law, which was officially signed by Gov. Tom Corbett on July 7, is intended to encourage young people to do the right thing for a sick friend should a dangerous situation arise, Sean Moll said, legislative assistant for Sen. John Rafferty who sponsored the bill.

“There is no doubt that this law is going to save lives,” Moll said. “Only time will tell how many.”

Moll said young people often try to do the right thing for their friends by putting them to bed while they are dangerously intoxicated. The safer decision in an emergency like this, he said, is to call medical authorities.

Linda LaSalle, associate director for educational services at University Health Services, said the new law will help young people feel more comfortable calling for help in a alcohol related emergency.

“It will support students to make the right decision, and that’s what is important,” LaSalle said.

The law, often referred to as the Good Samaritan Law, does specify a few provisions that help to ensure it will protect callers with the intention of helping the sick individual, rather than those only seeking protection for themselves.

According to the new law, the caller must have reasonable belief that he is the first one to make the call for the sick individual. Next, the caller must provide the authorities with his or her real full name. Finally, the caller must stay with the sick individual until the authorities arrive. If these provisions are met, the caller will not be prosecuted for underage possession or consumption of alcohol.

LaSalle said students should always take action to get their friends help, even if they are only slightly worried for their friend’s health. With this law, she said, students will be able to put their friend’s safety ahead of the fear of getting in trouble.

“It’s always more important to save a friend’s life,” LaSalle said.

HARRISBURG — The state House voted unanimously Monday to ban a series of synthetic drugs, as lawmakers spoke in defense of public health.

“There is not a day that goes by that we don’t pick up the newspaper, turn on the television or radio, and hear some near tragedy, or tragedy, that has occurred because of the abuse and use of these substances,” said state Rep. Jennifer Mann, D-Lehigh.

The legislation, SB 1006, adds a series of chemical compounds used as synthetic marijuana and synthetic cocaine to the state’s list of controlled substances. To be included on the list, a substance must have a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use in the United States and lack medical safety, according to state law.

The chemicals, which can be found in some bath salts and incenses, can cause symptoms, such as strong hallucinations, that are similar to those present after using other illegal drugs.

The bill sets penalties of up one year in prison and a $5,000 fine for those caught in possession of the synthetic drugs and penalties of up to five years in prison and fines of up to $15,000 for those caught with the intent to distribute.

“Those who are making huge profits off of our citizens will finally be held accountable with the passing of this legislation,” said state Rep. Ronald Marsico, R-Dauphin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

While getting full support from the Legislature, the bill had opponents.

“This bill is merely the latest in a long line of bills that responds to drug abuse with criminalization. If the Legislature truly wants to address this problem, it must increase its investment in treatment programs for Pennsylvanians with drug problems,” said Andy Hoover, legislative director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The bill was supported by law enforcement and the District Attorney’s Association.

“We believe that (synthetic drugs) are a danger to the community,” said Sgt. Jack Lewis, a state police spokesman. Lewis said police lack specific numbers on the popularity of these substances “because we have no way of tracking usage yet. But you could definitely say we are seeing more and more cases of the use of bath salts.”

State Rep. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe, urged businesses throughout the commonwealth to remove bath salts from their stores.

“You will be saving lives,” said Scavello.

The bill previously passed unanimously in the state Senate, but it will have to be approved by the upper chamber again after the state House amended it to expand the list of banned substances.

MONDAY, MAY 30, 2011

“Good Samaritan” Bill in PA House
A bill granting partial immunity to underage drinkers who call the authorities when their friends’ lives are threatened due to alcohol is winning praise from student leaders.

Dan Florencio, the president of Penn State University’s Interfraternity Council, said he’s heard a similar story time after time. “Someone just appeared really, really sick, and people were just like, ‘oh, let him sleep it off.’ Because they don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” he explained. “They don’t want to implicate themselves or the person. So they just let them sleep it off, or brush it off, when really, something really bad could be happening to the person’s body, because of alcohol.”

The council represents 46 fraternities and sororities, which include more than 2,600 students.

