Police raise teen drug, alcohol use awareness

Newport Beach police are partnering with county health programs to raise community awareness about underage drinking and prescription drug abuse in the local community and how to reduce it.

From 6 to 8 tonight, police will discuss the effects of drug and alcohol abuse by teens and the problems that come with it at Newport Harbor High School’s theater, 600 Irvine Ave. in Newport Beach.

The 2008 California Healthy Kids Survey showed that more than half of Newport-Mesa 11th-graders have drunk alcohol in the last month, and so did a third of district ninth-graders. The study also showed kids are misusing prescription drugs, too.

The program, Minor Drinking – Major Problems and Good Medicine, Bad Behavior, is a collaboration between Newport Beach police, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the Orange County Community Alliance Network. For more information, call Irene Umipig at (714) 441-0807.

— Joseph Serna