Tensions flared Monday night when the Board of Health continued its discussion on whether to ask Town Meeting to appeal or revise Marblehead’s social host bylaw as part of a broader effort to address underage drinking. However, a local parent urged the board to look beyond alcohol and focus on what he says are more prevalent threats to teenagers, including suicidal thoughts and texting while driving.
Board Chair Dr. Thomas Massaro has proposed bringing a repeal of the bylaw to Town Meeting, arguing that doing so would generate a townwide conversation about underage drinking and social hosting.
“There is honest, open and frank conversation” at Town Meeting, said Massaro. “The town as a whole absolutely needs to do more, and the metric has to be the outcomes.”
Massaro pointed to the town’s Creating a Healthier Marblehead survey, which drew 2,553 responses and included concerns about risky behavior among young people. He also cited research about the effects of alcohol on adolescent brain development, saying the brain remains particularly vulnerable through adolescence and into young adulthood.
Massaro said putting the bylaw before Town Meeting would not necessarily mean simply eliminating it. He floated the possibility of giving voters several choices: retaining the existing bylaw, repealing it or improving it.
Board member Dr. Julie Selbst said she believes portions of the bylaw could provide police with an enforcement tool but questioned language that applies to minors under 18 rather than everyone under the legal drinking age of 21.
“We’re not necessarily saying that we want to remove it,” Selbst said. “We’re saying I think that it probably needs to be modified.”
Selbst said the board would need to work with town counsel before settling on the language of any warrant article.
Board member Tom McMahon reiterated that the biggest problem is local parents who allow teens to drink in their homes.
But resident and parent Ryan Wilson, who has two children at MHS and works professionally in market research, challenged both the board’s interpretation of youth drinking data and its focus on alcohol.
Every year, the high school gives students a Survey of Substance Abuse and Risk Factors, asking them about issues like drinking, mental health, discrimination and more.
***Read the most recent survey results below.
In the latest survey, done last fall, the number of students who reported ever drinking alcohol dropped to 32%, from 42% the previous year.
In June, Marblehead High social worker Gina Hart spoke about the decline. “It’s a generational response to substance use right now. Kids are not as interested in it,” she said. “That has to do with the education and awareness of substance use as a public health issue.”
At Monday’s meeting, Wilson said, “Underage drinking in this town, year over year, is going down. It went from 40% to 42% now down to 32% in the survey data. That’s a reduction of almost 25%.”
He cautioned that the 32% figure represents lifetime alcohol consumption rather than frequent or binge drinking and could include a student who had a sip of champagne at a family wedding.
“What we’re missing with the data that we’re not seeing from the (survey) is the intensity of drinking, the frequency of drinking,” Wilson said.
Wilson also corrected a statistic McMahon had cited from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. McMahon had said 92% of students reported that an adult they lived with had used substances in front of them in a concerning way.
Wilson said the figure was the opposite: 91.8% answered no and 8.2% answered yes.
“I come here as a parent. I also come here as a professional market researcher,” Wilson said. “We need more data, and we need the best data possible.”
McMahon challenged Wilson, and the two shouted at each other. Wilson said that McMahon had called him a “f—ing moron” in a text. (A copy of the text, which was sent before the meeting, was shared with the Current.)
Other teen risks
Wilson then pointed to other findings that he said deserve at least as much attention from health officials.
According to figures he cited from the 2025-26 survey, 11% of high school students reported suicidal thoughts, 9% reported having made a suicide plan and 1.2% reported attempting suicide.
“Eighty-eight kids at the high school have thought about it, 72 made plans, and almost 10 tried,” Wilson said. “We have to think about that as well.”
He called texting while driving an even more prevalent concern, saying 60% of students reported doing it, including nearly 10% who said they text every time they drive.
“Those are real issues that any safety expert will tell you that are just as dangerous and as deadly as drinking, as drinking and driving, and that’s happening all hours of the day,” Wilson said.
Wilson also cautioned about unintended consequences of cracking down on social hosting. He said eliminating drinking at homes would not necessarily eliminate teenage drinking and could instead push teenagers into woods, neighboring communities, boats or islands, requiring them to drive to and from less controlled settings.
“I would rather have my kids at somebody’s house in their backyard with a parent who is there, who has an eye on what’s going on,” Wilson said. “And while they might be technically breaking the law, they’re actually doing a better job of protecting their kids than pushing them off to places where help can’t be rendered, where bad things can happen.”
Board members acknowledged that alcohol is only one of several significant health concerns facing Marblehead teenagers.
Massaro said the board has worked on suicide prevention and noted the school district’s involvement with The NAN Project, which focuses on youth mental health and suicide prevention.
“Kids are at risk in today’s world for multiple reasons,” Massaro said, adding that the board sees itself as a home for collecting and distributing reliable public health data.
Selbst agreed.
“Our goal is a healthier Marblehead, healthier kids, and in whatever way possible,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. There are other health challenges.”
She also acknowledged that proposing a bylaw change was partly intended to get residents’ attention and stimulate a broader conversation.
“I was afraid that if we said we’re going to have community meetings about this, everybody would yawn and not turn up,” Selbst said.
Proposing to change the bylaw gets everybody’s attention, she said.
“But maybe we don’t need guerrilla tactics,” Selbst said. “Maybe we just have meetings that people come to.”
Board member Kristen Dubay Horton, who said she has worked on adolescent behavior and underage drinking for 25 years, advocated for a collaborative approach involving parents, students, schools, police and health officials. She also expressed concern that Marblehead’s version of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey omits questions routinely asked elsewhere, limiting officials’ ability to track risky behaviors over time.
Health Director Andrew Petty agreed that the town should gather and publicly share as much survey data as possible, including historical information.
“This should be widely available to everybody,” Petty said. “This should be on the town websites. This should be everywhere where people can take a look at it and analyze the data and have good conversations around it and what we can do to just move forward.”
No vote was taken on a Town Meeting warrant article. The board indicated that further discussion, including input from town counsel and potentially Police Chief Dennis King, would be needed before deciding exactly what changes, if any, to propose.
