Ask Westchester students to use their creative powers to draw or write about the perils of drugs and alcohol and you get an extraordinary heart-felt response of posters and essays. Winners for the 2009 Drug Prevention and Stop-DWI poster and essay contests have been announced.

We all know that drinking and driving is a hazardous combination. Penalties for drinking and driving are strict. Young drivers, especially, lose their driving skills more quickly. And each year at Prom time, the county gears up its multi-faceted effort to keep kids safe and sober. Now students can even learn the perils of driving while under the influence through the experience of using the county's new computer-based driving simulator.

Westchester now has passed a law to make parents accountable for underage drinking that goes on in their home. The Social Host Law, enacted by the Board of Legislators and signed by County Executive Andy Spano, provides penalties (fines and even jail time) to adults who host drinking parties for their underage children. It is the latest effort in the county’s campaign to deter drinking by minors.

County Executive Spano is determined to to deter illegal underage drinking and keep Westchester residents safe from motorists who drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Parents and teachers, should check out the county driving simulators and county traffic safety programs, particularly the "Save Your Face, Click It or Ticket" program designed to educate teens to use seat belts. In fact, police are cracking down on texting while driving. Besides being a dangerous activity to perform while driving, it's againt the law. New studies show that drivers overestimate their ability to multitask behind the wheel.

Try your hand at the "Gauging Your Distraction" game as featured in a series of articles, Driven to Distraction, in the Technology Section of the New York Times Web site. This game measures how your reaction time is affected by external distractions. Regardless of your results, bottom line is that you should not text when driving.

The county's Office of Drug Prevention and Stop-DWI is involved with myriad activities to further these goals, part education, part law enforcement. One program, Family Day, encourages parents to take the time to eat dinner with their children. Parents need to understand that parental engagement fostered during frequent family dinners is an effective tool to help keep America’s kids substance free. This year Family Day is being celebrated on Sept. 28.

Other county activities include:

• Funding school programs to make sure teens understand the risks of underage drinking -- risks irrespective of whether they are also driving
• Funding police programs so those who patrol Westchester roadways have the needed resources to catch those who drive while under the influence of alcohol and drugs
• Working to change state or county laws, whenever necessary, to make sure society has the tools to deal with this problem