New law inspired by ex-lawmaker’s DUI adds to alcohol education in California schools

California public school students will get additional coursework on the harms of alcohol in 2025, thanks to a new law from a former lawmaker whose drunken driving arrest inspired her legislation.

In September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2865 by former Los Angeles Democratic Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo, whose DUI last year helped derail her political career.

California schools are already required to provide instruction about alcohol, narcotics and other dangerous drugs. This bill would require that schools also provide instruction about the short- and long-term harms of excessive drinking — including alcohol’s link to chronic diseases, mental health problems and deaths.

As she pitched her bill to her colleagues in 2024, Carrillo told them that it was important for students to learn about alcohol’s consequences in the hopes they don’t go down the path she did.

“I wish I would have known in high school what I know now,” she said at one hearing. “I would have made different choices.”

On Nov. 3, 2023, Carrillo crashed into parked cars in Northeast Los Angeles. Police said her blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit, according to the Los Angeles Times. She ended up pleading no contest to the DUI in the middle of her race for Los Angeles City Council, which she lost. Because she ran for city council, Carrillo left her Assembly seat this year.

Carrillo said her DUI was a wake up call for her. She said she started going to therapy and became sober. As she reflected on her life, she said her own struggles with booze began at an early age. And she was troubled by how prevalent alcohol is in society, despite its documented dangers.

Alcohol is a national and global health issue

According to federal health officials, alcohol-related diseases kill 178,000 people in the U.S. each year, and death rates are increasing. Noting that alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer, including bowel and breast cancers, the World Health Organization last year declared that “when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount.”

Carrillo testified that 54 Californians die each day from alcohol.

“I want young people to learn early how something that is so legally and easily accessible can do so much harm if not consumed with more knowledge and more responsibility,” she told her colleagues.

Her bill passed without any lawmakers voting against it.

What the law will do

Under the new law, school boards can decide which grades receive the new instruction. They can ask the state for reimbursements for the costs of instruction, training and updates to instructional materials, said Nicholas Filipas, a spokesperson for the California Department of Education.

At the San Juan Unified School District in the Sacramento region, educators shouldn’t have trouble rolling the bill’s requirements into their schools’ curriculum, said Raj Rai, a spokesperson for the district, which educates about 39,000 students.

“Alcohol education has been embedded into our high school health class curriculum for quite some time,” Rai said in an email. “Our curriculum team will review the currently adopted health materials to see if anything additional is needed to meet the new requirements.”

The district already has several programs that teach students grades six through 12 about the harms of alcohol and drugs with the goal of reducing or eliminating teen substance abuse.

The district’s high schools also regularly participate in California’s Highway Patrol’s “Every 15 Minutes,” Rai said.

The CHP describes the program as challenging teens to “think about drinking, driving, personal safety, the responsibility of making mature decisions and the impact their decisions have on family, friends, their community, and many others.”