The minimum legal drinking age, or MLDA, is always controversial, says Katherine M. Keyes, at Columbia University, because people are usually opposed to laws that govern our individual behaviors and choices. In a recent online article, Keyes points out that for younger women, especially, drinking can affect them negatively throughout their lifetime.

Grucza and his team found that for those individuals who were 18 from 1967 to 1989, when the MLDA was in flux, there were more than 200,000 suicides and also 130,000 homicides. Grucza says there were several adverse consequences that were related to the lower drinking age during that time period, especially the elevated risks for women to commit suicide or homicide.

The team found that with homicides, the females were victimized 92 percent of the time by acquaintances but believed with suicide, the alcohol contributed to the harshness of the attempt. The concern is if the lower drinking age elevates problems related to alcohol, this would also contribute to domestic violence fueled by it.

Grucza says that many scientists think the brain of an adolescent is exceptionally vulnerable to effects of alcohol and drugs and therefore keeping the drinking age at 21 is necessary to prevent those negative effects.

Drunk Driving and Drug Rehab Treatment

For people working in the drug rehab treatment field, protecting the public from drunk drivers is always a thorny issue. It is likely that, at some point, a drug rehab program will have a patient arrive for treatment while under the influence of alcohol. If the program refuses to admit the patient, how can they prevent her from getting back behind the wheel? Can law enforcement be called without jeopardizing confidentiality?

For most programs, the solution is simply offering to take the patient home or hiring a car service or taxi to do so. If the patient becomes belligerent, the program can urge the patient to remain that the facility until the alcohol wears off. If neither option works, most States would not hold the program liable for harm to others if they tried to delay the patient or otherwise return her home safely. Further, most States require the threat of harm to be directed at a particular person before the duty to warn kicks in. Since there is no identified victim in a drunk driving accident, the program would likely avoid liability. Should the program decide to notify the police anyway, it must do so anonymously and take care to avoid mentioning that the driver is drunk and that she has sought treatment for alcoholism.

Drug Rehab Treatment and Medical Emergencies

The prohibition against disclosure of the fact that a patient is seeking treatment for substance abuse does not apply when the program is making a disclosure to medical personnel who need the information to treat a condition that poses an immediate threat to the patient. The exemption applies only to disclosure directly to the medical personnel and does not extend to friends or family members.

Discharging Unstable Patients from Drug Rehab Treatment

All mental health professionals desire a favorable outcome for their patients and no reputable drug rehab treatment facility enjoys having to discharge a patient before they are in recovery and stable enough to return to their daily life and routine. However, sometimes it is necessary to prematurely terminate treatment in the interests of the patient, other residents, or the program at large.

People who enter substance abuse treatment have, by definition, a significant disease that must be addressed. In addition to the substance abuse, however, some patients may also pose a threat to other patients, intentionally or inadvertently disrupt the program or fail to achieve progress in their recovery. When a drug rehab treatment program has decided that an unstable patient must be discharged from the program, it needs to be done in such a way to limit damage to all involved, including the patient.

·        Rules are tightened for writing prescriptions and plans for pain treatment.

·        Doctors who over-prescribe painkillers are penalized with minimum $10,000 fines and six-month suspensions.

·        Doctors are now required to use electronic or counterfeit-proof prescription pads purchased from state Health Department-approved vendors. Vendors are required to report monthly sales of these pads to state officials.

·        Mandatory buy-back program established for doctors to transfer narcotics back to distributors.

·        If a pharmacist knowingly fails to report an attempt to purchase drugs fraudulently to police, it’s now a first-degree misdemeanor.

·        Pharmacies now have seven days to report prescription information into the state drug database, shortened from the previous 15-day time limit.

·        Pharmaceutical companies are prohibited from providing funds for the database operation.

·        Wholesalers who sell controlled substances are required to report distribution data to the state.

·        Doctors are required to tell the state when they begin and stop working at pain management clinics.

·        Law enforcement officers are allowed to review or copy pain clinic records without a search warrant.

·        Provides $3 million to support law enforcement efforts and state prosecutors.

Not only does the new law impose tighter regulations on doctors and pharmacies, it also includes using a strike force to crack down on the notorious pill mills.

