"Holding young people solely responsible for underage drinking is like holding fish responsible for dying in a polluted stream." This quote from Laurie Lieber (Center on Alcohol Advertising) raises awareness of the impact of environmental influences.

10/10/04Vigil Held One year after Cory's
Death-Story

Corey Domangue Alcohol Overdose Death
October 10, 2003
Times Picayune Article

Watch the Video -"Cory" in an effort to raise awareness by his family and bring change.

Parents of Corey Domange want the Alcohol Industry profiting off of illegal sales to youth, to show Responsibility, after many other efforts had to file suit against makers and sellers........ Read the Marin Institute's Release to Media  David and Goliath on The Bayou, Domangue Family files Wrongful Death Suit, hoping to prevent additional alcohol overdose deaths.

Corey's Parents travel to Baton Rouge to ask Baton Rouge City Council to close the Loophole in our Law, sharing the pain of loosing their son, and a desire to see effective policy move forward. The Alcohol Lobby brought in many underage youth from LSU as ammunition to "fight" to keep the loophole allowing them into bars unchanged in Baton Rouge....read more here

Hopenetworks organizes Recovering Parents effort to present campaign for new law mandating statewide alcohol crisis line--Tammy Domangue speaks out for changes in the law to prevent more deaths of youth in Louisiana. History of Alcohol Abuse Hotline efforts:  Legislation In memory of Corey Domangue: Read our first attempt to see help made available read the 2004 Toll Free Helpline Bill for Alcohol Crisis  Killed in the House Committee by Louisiana Beer Lobbyists.  The bills author AG Crowe, longtime advocate of preventing alcohol harms, believed that the industry would as they had communicated, support the bill.    **********HB 755 2005 Our 2nd year trying to create an Alcohol Helpline -Statewide outreach-

One Year after his Death, Family continues effort to bring change. Vigil Held  to Remember Cory- LSU Student -Alcohol Overdose See Press Release October 10, 2004   Read the Article in the Advocate View Pictures from the Vigil

BATON ROUGE-- The Louisiana Coalition to Prevent Underage Drinking has called for a candlelight vigil tonight outside of the closed Baton Rouge bar where drinking binge victim Ben Wynne partied with his friends Monday night. The group says it will hold an alcohol awareness vigil outside Murphy's bar where students had celebrated being chosen by fraternities. Early Tuesday, Wynne died of acute alcohol poisoning. The investigation into his death continues and the bar remains closed voluntarily. Officials with Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which had chosen Wynne on Monday to be a member, said they only recently had a national symposium of all S-A-E chapter presidents at which
warnings went out about the dangers of binge drinking. Ben Wynne was buried yesterday in New Orleans.

 

Evan Brewster  2002 Louisiana Youth Alcohol Poisoning Death

Coroner: Teen died of alcohol poisoning

By The Associated Press
COVINGTON -- A 15-year-old boy, who died after his mother found him unconscious in bed Saturday, suffered alcohol poisoning from drinking bourbon with a friend during a sleepover, authorities said.

Evan Brewster, a ninth-grader, had a blood-alcohol level of about 0.30 percent, roughly three times above the legal limit for driving, according to an autopsy

Fatal coolness  Another Child dies Alcohol Poisoning 15yr old boy from Covington Louisiana, becomes one of Louisiana's most recent youth Alcohol fatality.  

This young man was doing what teenagers across this state do.  Parents, Educators, Adults, all want to believe it can't or won't happen to their child.  The fact is as we have stated in HopeNetWorks,  over and over, is that  nothing kills more of our children than Alcohol.  An illegal drug for minors.  This child's family, friends, are not alone, and unless something changes, they won't be the last family to experience such a tragic loss, my heart goes out to this family, and we will continue to do all we can to educate and raise awareness, push for real policy that really works.

Lax Culture, and Passive Policy continues to prove fatal for Louisiana's youth.  A plague our youth in this state are facing everyday.  Will this young man become one more number in a chart that we use to plead and beg our policy makers for help with?  I pray not.  We took action collectively for the first last spring, and it is with great hope that we remember this young man, and the countless others,  who are looking to find the magic in a bottle.    Sending messages to our youth through billboards, Sports events, radio, television, and the like, well it works, and this being said it has become part of our culture here in Louisiana.  Now we must take back our communities, and make it "cool" to choose otherwise.

Education and Awareness, enforcement, and a general sway in our cultures perception of underage drinking must occur.  Binge drinking is enough in of itself to merit change.  But that is the tip of the ice burg.  Our lax culture, and passive policy, does not treat Alcohol like the drug it is.  For minor's like this young man who died in Covington, it is an illegal drug.   There are countless others (1 in 4) facing a predisposition for addictive disorders.  Do we have resources to provide environmental diversions for these youth?  Do we have funds to handle the cleanup if we don't?

