She led me to counselors, materials and the second of two Town-Hall meetings organized by nine black-shirted youth. The information unnerved me. One-out-of-four eighth-graders in the 2008 Douglas County Healthy Youth Survey had a drink in the last 30 days. The average age of a youth’s first drink is 12.8 years

    Whoops, my twin grandsons will be that age in two months. That bothered their motherr also. I wish we’d had more talks with them about drinking. Alcohol marketers are working far more effectively than we are, perhaps illegally as nearly as I can tell, so I’m rallying local volunteers to the cause.

    Together! is a non-profit whose staff organizes parent and student groups in Chelan-Douglas Counties to provide youth with drug and alcohol free activities such as dances, after school programs and athletic facilities. Five years ago executive director Renée Hunter invested in certifying Steffanie Bonwell in programs that cut alcohol and drug abuse by youth. She spends three-and-a-half days per week on the front lines. That’s music to my ears like the bluegrass classic, “Stuff That Works.”

    One program that works is Life Skills Training which a panel of experts gave its Top Tier rating because youth in the programs show sizable, sustained reductions in drug, tobacco and alcohol use based on randomized controlled trials. LST was taught in Eastmont School District, but dropped because of cutbacks and staff reassignments.

    Eastmont youth are working in a program called Power of Youth, advised by counselor Armentia Tenner, and led by juniors Jose Gomez and Raquel Ramos. When I met them at East Wenatchee’s advisory committee meeting, Ramos wore their self-designed battle uniform: a black t-shirt with lime green letters promoting their motto, “When you gamble with safety, you gamble with life.”

    Tenner has led Power of Youth teens for five years, and last year these youth created awareness about alcohol marketing programs that target pre-teens. Tenner co-wrote a grant with a committed grant writer, Eveline Roy of East Wenatchee. The grant raised $10,000 for an advertising program about teen drinking that was aired on radio, LINK buses and billboards.  Youth displayed one billboard on the highest traffic corner in Douglas County at Grant and Sunset that says, “Think alcohol marketing doesn’t affect your kids? Think again.”

    It’s right across the street from enemy advertising, which may be illegally displayed in windows and outside walls at the Union 76 gas station.

    The station’s advertising may be illegal because state legislators thought again about alcohol advertising and passed legislation limiting ads that impact pre-adolescent youth. The Washington Liquor Control Board rules effective April 3, 2010 limit to four (4) the number of signs advertising alcohol brand names in windows or outside walls at businesses that sell alcohol. Volunteers talked to the manager at Discount Tobacco and Alcohol on Valley Mall Parkway and its advertising complies. Two drive-by views last week confirmed it.

    But the Union 76 station appeared out of compliance on May 17 and May 31st. Posted in every front window at toddler eye-level were a race car driver, soccer player and Wenatchee Wild wolf in eight (8) beer ads. The only non-beer ad was a tobacco poster with a cute, smiling camel.

    Parents and youth at the Town Hall meeting spoke about the pervasive pressures on youth to sample substance abuse. Support them. Warn our youth. If we’re silent, we’re gambling with safety, and gambling with life.