Med School Psychiatrist Prescribes Sherry-Drinking for School Children

Dr. Morris E. Chafetz, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, has proposed that children be taught in school how to drink alcoholic beverages.

In a speech on Wednesday to the New York Academy of Sciences, Chafetz outlined a plan he called "practice drinking." Children would be taught to drink in supervised groups beginning in elementary school.

Starting with watered-down sherry, the students would receive gradually stronger doses of alcohol as they grew older. They would also be instructed in the benefits of social drinking and warned of the consequences of too much alcohol.

Chafetz said that educating people against alcoholism by frightening them with the horrors of heavy drinking has been ineffective. He said that his program would take a more positive approach.

Although more people will drink, the "practice drinking" plan should actually diminish total consumption of alcohol by reducing the number of heavy drinkers, Chafetz said.

Chafetz urged that his "practice drinking" plan be adopted in early grades. He said that studies he began in September have shown that alcoholic problems begin much sooner in life than he had previously suspected, as early as age 14.

Most parents are unwilling to teach their children how to handle alcohol because of guilty feelings about their own drinking, Chafetz said. The schools must assume the role that the family has forfeited.

Chafetz also advocated abolishing legal age limits for drinking. "I think it's about time we changed these unrealistic limitations. These laws only tend to make us have negative attitudes."