There’s good reason for the crackdown on Florida’s pill mills. An estimated nine people per day in the state die from abuse of prescription drugs, mostly through overdose. In 2007, an estimated 11,000 people died from prescription drug abuse in the country. Long considered the epicenter of the problem, Florida has had the dubious distinction of prescribing 86 percent of the oxycodone in the country, according to estimates by the federal government. One Florida doctor was reported to have prescribed more oxy pills than were prescribed in the entire state of California last year.

Broward County is the nation’s pill-mill capital, according to the Miami Herald  (http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/03/2249936/scott-signs-pill-mill-bill-into.html), with 130 pain clinics in operation. In Broward alone, say law enforcement authorities, more than one million oxycodone tablets are prescribed every month.

It isn’t just Florida residents that have had easy access to the pill mills, however. The state’s reputation as “Oxy Express” has attracted addicts and dealers from across the country. States north of Florida have applauded the Florida law and crackdown. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear called the “choking off of the pill pipeline from Florida” a key element in that state’s strategy to curb rampant prescription drug trafficking and abuse.

The law enforcement crackdown on Florida pill mills is also starting to have an impact. In late August, federal investigators busted the nation’s largest pill mill crime enterprise operation in South Florida, a narcotics network that churned out more than $40 million in profits from more than 20 million oxycodone pills.

Defendants Christopher and Jeffrey George have been portrayed as the twin kingpins of the South Florida prescription drug market, with their network of storefront pain clinics across the state. But their reach extended far beyond Florida, with drug couriers coming from as far away as Appalachia, Mexico and Turkey. In the indictment, some 32 people were charged for their involvement with the pill mills, the result of a three-year criminal investigation.

After the law went into effect July 1st, there was an immediate furor raised by patients who were afraid they’d be unable to get their legitimate prescriptions filled because there was a shortage of state Health Department-approved prescription pads. As a result of the uproar, State Surgeon General Frank Farmer suspended the requirement until August 29.

The department estimates that approximately 50,000 licensed physicians in Florida prescribe controlled substances to treat the medical needs of their patients.

Governor Rick Scott said in a statement, “Earlier this year, I made a promise to crack down on pill mills and stomp this scourge out of our state. By shutting down pill mills, we are saving lives and making our communities safer places to live.”

Although the road to getting the new law passed and into effect was a long one, what with the Florida governor initially against and then for the provisions, once it passed, drug treatment centers in the state began to gear up for the influx of new patients seeking help to overcome their addiction to various prescription drugs. That’s according to a story in the Sun Sentinel (http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-07-09/news/fl-next-for-pill-mills-20110709_1_pain-clinics-prescription-drug-monitoring-program-pill-mill-law) in early July.

As drug treatment experts will tell you, once the supply of a prescription drug is no longer available, you can’t just go off the drug cold turkey without some potentially serious consequences. Most addicts who go off a drug need to safely detox and most probably require treatment. At the time of the bill’s passing, the state’s treatment facilities were said to be full. So, meeting the challenge was seen as one that would be difficult.

Public facilities were already maxed out, while private treatment facilities were also experiencing demand that often exceeded availability. The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), which funds a number of locally-based drug programs across the state, has tried to maintain its funding for substance abuse programs despite budget shortfalls. Reports say that although its total annual budget for drug- and alcohol abuse treatment programs has hovered around $215M for the past few years, now increased demand for treatment may outpace the amount of funds available for the purpose.

A report by the DCF ranked Florida number 35 out of 50 states in 2009 for per-capita spending on programs for substance abuse and addiction. The sponsor of the pill-mill legislation, State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, said that the Legislature needs to track the ongoing fight against prescription drug abuse to determine whether dealers are finding a way around the law. After the bill went into effect July 1, 2011, Fasano said his focus was on whether treatment centers would be able to provide detox and treatment to all those who need it.

“You’re going to have a big problem…a situation where many addicts thankfully will not be able to get their fix, and we’re going to need to assist those individuals in any way we can so they don’t commit crimes,” Fasano said.

One thing is certain. In the continuing fight to eradicate the pill mills in Florida, it will take a coordinated and concerted effort by all concerned: law enforcement, pharmacists, doctors, drug treatment facilities, and concerned citizens alike. Ridding the state of its “Oxy Express” image won’t happen overnight. In that regard, it’s much like addiction. There’s a lot of hard work that needs to be done and will continue to be required in order to beat it.