The so-called “Good Samaritan” bill, which is currently in front of the House, would offer legal amnesty to underage drinkers who call 911 when their friend drinks too much.

Felicity Debacco Ernie, the state coordinator for Students Against Destructive Decisions, said her group supports the measure, and believes it would solve a recurring problem. “I think it is pretty real, and I think that it is a decision that, unfortunately, a lot of students are making, not to get the help, because they’re fearful of their own legal issues that will come into play then,” she said, adding, “ It’s a very serious consequence for people who are charged with underage drinking these days.”

The bill passed the Senate on a unanimous vote, but it’s not clear if or when the House will take it up.

Alice Englin, Partners in Prevention

Parents are key in preventing underage drinking. Many studies have shown this to be true. When Freeborn County Partners In Prevention facilitates listening sessions in schools we hear over and over the impact parents have on kids decisions to drink or not. Following is an article written by Michelle Trudeau from the website www.npr.org.

As teenagers mature into their senior year of high school, many parents begin to feel more comfortable about letting them drink alcohol. But new research from brain scientists and parenting experts suggests loosening the reins on drinking may not be a good idea in the long run. And, researchers say, parents’ approach to addressing teen drinking does influence a teen’s behavior.

Brain researchers are finding that alcohol has a particularly toxic effect on the brain cells of adolescents. That’s because their brain cells are still growing, says Susan Tapert, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego.

The regions of the brain important for judgment, critical thinking and memory do not fully mature until a person is in his or her mid-20s. Tapert found that alcohol can damage the normal growth and development of a teenager’s brain cells in these regions.

“Adolescents who engage in binge drinking (that is, having five or more drinks on occasion for boys, or four or more drinks on occasion for females) tend to show some brain abnormalities in their brain’s white matter. That’s the fibers that connect different parts of our brains,” she wrote in a recent study.

And if binge drinking continues, within two to three years, Tapert says, it can result in subtle declines in a teen’s thinking and memory. She reports declines in attention and memory among the teens who had engaged in binge drinking.

“Teenagers who initiate heavy drinking actually go downhill relative to kids who do not initiate heavy drinking during adolescence on several measures of cognitive function,” she says

There is a lot of variability among individuals, but Tapert concludes that for some teens there may be no safe level of alcohol use. She saw negative effects in thinking and memory in teens after just 12 drinks in a month, or two or three binge drinking episodes a month.

The role of parents

So if parents want to give a “no alcohol” message to their teens, what can they do? Alcohol researcher Caitlin Abar from Pennsylvania State University found that parents’ efforts do play a role in shaping their teens’ behavior. She studied how parents deal with their high school teenagers regarding alcohol use while still at home, and she then checked after the teens’ first semester of college. Her study of 300 teenagers and their parents was published recently in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

“Parents who disapproved completely of underage alcohol use tended to have students who engaged in less drinking, less binge drinking, once in college,” Abar says.

And conversely, a parent’s permissiveness about teenage drinking is a significant risk factor for later binge drinking.

“The parents who are more accepting of teen drinking in high school were more likely to have children who engaged in risky drinking behaviors in college, compared to those children who had parents that were less accepting,” Abar says. The researchers also asked the teens about their parents’ drinking patterns and found that parents’ own drinking behavior influenced a teen’s later alcohol use.

Rules matter

But, it was parents’ rules that had the strongest effect, says Abar. Complete disapproval of teen drinking by parents was the most protective, even more than when parents allowed a limited amount of alcohol consumption.

Other studies support Abar’s findings. Psychology professor Mark Wood from the University of Rhode Island says that parental monitoring — knowing where your teenagers are, who they’re with, what they’re doing — also pays off in terms of less drinking when they go off to college.

“The protective effects that parents exert in high school continue to be influential into college,” Wood says. “Even after a time when the kids have left the home. So it’s the internalization of those values, attitudes and expectations that seem to continue to exert an effect.”