100,000 Americans Die each year as a result of alcohol, yet there is not a single warning label to identify risk for those who have a family history or heavy environmental exposure known to increase for problems with alcohol consumption.

Need Help?  National Alcohol & Other Drug Resources Here

Past work for Youth & Substance Abuse

Cory Domangue's tragic death October 10, 2003

(Baton Rouge-AP) -- A 19-year-old LSU student is dead after drinking an entire bottle of rum in his off-campus apartment in front of friends. Baton Rouge police Corporal Don Kelly says Corey James Domingue of Franklin died Friday at an area hospital.

Slidell Police Chief talks to HopeNetworks-  Regular compliance checks differ from Louisiana's ATC rates. 
10 of the 12 outlets sold beer to minor's last week.  These 10 Alcohol outlets failed to comply with the existing law that requires a minimum age of 21 to purchase alcohol.  Last week Slidell's Police Chief answered questions on underage drinking, HopeNetworks will release this video online, and hold a press conference this Thursday April 17th for the media. The office charged with reporting compliancy shows that some 90% of the outlets in St. Tammany Parish comply with the mandatory 21 law.  However, Slidell's police chief declares that his compliance checks and  related alcohol problems in Slidell, such as drunk driving, bar room fights, domestic violence, and injury related all show the ATC to be misleading.  The chief goes on to describe the inability to enforce mandatory 21 in some dark crowded bar rooms. See all Press information on this HopeNetworks Interview




 

2/5/04 Reports claiming the success enforcing underage drinking laws, again  being strongly questioned.
Louisiana Enforcement Officials claim underage youth are not getting access to alcohol as you can see in their published reports, however communities are certainly reflecting a different truth, that indeed
only 1 outlet out of 25 complied with the law.

Perhaps the lack of enforcement in this area explains the 76% of youth in this region of the state reporting Alcohol Use.

Winn Dixie Slams the phone on HopeNetworks-and efforts to ask about Underage Alcohol Sales!
 Winn Dixie one of  the 25 Slidell locations busted for selling alcohol to minors last week,  during a sweeping undercover compliancy check, today slammed the phone down when I asked about plans to address this problem. 

"What are you planning to do as the grocery store manager about these illegal sales?"  a  fair question when you consider alcohol is the most abused drug by youth in Louisiana, and clearly a huge problem for local law enforcement.

 The Winn Dixie Grocery Store on Broome's Switch Road refused to answer questions, and "Jaime" the store manager hung up on me, when I asked about their policy of enforcing alcohol sales to minors. 
"This makes sense when you consider that Winn Dixie also sold my son alcohol, these people don't take selling alcohol to kids seriously, and it was very serious for my son, Cory, it was a death sentence" says Tammy Domangue, mother of the 19year old LSU student who recently died from alcohol poisoning, with alcohol purchased at another Winn Dixie supermarket close to Cory's tiger land apartment.

A Serious Problem for Local Law Enforcement-Slidell's ongoing effort to enforce the laws.
Slidell Police Chief Drennan, is taking the alcohol problems in his St. Tammany Parish, community seriously.  I spoke with him today for an update after our interview last spring with him on Underage Alcohol problems in his community, where people under the age of 21 are buying alcohol according to compliancy checks conducted by the Slidell Police.
Chief Drennan, said "I don't know about the rest of the state, but I can tell you that we have a serious underage drinking problem here, and we are going to keep on working hard to enforce the law". 

Chief Drennan told me when I asked, that his agency gets no additional funding or resources to conduct these compliancy checks, and that overtime pay for officers conducting the stings comes from his Slidell Police Dept budget.  Today Chief Drennan said that these compliancy checks are performed 2 or 3 times a year.  The recent lack of compliance of the 21mandatory age to purchase alcohol findings are surprising to Drennan too, only 1 of 25 licensed alcohol outlets complied with the law in selling alcohol to minors.  Local retailers, and store owners have contacted the Police Dept, with great concerns about these problems, and do not want their employees selling to kids.  Sharon Ayres of the Louisiana Alliance to prevent underage drinking says" Chief Drennan's department's actions are to be commended, as local enforcement is key in addressing the underage crisis in our state".

Parents are worried about the advertising of alcohol 

Poll finds that parents of teens think alcohol ads have a serious effect on teen drinking habits  or Download the Peter Heart Survey, Alcohol Advertising troubling to parents.

State Costs of Underage Drinking
Louisiana      Find your Your State
Underage drinking cost the citizens of Louisiana $1.1 billion in 2001. These costs include medical care, work loss, and pain and suffering associated with the multiple problems resulting from the use of alcohol by youth. This translates to a cost of $2,258 per year for each youth in the State. Louisiana ranks 21st highest among the 50 states for the cost per youth of underage drinking. Excluding pain and suffering from these costs, the direct costs of underage drinking incurred through medical care and loss of work cost Louisiana $416 million each year.