For Immediate Release
Hancock County Planning Commission
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Healthy Hancock Pledges Support of U.S. Surgeon General’s Call to Action on Underage Drinking

The Healthy Hancock Coalition today pledged their support of acting Surgeon General  Kenneth Moritsugu’s “Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking”.  This local support adds steam to the state’s strong response to the Surgeon General’s Call to Action, as announced on March 6th.

Here is a snapshot of the underage drinking problem in Hancock County, according to the 2006 Maine Youth Drug and Alcohol Use Survey:

• 28.6%of youth in grades 6-12 reported use of alcohol in the past 30 days
• 13.7%of youth in grades 6-12 reported binge drinking in the past two weeks – defined as five or more alcoholic drinks

Our coalition is engaged in the following activities to reduce underage drinking:

• Working in partnership with Healthy Maine Partnerships, Healthy Community Coalitions, schools, law enforcement and town governments
• Identifying Hancock County strengths, assets and needs
• Supporting a range of prevention oriented responses, including youth education, adult awareness, training for beverage vendors and servers, law enforcement as well as non-punitive responses to underage drinking

Here is what we ask of the people in our community to help in our efforts:

• Contact us or visit our website, www.healthyhancock.org to learn more about our planning initiative and programs to prevent underage drinking.
• Join one of our public outreach meetings.  You can contact the Healthy Maine Partnership in your area from the list below.
• Encourage local businesses, parents, schools and town governments to prevent underage drinking. 

Our partners include Bucksport Bay Healthy Communities, Healthy Acadia, Healthy Peninsula, Union River Healthy Communities, the Hancock County Planning Commission and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.  We are working together to formulate a Hancock County Substance Abuse Prevention Plan.  Information about the plan and related projects can be found at www.healthyhancock.org.   

Jim Fisher, co-chair of Healthy Hancock and project manager for the Substance Abuse Prevention Plan stated, “Hancock County needs to pull together to reduce underage drinking.  We will need active participation from youth, parents, teachers, law enforcement, healthy community coalitions, local governments and more. We hope that readers will take time to learn about this issue and join us in community discussions as we look for solutions to this serious problem.”

The Surgeon General’s Call to Action specifies six goals:

GOAL 1: Foster changes in American society that facilitate healthy adolescent development and that help prevent and reduce underage drinking.

GOAL 2: Engage parents, schools, communities, all levels of government, all social systems that interface with youth, and youth themselves in a coordinated national effort to prevent and reduce drinking and its consequences.

GOAL3: Promote an understanding of underage alcohol consumption in the context of human development and maturation that takes into account individual adolescent characteristics as well as environmental, ethnic, cultural, and gender differences.

GOAL 4: Conduct additional research on adolescent alcohol use and its relationship to development.

GOAL 5: Work to improve public health surveillance on underage drinking and on population-based risk factors for this behavior.

GOAL 6: Work to ensure that policies at all levels are consistent with the national goal of preventing and reducing underage alcohol consumption.

Additional information on the Surgeon General’s report is available at: www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/underagedrinking/

For more information, the following partners are available for interviews:

• Jim Fisher, Senior Planner, Hancock County Planning Commission, 667-7131 or jfisher@hcpcme.org
• Mary Jane Bush, Coalition Coordinator, Bucksport Bay Healthy Communities, 469-6682 mjbush@bucksportbayhealth.org
• Irene Greene Murphy LCSW,LADC Healthy Acadia, 460-6605 thoughts28@yahoo.com
• Jane Freeman, Community Coordinator, Healthy Peninsula, 374-3257, jfreeman@healthypeninsula.org
• Helena Peterson, Director, Union River Healthy Communities, 667-5352, healthy@downeasthealth.org

Learn more about Healthy Hancock's Initiatives on Substance Abuse....

James H. Fisher, AICP
Hancock County Planning Commission
395 State Street; Ellsworth, ME 04605
(207) 667-7131  (207) 667-2099 (fax)
jfisher@hcpcme.org    www.hcpcme.org