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SAPCA Members,
Have you welcomed a youthmapper in the East End of Alexandria? The mappers have surveyed over 300 locations. Kudos to these hard working youth!
Picture courtesy of Del Ray Patch
Noraine
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Alexandria's second run of Community Youth Mapping kicked off Wednesday July 13, with an opening ceremony at Mount Vernon Recreation Center in Del Ray. The summr project, focusing on the city's East End, identifies programs and services for youth in the city. A team of 16 teens supervised by adult leaders are conducting interviews with managers of businesses, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, city sites and schools to identify opportunities.
"This gives us more than just a big map," Vice Mayor Kerry Donley said. "It is a statement about Alexandria and what kind of resources we have for our youth. ... This helps the City Council. It keeps us and actually makes us more youth friendly." |
SAPCA coordinator, Noraine Buttar, received a Community Partner Award from the Alexandria Court Service Unit (CSU) on August 4. SAPCA partners closely with the CSU's Alexandria Mentoring Partnership (AMP) to contribute to the advancement of the AMP's mission to offer the City's youth the support they need to thrive. The CSU helps court involved youth and their parents navigate their way through the court system, providing a range of services and programs that reduce the number of youth that re-offend.
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Lillian Brooks, Director of Alexandria CSU, describes the prevention and early intervention programs the CSU offers to juveniles arrested for possesion of alcohol or other drugs in an op-ed piece published in the July 28 edition of the Alexandria Gazette Packet. Ms. Brooks emphasizes the importance of parents in this process, "It is really up to the parents to talk to their kids, lock up the liquor if there is an any suspicion at all and take the driver's license away as a home consequence of alcohol/drug behavior." She also describes the methods the CSU employs to monitor youth in the system for alcohol offenses.
In partnership with Alexandria Gang Prevention Community Task Force, and the Alexandria Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy, SAPCA presents regularly to parents on how to prevent alcohol and drug abuse, and other risky behaviors. To learn more, contact Noraine at noraine.buttar@alexandriava.gov.
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SAPCA'S UPCOMING MEETINGS | |
SAPCA/ACPS Substance Use Policy and Programming Committee Meeting:
Monday, August 15, 4:00pm, TC Williams Rotunda, 3330 King St. |
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Help Turn Cars Into the Cure to Eliminate Drunk Driving
Ask your legislators to cosponsor the ROADS SAFE Act (S 510/HR 2324). This bipartisan legislation is sponsored by Senators Tom Udall and Bob Corker. In the House, Representatives Shelley Moore-Capito, Heath Shuler, and John Sarbanes introduced an identical version of the bill. The legislation would help fund research to develop advanced technology which could eliminate drunk driving.
The world's leading auto manufacturers have partnered with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to provide funding to develop the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, or DADSS. If fully developed, this technology could instantaneously and passively detect the driver's BAC and if the driver was drunk, prevent the vehicle from starting.
The goal of DADSS is to create a passive, unobtrusive, reliable, accurate, inexpensive, and voluntary system for drivers which could lead to the elimination of drunk driving. Click here to send a letter to your legislators.
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Job Link Closeout Ceremony (8/19)
All are invited to attend the Job-Link Closeout Ceremony on Friday August 19 from 12:30 to 2:30pm at the Minnie Howard auditorium, 3801 W. Braddock Road. You will have an opportunity to hear SAPCA's Youthmappers present their preliminary findings. Help the youth and their families celebrate the end of the Teens Work summer program! |
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One Love Festival (8/20)
Visit the SAPCA table at the One Love Community Festival on Satruday, August 20 at Braddock Road Field, GW Middle School, 1005 Mount Vernon Ave. The festival, sponsored by Operation Hope, will feature games, food, face painting, clowns, rides, entertainment, gospel, music, a moon bounce, vendor booths and much more. The festival will run from 12pm to 7:30pm. Drop by and enjoy this multicultural event! |
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Community Health Fair (8/27)
The Mentoring Education Together With Children program is sponsoring a Community Health Fair on Saturday, August 27 from 12pm to 3pm. This annual back to school event will take place at the Patrick Henry Recreation Center at 4643 Taney Ave. Visit SAPCA at the "Preventing Risky Behaviors" table for information on how to prevent teen pregnancy and substance use and abuse among youth. |
The Blunt Truth: Communities Dealing with Marijuana (8/25)
During this hour-long program, The Blunt Truth: Communities Dealing with Marijuana, hear how coalitions adjust their prevention messages as laws and attitudes change. Learn the best ways to educate the public about marijuana's harmful effects on the developing brain. Find out how coalitions are working with local and state governments on legislation and ordinances.
The program will air on August 25, from 1pm to 2pm. Click here to register.
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The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has said that medical marijuana has no accepted medical use, and should continue to be classified as a Schedule I drug. These drugs, including marijuana, heroin, Ecstasy and LSD, are considered to have a high tendency for abuse and have no accepted medical use.
The DEA decision comes shortly after the Justice Department announced that medical marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers located in states with medical marijuana laws are not immune from prosecution for violation of federal drug and money-laundering laws. Currently the medical use of marijuana is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia. |
Drivers High on Marijuana Are an Unrecognized Crisis
Drivers high on marijuana represent an unrecognized crisis, experts tell the Los Angeles Times. A 2009 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), based on blood, breath and saliva tests collected on weekends from drivers in 300 locations nationally, found that 16.3 percent of drivers at night were impaired from legal or illegal drugs, including 9 percent of drivers who had detectable traces of marijuana in their system.
The article notes that in California, almost 1,000 deaths and injuries annually are due to drugged drivers. Law enforcement officials point to the increased use of medical marijuana as part of the problem. Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the newspaper, "Marijuana is a significant and important contributing factor in a growing number of fatal accidents. There is no question, not only from the data but from what I have heard in my career as a law enforcement officer." |
After new cigarette labels mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that carry graphic images were unveiled recently, calls to a national smokers' quit line jumped.
USA Today reports that the 1-800-QUIT-NOW line received more than 4,800 calls the Tuesday the labels were introduced. On a typical Tuesday in June, the quit line receives about 2,000 calls.
The warning labels will carry graphic images of the consequences of smoking, including diseased lungs and rotting teeth, and will include the quit line number. They will replace the traditional "Surgeon General's Warning." The FDA will require that the disturbing pictures cover at least half of the front and back of a cigarette package by October 2012, and the images must take up to at least 20 percent of each cigarette ad.
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Burger King, Sonic and Starbucks are among the fast food chains experimenting with selling alcohol, according to USA Today. Two Sonic restaurants in South Florida will soon be selling beer and wine along with burgers, the newspaper reports. Burger King "Whopper Bars" that sell beer have opened in Miami, Kansas City and Los Angeles. Several Seattle Starbucks are now selling local wine and beer. These chains are adding alcohol to the menu in an attempt to boost sales during evening hours, the article notes.
Michele Simon, Research and Policy Director at the Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watch group, told the newspaper, "Fast food plus fast alcohol equals fast drunks." |
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