The plan, which would go into effect November 1, 2011, applies to about 5,500 federal prisoners. That’s what Attorney General Holder recommended June 1 in testimony before the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

In reality, the proposal could affect more than 12,000 federal prisoners. That’s six percent of inmates in the badly overcrowded U.S. prison system. Holder’s recommendation stipulated that the sentences retroactively corrected should only apply to about 5,500 prisoners — those whose crimes did not involve the use of weapons and who didn’t have long histories of criminal activity. That effectively cut the number of eligible federal prisoners in half.

Others testifying before the panel supporting Holder’s recommendations included representatives of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Bar Association, and former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Asa Hutchinson.

The average amount of time those early-release prisoners could have shaved off their sentences is three years.

Why the Disparity Exists

Basically this is to remedy a legacy of the War on Drugs where harsher sentences were meted out to users of crack cocaine than those convicted of powder cocaine use. Crack cocaine users are mostly black, whereas users of powder cocaine are often white and sometimes affluent.

After years of studies presented to Congress citing the disproportionate impact of crack sentences on minorities, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010.

African Americans currently account for 82 percent of federal crack offenders. Under the old law, it would have taken 500 grams of cocaine to earn the same sentence (a mandatory five years) as 5 grams of crack. Under the new law, that ratio has been reduced to 18:1.

But while the disparity was reduced, it wasn’t eliminated.

Although Congress changed the law last year, they did not address what would happen to thousands of prisoners already sentenced under the existing laws or those arrested just before the law was changed.

Conservatives Criticize the Proposal

Here’s how it bubbled up. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a divided decision, ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates. This decision infuriated prominent conservatives, including Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

Rep. Smith, who is Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said he was “disappointed by the Obama administration’s position” on early release. He indicated he might push Congress to intervene with the U.S. Sentencing Commission if that body votes this month to make the changes that would go into effect November 1. “It shows they are more concerned with the well-being of criminals than with the safety of our communities,” Smith said.
Sen. Grassley, who is ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was equally disapproving of the proposal, saying it was a “bad idea” and that “I strongly disagree” with Holder’s recommendation.

Also voicing objection was David Hiller, vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Fight to Block Early Release Would Be An Uphill Battle

According to several sources, any fight to block the proposed early release of federal crack cocaine prisoners faces an uphill battle. Opponents of the proposal would have to first introduce a bill that rejects the early releases and then the House and Senate would need to pass the legislation and send it on to the White House for President Obama’s signature. This is a scenario that’s unlikely to play out.

Interestingly, according to published reports, Rep. Smith was the only U.S. lawmaker to speak out against the change in the law last year.

As it stands right now, the retroactive reduction in sentences for crack prisoners requires the U.S. Sentencing Commission vote to amend the sentencing guidelines. Congress must then vote to approve the changes. This then gives federal judges the discretion to reduce sentences.

While the decision probably won’t come about for at least six months, it appears likely that the U.S. Sentencing Commission will be on board.

Effect on Communities

What is clear is that crack cocaine prisoners, if they are released early, will be back on the streets of our communities. Without treatment, they’ll likely go right back to using. Dumping a crack addict back onto the streets with no provision for rehab or continuation of treatment that may have been started in prison only compounds the problem of addiction.
What’s to motivate the crack addict to get clean? Being released early? While freedom is certainly something to be prized, that doesn’t automatically mean these newly-released individuals will lead clean and sober lifestyle.

Maybe one solution would be for opponents to introduce legislation that requires post-release rehab or some form of continuing counseling. It would at least be a start toward a more effective early-release program for crack cocaine-addicted individuals.

The idea behind the treaties was to restrict drug use to medical treatment and research, and to end their recreational use because, as written in the treaties, drug abuse leads to a lowering of moral standards and to addiction. The 1961 treaty read in part that "addiction to narcotic drugs constitutes a serious evil for the individual and is fraught with social and economic dangers to mankind." Each of the three commissions came up with lists of which drugs have limited medical purposes and which have potential for abuse and addiction. The treaties were an effort to control the sale, manufacture and possession of these designated drugs in a more uniform way among law enforcement agencies on the international level.

