Drug Education News

Children and Young People Now have a story about what’s happening on North Tyneside:

The Child Safe Initiative will see officers patrolling the streets at weekends and collecting underage drinkers who have been reported by the public. The officers will take the children home, confiscate their alcohol and talk to the family about the dangers of drinking.

Afterwards a separate team will write to the family to offer them advice and support.

Whether this comes as a result of the new local alcohol strategies that are being written up and down the country I don’t know, but I suspect they’ll be helping focus partnership’s minds on what they can do, as will the Home Secretary’s words of a month or two ago.

Meanwhile in North Wales things have gone a bit further.  Here’s the BBC’s take:

Under-age drinkers in the streets and parks in Colwyn Bay could be tested by police armed with breathalyser kits.

The pilot scheme in north Wales will see also officers using test strips to see if drinks have alcohol in them.

Any teenagers who fail the test - or who have alcohol on them - will be taken home under the scheme.

A similar project targeting young drinkers took place in Wrexham last summer as part of a UK government drive to reduce binge drinking.

A Home Office spokesman said the department would monitor the success of the scheme.

Meanwhile The Mirror report that young people are resourceful when it comes to obtaining alcohol:

Underage drinkers are buying alcohol from Tesco and getting it delivered to home by using the store giant’s online service.

The teenagers who order booze using a debit card are only asked to tick a box on the website saying they are over 18.