Word: diciccio
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Like many temperance activists, going back more than a century, both DiCiccio and Drieslein have had problems controlling their own alcohol use. DiCiccio, a Vietnam vet originally from Midland, Pa., says he quit drinking in 1988 and then switched careers, from selling cars to helping others get sober. Drieslein, who grew up in San Diego, started drinking at 12 and went into recovery 18 years later, after indulging in six to 12 beers a night for many years...
Like many other people in recovery, DiCiccio and Drieslein--and by extension the county organization they run--take an all-or-nothing approach to alcohol. The policy panel and many groups like it around the country now maintain that all kids should wait until they turn 21 before having their first drink. That may sound uncontroversial; after all, isn't underage drinking illegal? Actually, no. When Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, it explicitly allowed kids to drink at home or in "private clubs or establishments." Similarly, under most state laws, it's legal for those...
...1980s, the heyday for well-meaning, not especially effective programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education. "The research kept coming over and over again that you can do this education stuff, but then you put these kids back in this culture, and it really doesn't make much difference," says DiCiccio, who has a master's in social work...
...DiCiccio and other alcohol officials around the country began to shift their focus from education to what is known as environmental prevention--banning alcohol in public places, for instance, or restricting alcohol licenses near schools. Prevention officials began working less with teachers and more with cops. In a way, the new strategy worked: fewer kids drink now because it's harder for them to obtain alcohol. But as psychologist Stanton Peele writes in his 2007 book Addiction-Proof Your Child (one of his 10 books on addiction), "When alcohol is presented as impossibly dangerous, it becomes alluring as a 'forbidden...
When I mentioned some of the arguments against social-host laws at the San Diego County Alcohol-Policy Panel, DiCiccio offered another reason that kids shouldn't drink with adults: alcohol could hurt their developing brains...