The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 produced an international treaty that restricts the supply and manufacture of certain narcotics, except for their use in medical treatment and research. The 1961 effort included many synthetic narcotics that had been recently invented as well as morphine, heroin, and other older opiate drugs. The treaty focused on drug dealers and traffickers in order to cut off international supplies. It also classified narcotics into four categories or "schedules.

The Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 produced another international treaty, again with the intent of stopping the international traffic in certain addictive and dangerous drugs. This time the regulations included not only narcotics, but also hallucinogens and stimulants such as methamphetamine, and depressants such as benzodiazepines and barbiturates. The treaty had four schedules of drugs, again based on their potential for abuse and their medical uses.

The 1988 Convention again Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances stepped up efforts against drug trafficking even further, with a focus on organized crime.

These treaties and the way they classify drugs have had a major influence on how individual countries set up their own domestic laws.

So far, six other states have passed related bans. The SB39 bill in California aims to stop the distribution, import, production and retail sale of beer and other related alcoholic drinks that contain caffeine. There were several instances of blackouts and alcohol poisoning on college campuses due to these types of fruit-flavored drinks because of their attraction to young adults. Oftentimes, these types of energy drinks are even cheaper than those with alcohol, according to an article in Forbes.

With certain energy drinks the alcohol content is often masked by the amount of added caffeine. This can lead to dangerous binge drinking behaviors. Challengers of the bill point out that other drinks contain alcohol and caffeine such as Irish Coffee, but you don’t see anyone trying to ban those drinks.

After several dozen students at a New Jersey college were hospitalized last year due to consumption of malt beverages containing caffeine and common ingredients in energy drinks, the state of Michigan began to take a closer look at the labels on caffeinated beers. Opponents of these drinks state that the big, brightly colored labels on the cans contain drug contents equal to a cup of coffee plus five beers.

Several big brewing companies dropped these types of beverages a few years ago due to pressure from regulatory boards. That is when smaller breweries stepped into the market to fill the void.

In 1996 the U.S. Welfare Reform Law, also known as The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWOR) (PL 104-193), was signed by President Bill Clinton. This law mandated that those receiving benefits for temporary assistance would have employment as their primary goal. This replaced the previous system in which there were no time limits on the receipt of welfare benefits. The Welfare Reform Act was described as an effort to move the proportion of U.S. citizens who relied upon welfare benefits into the job force. This law pertained to welfare recipients who were substance users as well.

States have followed with their own revisions to welfare policies in recent years including mandatory drug tests and the refusal of benefits to those who test positive. Proponents of mandatory drug testing have asserted that the workforce at large requires drug testing and those who cannot pass drug tests would not be eligible for employment and therefore could not participate in the welfare programs that have employment as their goal.

Consequently, several states now require welfare recipients to take drug tests in order to be eligible for benefits and more are considering it. Florida is the most recent state to mandate drug tests in a public assistance program. Applicants and recipients in their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) must give negative drug screens in order to enter and remain in that program. That program, like those in every state, is designed to financially assist single parents with dependent children. The primary recipients are women with children.
The bill in Florida became law on July 1, 2011. Rick Scott, the governor of Florida, issued a statement about his support of the bill, saying “it is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction”.
Substance Use among Welfare Recipients
Estimates of how many welfare applicants and recipients are drug addicted have varied widely due some think to the difficulty in gathering data. Some data collection has relied historically upon self-reports which are easily falsified and at best are inaccurate with those asked underreporting any substance use. In 2002 the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that approximately 22 percent of all female welfare recipients had used drugs at least once in the past year. Later NSDUH estimated that approximately 4-13% of all persons 18 or older in the United States used substances in the past month. Since welfare recipients who would be drug tested are 18 and older, this is an indicator of the number of adults affected by such laws, however some continue to say that these estimates are very low in the welfare population. In 1995 The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) reported that 20 percent of female AFDC recipients, 28 percent of SSI recipients, and 20 percent of Food Stamp recipients between the ages of 18 and 44 reported regular use of alcohol and/or illegal drugs.

