ETSU students interested in taking an active role to help prevent and raise awareness about alcohol abuse and its consequences may get their chance.
Public Safety Officer Jerry Hughes said Mothers Against Drunk Driving is planning to open three chapters of University MADD across the state of Tennessee.
One of those chapters could be at ETSU.
“The way the program works is it’s a partnership with students, run by students,” Hughes said.
The organization would need students to serve in various positions of leadership, such as president, vice president, treasurer and secretary.
And it would require students to make it work, Hughes said.
Hughes is one of the 16 coordinators of the Governor’s Highway Safety Program, which includes campaigns like Click It or Ticket and Booze It & Lose It.
MADD is active in both seatbelt safety and, of course, the prevention of drinking and driving.
To illustrate why UMADD would be a beneficial program not only to the university but also to the community, Hughes said that from Dec. 19 to Jan. 4, a Booze It & Lose It campaign was conducted in Northeast Tenn.
During this time, 124 DUI arrests were made, 140 seatbelt violations were cited, 39 child safety restraint violations were noted and 107 people were arrested for drugs.
That does not include the numerous other violations cited and people arrested.
“That shows you in a two-week campaign what can be done,” Hughes said. “This is common and is dealt with everyday.”
As for the Click It or Ticket campaign, Hughes said there had been five fewer fatalities in the last campaign than the previous, however, that was lost on Christmas Eve when five people died in vehicle crashes.
Hughes said that time of year is the height of the drinking season.
And it is not just behavior outside of the campus that UMADD would seek to curb, but a grass roots campaign aimed at changing behavior patterns on the campus.
Hughes cited a recent article he read in the Johnson City Press that said alcohol is the biggest drug problem facing juveniles today.
“The aftermath of excessive drinking is worse for college students,” he said.
“It kills 6.5 times more young people that all other elite drugs combined. That is the reason why we’re looking at the possibility of University MADD.
“If we get this program going, we will make environmental changes to drinking on campus,” he said.
According to a U.S. Justice Department web site on underage drinking, environmental changes include sponsoring alcohol-free student events, restricting on alcohol-related advertising seen on campus, changing social attitudes about alcohol abuse, holding intervention programs for fraternities and sororities – organizations the web site says are associated with binge drinking – and other community programs to limit the abuse of alcohol.
Access the web site at www.udetc.org.
The UMADD program is still in its developing stages, and Hughes said there must be more research on how it would function.
The main goal, is to work together to save lives and improve the community.
“They’re wanting to break it down to where the MADD organization and Public Safety would be working with students to better understand and prevent alcohol-related problems,” he said.
Faculty and other agencies on campus would also be involved.
Hughes said that this type of program is new for everyone, including the state of Tennessee, but he hopes that program succeeds if it does in fact come to ETSU.
That depends largely on student involvement.
“We’re hoping that things work out and students get interested,” Hughes said.
“We already have good feedback from the higher administration.”
The benefits that would come from a program like this are numerous and Hughes said that he believes the program would benefit in lots of ways because alcohol affects so much more than just drunk driving.
“The bottom line is it will reduce any deaths that occur from binge drinking and date rates that occur from that. It’s like a domino effect,” he said.
For more information on alcohol abuse, visit www.edc.org/hec.
Students, faculty or staff interested in starting a UMADD chapter at ETSU should call Hughes at 439-4480.

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