Research studies by Wood, Abar and others challenge the common parenting practice in much of Europe where kids are socialized to drink at the family table, with the expectation that they’ll learn to drink responsibly. Dutch researcher Haske van der Vorst has studied this “European drinking model.”

“A lot of parents have the idea,” says van der Vorst, “that if I let my child drink at home with friends, then at least I can control it somehow. I can buy the alcohol myself. Then I am in control.”

Unfortunately, she says, based on her research, the European drinking model isn’t working. “Not at all actually,” she says. “The more teenagers drink at home, the more they will drink at other places, and the higher the risk for problematic alcohol use three years later.”

To underscore these findings, a recent survey of 15- and 16-year-olds throughout Europe finds that the majority of European countries have a higher rate of teen drunkenness than in this country.

This does not surprise researcher Abar.

“It really calls into question the strategy that parents are adopting of the European drinking model,” she says. “The most protective strategy for parents is to make it really clear to their teens that they completely disapprove of underage alcohol use.”

Abar says that families that institute a zero tolerance policy will not prevent college students and other teens from drinking. But, she says, teenagers from those households do tend to drink less.

For more information or join us in preventing and reducing youth substance use please contact us.

Alice Englin is the coordinator for Freeborn County Partners In Prevention. Their mission is to prevent and reduce substance use and abuse among youth in Freeborn County.

PHILADELPHIA – The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed separate lawsuits in state court today to stop two northeastern Pennsylvania school districts from randomly drug and alcohol testing students who participate in extracurricular activities, including athletics and school dances, or who drive to school. The ACLU of PA believes the schools’ policies violate a 2003 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling requiring schools to justify suspicionless drug testing programs with evidence of a widespread drug problem among students.

“These policies teach young people to accept extreme invasions of their privacy when they’ve done nothing wrong,” said Mary Catherine Roper, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Pennsylvania and one of the attorneys representing the students and their parents.

“Random drug testing is also counterproductive, as studies have shown that extracurricular activities help students avoid drug use. Schools should not be putting up barriers to students’ participation in after-school activities,” she continued.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania is representing a seventh and a ninth grader, sisters M.K. and A.K., and their parents, Glenn and Kathy Kiederer, in a lawsuit against the Delaware Valley School District ( Pike County ). DVSD requires students and their parents to consent to a mandatory initial drug and alcohol test and random drug and alcohol testing throughout the year in order to participate in extracurricular activities. Because M.K., A.K. and their parents believe that the policy violates the girls’ privacy, they have refused to sign the drug testing consent form. As a result, M.K. and A.K. are not allowed to participate in drama, art club, scrapbooking, softball, volleyball, tennis, basketball, soccer, or, ironically, Junior Students Against Substance Abuse.

“We are very frustrated that the Delaware Valley School District has ignored the State Supreme Court’s guidelines and has refused to change the drug testing policy to comply with the court opinion. We feel that the proper education for our children is to teach them to defend their constitutional rights, especially in the present times we are living in,” said Glenn and Kathy Kiederer.

The DVSD drug testing policy was declared unconstitutional by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2003 (Theodore v. Delaware Valley School) unless the school could show additional evidence that the group of students undergoing testing had a high rate of drug use. According to the complaint, the school district has essentially ignored that ruling and continued to enforce the drug testing policy. The school district has never compiled data that would support or refute the need for its policy. At an August 10, 2010 school board meeting, the district’s own solicitor admitted that the district had not “followed the Supreme Court mandate.”

“We are optimistic that the Delaware Valley School Board will follow the 2003 opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and follow the Pennsylvania Constitution. This will allow our clients to participate in all co-curricular activities without violating their constitutional rights,” said Stephen McConnell, an attorney with Dechert LLP, who is representing the students and their parents pro bono.

