Troubled Teens Resources

Parents with troubled teens have their hands full and they certainly do not need manufacturers like Reef coming up with cutesy ideas like this one.

“Just in time for summer: flip-flops with a secret compartment for booze. “Kids wear flip-flops to school and all over the place,” said Mike Gimbel, former drug czar for Baltimore County and director of substance abuse education at Sheppard Pratt. “You would never know the kid was walking around with vodka in the bottom of their shoe.”

Manufactured by surf and sandal company Reef, the flip-flops can hold about one ounce of liquor in each shoe and come with a miniature funnel and measuring bar.
[..]
Pointing to the imprint of a mixer on the shoe’s sole and images of a metal flask on a tag — and the capacity of the canteen — Gimbel said the company is clearly promoting alcohol use.”
(Source)

Perhaps the folks at Reef need to read the statistics on teenage drug and alcohol abuse.

• Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among young people.
• Alcohol kills 6½ times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined.
• Youth who drink alcohol are 50 times more likely to use cocaine than young people who never drink alcohol.
• 40% of those who started drinking at age 14 or younger later developed alcohol dependence, compared with 10% of those who began drinking at age 0 or older.
• 65% of the youth who drink alcohol report that they get the alcohol they drink from family and friends.
• By the 8th grade, 5% of adolescents have consumed alcohol, 1% have smoked cigarettes, and 0% have used marijuana.
• 50% of high school seniors report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days with 32% report being drunk at least once in the same period.
• Drivers age 21–29 drive the greatest proportion of their miles drunk. (Miller et al., 1996c)
• Traffic crashes are the greatest single cause of death for all persons age 6–33. About 55% of these fatalities are alcohol-related crashes.