Having young children and teens is a grand opportunity to re-examine our attitudes and habits. With Alcohol Awareness Month as our prompt, let’s invite each other to consider the role of alcohol in our childrens' lives.

Consider this: You would be hard-pressed to find a teenager who is not aware that driving after drinking alcohol is unsafe and unacceptable. Decades of well-funded public health education campaigns have elevated this message to common knowledge status, and medical research and traffic safety statistics confirm it as an inarguable reality.

Across Marin County, local town boards and councils are considering regulations on the sale of flavored tobacco products. The goal: make it harder for young people to obtain tobacco products, which they are suddenly using at an alarmingly higher rates throughout Marin and across the nation.

Surprised that you could be held responsible for teen substance use at your home? Whether or not you are there? Consider how lightweight that fine seems in comparison with the cost that could result if there are any injuries or accidents that occur as a result of underage substance use at a residence.

While trying to get kids to stop using and abusing alcohol and other drugs through educating them on the dangers or by trying to curb our own alcohol use in order to set a better example may have some success, these methods only treat symptoms. Like eradicating any disease, calming symptoms is only a temporary fix until the root cause of the disease is addressed.

I am constantly asking questions like: Why are our kids making unhealthy choices?  What are they seeking (mostly implicitly) as they make unhealthy choices?  What is being modeled for them?  Are the community leaders helping them to make wise choices? and more…