The Cost of Addiction
Eliminating addicts from the welfare rolls is seen as a significant way to cut welfare budgets and by some a way to encourage people to not take drugs. The cost of drug addiction to the tax payers that fund welfare programs includes tallies from multiple programs. Those figures are estimates as well, but have been alarming and indicate the great numbers of addicts who are on welfare. For example, in 1995, CASA (the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia) estimated that $77.6 billion of federal monies would support those with substance abuse and addiction through welfare programs and other entitlements such as Social Security and healthcare programs. Of those funds, 11.2 billion was estimated to be payments to families with dependent children, SSI and food stamps–all entitlements that are commonly considered to support substance users and addicts who use welfare benefits.
The Impact of Welfare Policy
Some believe that the new welfare policies could adversely affect those with substance use problems. They cite potential negative impact in many areas. For example, with decreased welfare eligibility, addicts are unable to obtain health care benefits and cannot enter treatment. This limits access to recovery services but also impacts the healthcare system itself which services lower income people. Those services rely upon Medicaid and Medicare to remain open. The long-term effect, some argue, would be an eventual elimination of addiction treatment services for the poor.
Other concerns about the exclusion of addicts from welfare eligibility involve their dependent children. The children of addicts would be excluded if their parents are; however, some states make provisions for the children of addicts to receive support through third party payees. The impact upon children of addicts could be more far reaching than originally thought, however, if their parents are excluded from treatment services due to welfare ineligibility.
Conversely, some proponents of the welfare reform believe that monies for addiction treatment could be more specifically and more effectively targeted if general welfare costs are reduced. The costs of addiction to welfare systems has been largely hidden and not allocated specifically to providing addiction related services. With welfare reform some believe that the savings could free up monies to be put directly into addiction services.
Gender Concerns and Related Issues
The vast majority of welfare recipients with dependent children are women who also may have co-occurring conditions and stressors that contribute to poverty and the need for assistance. Among these are substance use, mental illness, homelessness, unemployability and domestic violence. For example, estimates suggest that perhaps as many as 50% of women with substance problems also have a psychiatric disorder and are vulnerable to the other stressors of homelessness, unemployability and domestic violence victimization.
The treatment of women with psychiatric disorders and substance problems could be greatly affected by limited access to welfare-based healthcare. Untreated dual disorders can lead to continuing and compounded problems in all areas of functioning for these women and their children. Children exposed to untreated mental illness and substance use are at risk for child protection involvement, removal to foster care, mental health problems and later in life their own substance use problems.
 

Just recently, President Obama made public his administration’s National Drug Control Strategy and the tone was far from conciliatory towards those pressing for legalization of the substance. In fact, the document warned that though marijuana use has increased to its highest level in eight years, the drug remains unsafe and illegal.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) took an even more strident tone saying that marijuana has no medically accepted use and that the drug will retain its restricted classification. At present, marijuana shares the same classification as heroin. The government remains adamant in its assertion that marijuana is a highly addictive substance with great potential for abuse and is unsafe even when taken under a doctor’s care. There have been at least three concerted efforts towards reclassification over the years (1972, 1995, present), all of which have failed even on appeal. Present day activists are hopeful that this time the court will accept research indicating marijuana’s effectiveness in treating things like glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.

Word from the Justice Department is that shops engaged in the sale and distribution of marijuana for medical purposes is fair game for federal prosecutors and should consider themselves warned. Those taking marijuana for medical reasons will not be targeted, but large shops involved with marijuana should not consider themselves protected by their state’s legalization of the substance. As far as the Justice Department is concerned, selling and distributing marijuana remains a federal crime.

There are over 800 medical marijuana dispensaries and over 1,000 growers of the substance in the state of Colorado who despite being satirized on an episode of SNL, should perhaps take seriously the federal government’s unwavering opposition to legalization.

A former director of the Office of Drug Control Policy under President Bush warns that things are not so harmless as they may seem. He calls marijuana both dangerous and addictive and says that while many of the shops register as non-profits, the vast majority are, in fact, quite lucrative and have indistinct connections to the Mexican mafia.

Does this mean that smaller scale shops dealing in medical marijuana are safe from prosecution? No it does not. While official rhetoric targets larger scale operations, the DEA has already conducted raids on small shops in several western states where marijuana had been ‘legalized’. The White House is using its policy voice and its prosecutorial muscle to make a clear stand against marijuana’s legalization.

