Sadly, some teens are too ignorant to understand when they're having sex. They treat oral sex like a pat on the back. Then they turn up with diseases that could afflict them for life.

I was stunned in particular by observations that Laura H. Scalfano, director of adolescent medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children's Medical Center Dallas, made in our paper last week.

She said she recently treated 10 Plano middle school children who surmised that they contracted sexually transmitted diseases at "oral sex parties."

Saying you were abstinent didn't go over well in the locker room. And that, need I remind you, was before naked bodies became so commonplace on magazine stands and on living room TVs, suggesting that "everybody's doing it" - and by it, well, you know what I mean.

The district, one of 25 public school systems in North Texas with some form of drug testing, secured a nearly million-dollar federal grant to start the program.

Rosie Mendez, coordinator of the district's Safe and Drug-Free Schools program, summed up the problem: "We have kids attending schools that are high, kids bringing marijuana and cocaine. We're even seeing drug problems with elementary students. This is happening, and we're saying: We have a problem. Let's deal with it."

A good example of what needs to take place happened in Highland Park last week. The Town Council, trying to put an end to illegal teen drinking parties, adopted a new ordinance that will enable them to crack down on parents who let minors drink.

One man who graduated from Highland Park six decades ago said teens were drinking then, too. He started drinking at 13. Even his father, he said, began drinking young. "He ended up an alcoholic," the man wrote, "as did I, my brother, many relatives, and classmates - male and female."

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