At a press conference held last Wednesday, Nassau County Executive Tom Gulotta, flanked by representatives of agencies such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the LI Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, proclaimed April as Alcohol Awareness Month.

"The goal of this program, which is being replicated on a nationwide basis, is to draw everyone's attention to the problems created by abuse of alcohol and to the solutions which are available to address the issue," said LICADD Executive Director James Devine.

Devine described the initiative as a planned intervention strategy and that it will be a major thrust in 1998.

"Every time a motorist consumes a drink they are to that degree dulling their senses and reaction time," stated the county executive, "It only takes people being in tune and understanding to eliminate all DWI related deaths and injuries."

Gulotta credited police initiatives to take drunk drivers off the roads as effectively reducing the number of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) deaths."There is a direct correlation in the number of arrests and the decrease in deaths," he commented.

The total number of DWI related arrests was 6,201 last year, up from 6,064 in 1996 and 4,999 in 1995. There has been an 11 percent drop in DWI related deaths in the county which results in an overall 40 percent drop since 1995 when there were 42 deaths.

In the first two months of 1998 the rate of DWI deaths is 12 percent lower than last year. LI Chapter MADD President Dorothy Seifts added that she is hoping to see zero number of fatalities by the year 2000.

When the Long Island Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving was founded in 1982 the number of Driving While Intoxicated related deaths was 74 and Seifts said she feels that MADD's presence on Long Island has helped raise awareness so that the number has decreased to 26.

The MADD mission statement is to stop drunk driving and support the victims of such crimes. "It is such a simple solution for such a painful problem," said Seifts of the slogan "Don't Drink and Drive."

In 1990 Seifts joined MADD as a volunteer, but when she learned of the magnitude of the problem (every 30 minutes a person is killed by a DWI) she decided that she could and wanted to do more.

MADD does not refer to DWIs as accidents but rather as crashes because they feel that people who drink and drive know the possible consequences.

Their next initiative is to have the legal blood alcohol level lowered from the current .1 to .08. Seifts reasoned that to get to a .1 blood alcohol level an individual must have one drink every 15 minutes, and this does not constitute "social drinking."

"We want to make it clear that drunk driving will not be tolerated in Nassau County. Impaired drivers are a threat not only to themselves, but also, to the many innocent people who use the highways. Those who drive under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs will be arrested," concluded Gulotta.