Kerlikowske says treatment is nearly half the cost of imprisonment, therefore the government’s strategy will stay focused on prevention, as well as treatment options. The primary groups they will target include women and their dependents, who are minors, college-age students and also active military and veterans. Kerlikowske says they are seeing more problems with young people going through the medicine cabinet than they have with marijuana abuse. He adds that excessive drinking sprees are also a significant problem for those in that younger age group. Four years ago, nearly 375,000 military veterans were identified with a disorder in the drug abuse category.

The Obama administration has plans to provide treatments that are family-based in hopes to treat drug abuse among females. They believe women have a fear of separation from their children which leads to a lower treatment rate than males. The current strategy will promote support for veterans who are facing substance abuse issues and mental disorders, as well. Of the $26 billion allocated for drug matters, half of that goes to law enforcement and the other half goes towards drug prevention and treatment options. Budget discussions are still ongoing in this matter, however.

Because teens are not legally able to purchase alcohol, any discussion of how to combat binge drinking among that population must include a review of how they are gaining access to this dangerous substance in the first place. As was the case when I was in school, many teens simply ask their over-twenty-one siblings or friends to purchase the alcohol for them. Others obtain fake IDs and buy the stuff themselves, either in liquor stores or bars and restaurants. Most alarming, however, is when parents and other responsible adults provide the alcohol to minors during parties and other social events. Given the potentially lethal outcome of such behavior, one can only hope that these adults are simply too ignorant to contemplate the worst-case scenario.

Liability for providing alcohol to those who will later go an injure themselves or others has a long history in the US and is, in fact, rooted in British law. Individual states have enacted their own “dram shop” laws and the degree to which liability is assigned to the provider of alcohol differs drastically among the states. Some states impose liability on anyone who provides alcohol to an already intoxicated individual; other states require the “host” to have made money off of a transaction, thus eliminating “social hosts” who provide the alcohol for free to guests. The liability can be further differentiated between incidents involving minors versus incidents involving adults.

California has some of the most lenient social host liability laws, except when it comes to minors. For example, businesses are not liable for serving alcohol to patrons, except if they served alcohol to obviously intoxicated minors. Social hosts are typically not liable for injuries, unless a parent or guardian knowingly allows a child under age 18 to drink at home and then permits the child to drive.

As a result of a grant by the US Health and Human Services Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), Ventura County in California has been experimenting with using enhanced social host liability as a way to combat underage drinking. Upon receiving the grant, Ventura County developed and implemented the Social Host Ordinance. By the fall of 2007, the program had been deployed county-wide. The stated purpose of the program is to deter underage and young adult binge drinking.

Over the first few years of the program county officials issued almost 250 citations to social hosts who provided alcohol to minors. Fines vary across localities from a low of $500 per incident in Camarillo to a high of $2,500 in the exclusive area of Thousand Oaks; fines typically increase for repeated violations. All locations assign responsibility for underage drinking to property owners, tenants, landlords, people in charge of the residence, and people hosting the party. Further, the rules for most of the localities specifically state that parents or legal guardians of a minor hosting a party are responsible for violations, even if they are not physically present.

Findings from a recent study of the effectiveness of the social host ordinance program have been published and are largely positive. Roughly 75% of law enforcement officers feel that Ventura County’s social host policy is effective at combating underage drinking at parties, with 25% indicating that the number of call outs to party locations has decreased since the law was implemented. The size of underage drinking parties seem to have decreased as well since the scheme was implemented, and only 4% of citations are issued to repeat offenders. Most importantly, however, is the fact that students report that it is harder for them to obtain alcohol than it was before the law was passed.

Although the program appears to already be a success, the county is investigating ways to make it even more effective. First, it has embarked on a public awareness campaign to make parents and guardians aware of the social host liability. Since deterrence is one of the main goals of the program, simply getting the word out about financial ramifications of providing alcohol to minors can be an easy way to reduce incidents. Ideas for publicity include public service announcements, listing on the Internet the names of those who have received citations, and providing information about the law to parents and students at high school orientations. I can attest to these efforts as I first learned about this program while listening to my car radio in Los Angeles.

Patrol officers have also suggested ways in which the program can be more effective, primarily focusing on the minors themselves. For instance, some thought punishing the juveniles involved with community service or requiring them to attend alcohol classes may be beneficial.