“A Mother’s Advice” from the Safety 1st website What happens to parents when their child holds a party in their home and alcohol and/or drugs are consumed? (The parents are home.) If a parent or another adult provides alcohol to a minor, that parent or adult could be charged with contributing to certain conditions of a child and be subject to a fine of not more than $2,500 per minor or imprisonment of no more than 3 years in jail. Parents may also be sued civilly for any injuries incurred if they are arguably negligent in permitting the circumstances that led to the party and resultant injuries.

What happens if the parents are not home and there is a party involving alcohol and drugs?
If the parents were not present nor had any knowledge, they would not be charged with a crime or issued an alcohol citation. However, there still may be issues regarding civil liability if there are injuries that occurred and an individual might argue that they were negligent in permitting the circumstances that led to the injury.

What happens to parents who make drugs or alcohol available to minors?
Such parents will be charged with a misdemeanor of contributing to the delinquency/status offense of a minor, as well as issued an alcohol citation.

What happens to parents when their child has a party at their home and a child is injured or raped as a result of alcohol and/or drug use?
Such parents run the risk of being sued in civil court for the injury sustained if their action - or inaction - can constitute negligence.

Are parents responsible if kids leave a party at their house and go outside to drink or use drugs?
Parental responsibilities for injuries that occur as a result of alcohol and/or drug useage when children go outside of the home to use the substances will hinge on whether or not the action was foreseeable. It is doubtful that such parents would be charged with a crime or an alcohol citation unless the alcohol and/or drugs were used inside the house or in close proximity of the house.

What happens to children who are present when others are drinking and using drugs, but who do not drink or use drugs, themselves? This would include a teen who is a "designated driver".
The crime that occurs when someone is actually charged with drug and/or alcohol possession is possession of drugs and/or alcohol. The concept of constructive possession is one that teens and adults need to recognize. If teens are present when alcohol and drugs are used, and are in a position to clearly see them, could easily reach them, and therefore could easily ingest them, they may well be charged and perhaps convicted of constructive possession of that drug or alcohol. Likewise, the same rule of law applies to adults. It is illegal for them to be in constructive possession of an illegal drug. As for a "designated driver", such a concept is not appropriate for underage drinkers, as it only encourages and enables underage drinking. Likewise, just being around people who are drinking and perhaps drunk, is extremely risky behavior and often teens are injured even though they themselves were not using the drugs or drinking the alcohol.

What happens to a child who is found drinking alcohol or using drugs?
The answer to this question depends on the circumstances. If the evidence is sufficient, the teen will be cited with an alcohol citation or charged with criminal possession of drugs, and the police will contact his/her parents at the time.

What advice do you give Howard County parents to help them protect their children from substance abuse?
Probably the single most important thing is to not shy away from this as a topic of discussion with your children. It is a family issue, and it is your family's values that are most important to communicate to help minimize the potential for all risk-taking behavior, including the use of drugs and alcohol. Other measures proven to be helpful include:

1. Eat meals together with your children and talk - as many times a week as possible.
2. Talk with your children about their hopes and dreams for their future.
3. Make clear your stand - that it is NOT OK with you for them to experiment with alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.
4. Know where your child is at all times.
5. Role play and discuss how your teen can respond to peer pressure to drink or try drugs.
6. Do fun things together, not just chores and errands.
7. Keep unsupervised time to a minimum

Are you doing all you can to prevent teen substance abuse? Please review our Parenting Checklist. These parenting practices can greatly improve chances that your child will be successful and drug-free.

Parent involvement in their children's lives and activities is crucial to keeping kids away from alcohol and other drugs. Read A Day in Howard County Juvenile Court by William V. Tucker, Master in Chancery, Circuit Court for Howard County for snapshot on what the court system is seeing. In Howard County, there are approximately 2400 juvenile hearings a year, which average to about 50 cases per week. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of kids who have either used or experimented with drugs, especially marijuana and alscohol at 12 years of age or older. Over 90% of the juveniles that appear in court have either experimented with drugs and/or alcohol or used them on a regular basis - the average age is 14. The youngest child Master Tucker has seen in juvenile court that had used marijuana was 11 years old.

Many Howard County PTA or PTSA have "Party Pledges". If your organization doesn't have a party pledge, please review our Sample Safe Party Pledge.

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