A second, unrelated lawsuit involves two Panther Valley School District (Carbon County) students, siblings M.T., a ninth grader, and Jeremy Thomas, a twelfth grader, who are not allowed to participate in after-school activities because of their refusal to consent to random, suspicionless urinalysis. An Eagle Scout and Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) member, Jeremy was kicked off the golf team after refusing to sign the consent form. He is also not allowed to attend his prom. Both siblings and their parents, Morgan and Donna Thomas, believe that the required testing program violates their right to privacy. PVSD has not provided any data to show that drug use is a problem among its students involved in extracurricular activities.

Studies have repeatedly shown that random drug testing does not reduce student drug use. The largest national student study conducted by the U.S. government’s own program, Monitoring the Future, found in 2002 that random, mandatory drug testing had no impact on students’ rates of drug use. This study covered three years and included over 76,000 students nationwide in eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades. These researchers confirmed these findings again in 2003.

The cases are M.K. v. the Delaware Valley School District and M.T. v. Panther Valley School District. The students and their parents are represented by Roper, Molly Tack-Hooper, and Witold Walczak of the ACLU of Pennsylvania and McConnell, Kevin Flannery, Michael Salimbene, and Kenneth Holloway of Dechert LLP.

More about the cases, including copies of the complaints and the schools’ policies, can be found at:

http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/mkvthedelawarevalleyschool.htm

http://www.aclupa.org/legal/legaldocket/mtvpanthervalleyschooldist.htm

STATE COLLEGE — Clad in green and blowing vuvuzelas, thousands of young people swarmed downtown State College on Saturday to celebrate State Patty’s Day, a student-created holiday centered on drinking.

Despite efforts by local officials to tamp down this year’s festivities, State College police Lt. Chris Fishel reported there were more people in town and more crime than last year’s event.

Police responded to more than 110 incidents in a 24-hour period through Saturday morning, about three times as many as a normal Friday night, Fishel said. During the entire State Patty’s Day weekend last year, State College police responded to about 365 calls related to the event, most of them alcohol-related.

Fights, false identification, and public urination and intoxication represented a majority of offenses committed by Saturday afternoon, Fishel said, adding that he expected the revelry to continue until about 4 a.m. today.

A spokeswoman for Mount Nittany Medical Center reported more than 40 people had been treated for alcohol-related injuries and conditions from 9 p.m. Thursday through 9 p.m. Saturday, some with severe injuries.

As with previous years’ festivities, many of those getting in trouble are not Penn State students. Fishel reported misdemeanors involving students from the University of Pittsburgh, St. Joseph’s University, Slippery Rock University, Virginia Tech and the University of West Virginia.

“It’s like a home football night game. People are partying right up to kickoff, except there’s no kickoff,” Fishel said.

Streets downtown began to see State Patty’s Day-related traffic by about 10 a.m. By 2 p.m., there were lines to get int bars, and the sidewalks were packed with revelers. The streets stayed crowded through the afternoon and into the night. At about 9:40 p.m., Indigo, a nightclub at 112 W. College Ave., shut down because of the large crowd that had lined up waiting to get inside, police said. The line stretched to South Fraser Street and was blocking traffic.

Earlier in the day, Andrew and Mark, two young men who wouldn’t give their last names, said they had come from Bucknell University and the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, respectively, for the party.

“There’s no party this size at Bucknell,” Andrew said.

A student from Bloomsburg University, waiting to get into the Gingerbread Man, said he came to State College to see what the hype was about.

“This town is really live,” he said. “It seems like State Patty’s is like a rite of passage for students, and the authorities trying to stop it just make it worse because we’re going to rage either way.”

One young man traveled 14 hours from Alabama to celebrate his first State Patty’s Day. After climbing atop a mound of snow in front of Five Guys Burgers and Fries and posing for pictures with a keg of beer, he expressed his excitement for the alcohol-fueled celebration.

“It’s a wonderful experience,” he said. “My best friend is a junior here, and he’s been trying to get me up here forever. He was recruiting a bunch of us for months. I don’t know any other place that has this much fun.”

When asked if he was drunk, he answered, “If you’re asking me if I’m having fun, my answer is yes.”

