Teen Drinking IT's Friday Night, Term Paper

Instead, it is a problem that the entire community must address. We all contributed to the deaths of these teens by remaining silent, but not holding a community vigil to stop such tragedies from repeating themselves. And so they did repeat themselves, more than fourteen times. And no one can be blamed but us -- the community?

So how can we make these lives that so many believe to be wasted matter? What can we do to honor the memory and stop the tragedy? The answer is simple: we must be upfront about our community's problems. Local schools, government agencies, parents' forums, and the media must band together so that we can broadcast our problem, telling teens that it is no longer acceptable. We won't stand for them to take another drink. It is no longer an action that fathers will smirk about and mothers will dismiss. Instead, we'll view each can of beer in teens' hands like the deadly drug that it is. After acknowledging the problem, then, we must try to stop it through education and vigilance. It is the community's responsibility to teach these teens about the dangers of alcohol use. Schools, parents, and the government must be involved. In addition, simply knowing isn't enough, these groups also need to stand up to ensure that teens are not drinking through legal action, reeducation, and by preventing them from purchasing alcoholic beverages.

For so many years, the streets of our community have been silent after dark, silent except for the sounds of another teen drinking party in a parent's garage. Today, we're ready, as a community, to replace these sounds with the sounds of protest. We're ready to end the silence and admit that we, as a community, have a problem, and we're ready to honor the lives of those who died by preserving the lives of the ones who have come after. But in order to act, we must understand that it doesn't take a parent, a teacher, a law, or a governor -- it takes all of our community.