David Y. Ige

HONOLULU – Kicking off April’s “Alcohol Responsibility Month,” the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility (Responsibility.org) and Olympian Simone Biles teamed up with Attorney General Doug Chin and attorneys general from 21 states to release public service announcements (PSAs) to prevent underage drinking. In the videos, through Responsibility.org’s “Ask, Listen, Learn: Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix program,” Attorney General Chin and Biles encourage parents to have conversations with their kids and teens about saying “no” to underage drinking.

Attorney General Doug Chin said, “As a prosecutor, I’ve seen firsthand the dangers of underage drinking. It’s important to have good conversations with teens and children about these dangers.”

In the PSA, Attorney General Chin and Simone Biles encourage parents to begin talking with kids about alcohol because underage drinking is illegal, unhealthy, and negatively affects their developing brains.

Talking to children about this has been shown to be effective. From 2003 to 2016, conversations between kids and their parents increased 73 percent. The 2016 Monitoring the Future survey showed that during that same time, underage drinking decreased 50 percent. While this is a major improvement, there is still work to be done.

“For more than 25 years, Responsibility.org has led the fight against drunk driving and underage drinking, and we are very excited to work with Simone Biles and so many of our country’s attorneys general,” said Ralph Blackman, president and CEO of Responsibility.org. “There is no better time than April – Alcohol Responsibility Month – to jumpstart conversations about making smart choices. We hope these PSAs will help parents to open up early and often and talk to their kids about alcohol responsibility.”

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For more information, contact:

Joshua A. Wisch

Special Assistant to the Attorney General

Phone: (808) 586-1284

Email: [email protected]

Web: https://ag.hawaii.gov

Twitter: @ATGHIgov