Police reported at least four citations that included hospitalization, three of them related to underage drinking:

•At 11:17 p.m. Friday, a 20-year-old man was seen by police falling down repeatedly while walking on McKee Street. After he was brought to Mount Nittany Medical Center for treatment, he became disorderly and had to be restrained and sedated. He will be charged with disorderly conduct.

•A drunken 19-year-old was found trying to enter a house on the 400 block of Martin Terrace at around 11:30 p.m. on Friday. He was also taken to Mount Nittany Medical Center.

•A 16-year-old boy was found intoxicated, lying down and throwing up on the sidewalk on the 500 block of South Pugh Street at 12:52 a.m. Saturday. He was hospitalized and will be charged with providing false information to police.

•A man who passed out drunk in the lobby of the Days Inn at 240 S. Pugh St. at 3:31 a.m. Saturday also took a trip to the hospital.

Not everyone out on the streets downtown Saturday was out to party. A few local churches had a stand set up on McAllister Street and were handing out free hot chocolate and water.

“We’re just trying to keep people hydrated and keep some kids out of the hospital,” volunteer Kim Dick said.

Cliff White can be reached at 235-3928. Wildamie Ceus is a journalism student at Penn State.

“This survey’s findings should serve as a reminder to parents and the entire community that no one is immune to the dangers of alcohol misuse and abuse,” Patrick J. “PJ” Stapleton, chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, says in a statement.

The survey, required annually by law, presents updated information on levels and trends of underage consumption of alcohol prevention programs supported by agency partners and science-based, proven prevention strategies.

Using data collected via the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Pennsylvania Youth Survey and the Core Institute at Southern Illinois University of Carbondale, the study reports:

– Pennsylvania youth ages 12-17 have a lower rate of alcohol dependence and abuse than the national average.

– Slightly more than one-third of those youth believe there is a “great risk” in using alcohol.

– Nearly 90 percent of Pennsylvania college students report having used alcohol in their lifetime, compared to 86 percent nationwide.

– 65 percent of Pennsylvania college students reported having their first drink by the age of 17.

– Slightly more than half of Pennsylvania college students believe the social atmosphere of their campus promotes alcohol use.

STATE COLLEGE — Green beer. Green shirts. Green beads. Green shamrocks.

To the rest of the country they mean St. Patrick’s Day, but in State College they all point to Saturday, the drinking “holiday” called State Patty’s Day that has come to confound university officers, borough officials and business owners alike.

Originally created by students because St. Patrick’s Day fell during spring break in 2007, the popularity of State Patty’s Day has grown each year, along with the partying, the drinking, the arrests and the soured town-gown relations.

Determined to tamp down the event, Penn State officials started planning months ago. A Sept. 17 report on alcohol initiatives to the board of trustees included steps aimed at “downplaying State Patty’s Day.”

Vice President for Student Affairs Damon Sims’s report called for efforts to discourage vendors from promoting the day, “a game day-like law enforcement presence,” and messages about responsible behavior from student leaders and organizations. All of those things have been done. Whether they will affect what happens on Saturday remains to be seen.

The university acted on Sims’s first step Dec. 17, when he and Albert Horvath, university senior vice president for finance and business, sent an open letter to borough merchants, including bars and T-shirt shops.

The letter asked the businesses to get rid of products, displays and services that promote State Patty’s Day and the “climate of over-indulgence it encourages.”

It urged merchants to not change operating hours that day or sell anything that would give the public the impression that State Patty’s Day is a community celebration, whether it be merchandise, apparel or drink specials.

The letter ended with a plea to the merchants to join with the university in putting an end to the annual event.

Meanwhile, State College police and university police plan to get help in the form of extra officers from Bellefonte and Ferguson, Patton and Spring township police departments.

The Centre County Alcohol Task Force said it also will have numerous officers on patrol, in conjunction with State College police, and says it will take a zero-tolerance approach to alcohol and drug-related crimes.

State College Police Chief Thomas King said that last year saw the highest number of criminal activity reports of any State Patty’s Day, or of any other weekend that year. “Hopefully, with increased personnel, we can have a more controlled situation,” King said.

