About 175 community representatives -- parents, teenagers, a district justice, law enforcement and drug- and alcohol-treatment professionals -- gathered Thursday and Friday for a two-day conference that marked the beginning of Alcohol Awareness Month 2004.
The event, which took place at the Days Inn Penn State, 240 S. Pugh St., began Alcohol Awareness Month in the State College community.
Alcohol Awareness Month is a campaign held every April to raise public knowledge about alcohol-related problems in the community.
This year, the theme is "Save a life -- end underage drinking," which is the goal of the organizing group, Pennsylvanians Against Underage Drinking (PAUD).
Juli McGreevy, communications coordinator for PAUD, said that this conference was imperative to get certain information out to members of the community.
"Pennsylvania is the 45th highest state with underage drinking costs. In 2001 alone, $2 billion was spent for medical costs, work loss and pain and suffering," McGreevy said. "Also, youth violence, traffic accidents and high-risk sex, just to name a few, are injuries related to drinking between the ages of 15 to 20."
Eighteen speakers, workshops and three large group sessions, such as "When alcohol is a weapon," took place over the two-day period.
"When alcohol is a weapon" presented the link between underage drinking and sexual assaults -- something that Penn State has seen during the past year on and off campus, McGreevy added.
"It used to be that it was a rite of passage for teenagers to drink, but the cost of $2 billion doesn't seem harmless," she said. "It seems like a problem, especially when there are victims of crimes, so we need to get the awareness out there."
One of the speakers, State College Police Chief Tom King, gave an in-depth explanation of the new Source Investigation Project, which began in January.
"It is an 18-month pilot program to try to identify the sources who provide alcohol to minors and hold them accountable for it, not just the underage drinkers," King said.
"But even if they are of age and they get served too much alcohol to the point that they are a danger to themselves or others, we will hold them accountable then, too," he added.
The program, King said, is divided into two parts.
The first of these parts, an education and awareness program, is designed to encourage the media and student groups to get information about the program out.
King said the reason they are being so strict on the sources providing alcohol is that they want to limit the number of victims of crimes related to underage drinking in the area.
"We think the only way to do so is to know that students can't have big parties. We don't want them to engage in this because people are getting hurt," he said.
The second part of the project is law enforcement in necessary areas, which includes downtown State College, King said.
Rebecca Shaver, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers of Pennsylvania executive director, said the conference was important for the safety of all Pennsylvanians.
"They discussed precautions and procedures for underage drinking because we found the number of incidents of underage drinking, binge drinking and death from alcohol are increasing," Shaver said.
District Justice Carmine Prestia attended the PAUD conference.
"I estimate that, besides traffic citations, 80 percent of my caseload involves alcohol. And this year, in January and February alone, we already had 225 non-traffic cases," Prestia said.
Although it may seem as though the police and other enforcement officers are only targeting the students, Prestia said that it is for the safety of other students.
"Of all the cases that come through here, young people say, 'They're just targeting us,' but one of the things I see is the victims are other students, and we just want to protect everyone," he said.