“I won’t go into numbers, but we’re treating it like any other home football game or arts fest,” said State College Capt. John Gardner.

The state Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, borough residents and campus volunteers also have been enlisted to watch for drunk and disorderly conduct. State College police asked that community members and volunteers be safe, sober, visible and alert during the weekend to promote safety effectively.

From the perspective of some merchants, however, the negative view of State Patty’s Day in the community and at the university has had little effect on their customers.

T-shirt sales at People’s Nation and The Family Clothesline, both downtown merchants, are similar to those of last year, according to representatives of both stores.

The Family Clothesline received a letter from Jody Alessandrine, executive director of the Downtown State College Improvement District, asking them to “not promote a fake holiday,” store coordinator Tracy Bell said.

The store is carrying shirts with State Patty’s printed on them. It considers the day an event similar to a game day or holiday, and selling the shirts is not an endorsement, Bell said. “We provide shirts for every occasion.”

Bell stated The Family Clothesline’s view: “We do not condone excessive drinking. But with that said, we can’t control what people do in our merchandise.” Some of those making money on State Patty’s Day have been students and non-students who have designed and are selling T-shirts for the event. Rachel Yamin, a Penn State junior, and Brett Kazatsky, a Bloomsburg University student, sold more than 2,000 T-shirts through a Facebook event by Jan 13. Both Yamin and Kazatsky declined to comment on their final sales figures.

For bar owners, decisions on what to do on State Patty’s Day are not easily made.

Chris Rosengrant, owner of the Lion’s Den, took a hard stance last year when he shut down operations completely on State Patty’s Day. He said he will do it again this year.

“This day is an eyesore for Penn State and for State College,” he said. “It has lost its purpose.”

He wasn’t alone last year — the Shandygaff also closed — and he said he won’t be surprised if several other bars take the same step this year.

“In my estimation, you’re probably going to see a lot more bars closed (this year). It has been very public that there is going to be heavy enforcement of liquor laws in State College,” Rosengrant said. Enforcement last year translated into the citation of nine bars and 241 people during the day.

Of the 241 cited, just 91 were identified as Penn State students. Rosengrant said a large number of “out-of-towners” were a major contributor to the increased alcohol-related crime that day.

Last year, the State College Tavern Association encouraged bars to offer no specials and operate on normal hours despite the “holiday.” It is not known what its message is this year.

Jennifer Zangrilli, president of the association, could not be reached for comment despite a number of attempts over several weeks. Kildare’s announced that it will not be offering any drink specials and will have a mandatory cover charge.

In his Sept. 17 alcohol initiatives report to the Penn State trustees, Sims also listed the idea of encouraging faculty to create “academic expectations for students on Friday and the succeeding Monday” around State Patty’s Day to help mitigate problems.

Whether that idea has gained any traction on campus has been hard to gauge.

Some students said they plan to participate in the day whether professors schedule an exam or assignment before State Patty’s Day or not.

Laura Davis, a Penn State sophomore said, “My assignments and exam schedule don’t normally change my weekend plans, so it is no different than with State Patty’s Day. I have an exam the following Monday, but it won’t affect whether or not I participate in the holiday.”

Among faculty, several said they were unaware of the date of State Patty’s Day when they created their syllabus or felt scheduling an exam or assignment before or after the weekend would cause more problems.

“Some students come to class intoxicated, which is not good for the educational climate and bothers students who are interested in learning,” said Andrew Peck, senior lecturer and assistant director of psychology undergraduate studies.

“I don’t think anyone believes that faculty should have the power to constrain a student’s freedom outside of the class environment,” Peck said. “As educators, I believe our job is to teach students about our areas of expertise.”

For Rosengrant, what he saw on the streets last year convinced him that his decision to close was correct.

“How do you explain to your kid why the 20-year-old college student is puking in the middle of the sidewalk at 11 a.m.? That experience convinced me that I made the right move in closing,” he said.

The lure of money — “tens of thousands,” in Rosengrant’s words — is tempting, he said, but the risk is too high for the reward.

Joshua Ballard, Wildamie Ceus, Katie Moffitt and Anita Oh are Penn State journalism students.

My name is Erik and I am a dean’s list student at Penn State. When I came to State College as a freshman, I knew I wanted to be involved in as much as I could. I was extremely involved in high school as a student leader, athlete and scholar. With my love for Penn State, I wanted to continue this over the next four years in Happy Valley.

Freshman year I accomplished everything I set out to. I studied hard, became involved in myriad activities, and assumed prominent leadership roles. Bleeding blue and white, I considered myself to be the consummate Penn Stater. Unfortunately this meant I also partied like a true Nittany Lion: hard and often.

Eventually my drinking landed me in the hospital from an alcohol overdose. Because that was my first time in the emergency room, I wrote it off as bad luck. I had not had a history of binge drinking in high school and wasn’t worried about my frequent drinking habits at Penn State.

My first trip to Mount Nittany Medical Center would prove not to be an isolated case. The second time I ended up in the hospital, a few months later, I considered it an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Judicial Affairs warned me that if I had a third offense in the same calendar year I would be suspended. There is nothing in the world that I loved more than being a Penn State student. I vowed to control my drinking.

However, control was not in my vocabulary. Six months later I woke up in the hospital, incredulous I could have gotten myself into this situation again. What had happened to me? Why couldn’t I control myself?

I knew the consequences of my actions yet I still allowed myself to engage in dangerous behavior. Facing imminent suspension along with the thought of failing everyone back home brought me to the lowest point in my life.

My parents understood that I had a problem, one they were familiar with. My grandmother had died at an early age from alcoholism, and other members of my dad’s family had issues with alcohol. They brought me to my first 12-step program meeting.

Walking through those doors was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Admitting I had a problem was incredibly difficult and humbling for a person who was used to success. However, attending 12-step meetings and counseling and the support of family and friends made me realize my suspension was the best thing to happen to me. I was able to come to terms with my problem and discover my life was better off without drinking in it.

Eventually I simply stopped drinking and started living out my sobriety. Alcohol abuse is a gradual progression down to each person’s respective bottom. It is also a gradual process of recovery and living in a new way. I will always be vulnerable to alcohol, but I will continue to grow and learn about this more enriching way of life.

As a requirement to return to Penn State, I had to write a letter to myself about the pros and cons of drinking versus remaining sober. This forced me to really think about what is important. I read the letter at least once a week to remind myself of all I have to lose by drinking. It also reminds me of how much I have to be grateful for and how good my life is today.

I have returned to Penn State and am once again involved in activities, leadership roles and my school work. I have not returned to my drinking habits and have been sober since that fateful day of my third hospitalization.

A problem with alcohol does not have to dictate how the rest of your life plays out. I am grateful for all my experiences because they have made me stronger and more aware of what my priorities in life are. I am able to take advantage of everything life has to offer.

This is the gift sobriety has given me. It is one I wish to share and is available for anyone who needs it.

Erik volunteered to share his story. His last name has been withheld.

Specifically, Senate Bill 448 would grant immunity to an individual for the summary offense of underage drinking as it relates to the consumption of alcoholic beverages by a person under the age of 21. Under the provisions of Senator Rafferty’s legislation, an individual must call 911 to report the person in need of medical attention, must provide their name to the dispatcher, and must remain with the person in need of assistance.

Senator Rafferty, who has been an ardent supporter and author of tougher laws to prevent underage drinking, said his legislation – which passed unanimously out of the Senate last session – is intended to protect public safety and prevent needless tragedies.

“Underage drinking is a serious matter, and we don’t want to give minors a free pass. But if kids are in trouble and require medical attention, we shouldn’t discourage anyone in a position to help them from seeking critical and timely aid,” Senator Rafferty said. “This legislation has support from several groups, including the Pennsylvania DUI Association and state District Attorneys Association because it provides a safe way to defuse an unsafe situation.”