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05/18/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 05/19/2026 03:48

Boston University–Trained High Schoolers Educate Lawmakers About Taxing Alcohol

Boston University-Trained High Schoolers Educate Lawmakers About Taxing Alcohol

High schoolers from across Massachusetts met with lawmakers at the State House last month, courtesy of an initiative run by BU's David Jernigan (bottom of the stairs on the right).

School of Public Health

Boston University-Trained High Schoolers Educate Lawmakers About Taxing Alcohol

SPH's David Jernigan leads initiative that shows young activists how to speak publicly about causes

May 18, 2026
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A Massachusetts high school student recently shared with one of the state's most powerful officials a story of her brush with death. Under the gaze of history-making women whose portraits hang from Senate President Karen Spilka's walls, the student recalled her father taking her into Boston two years ago to see the musical Mamma Mia! During the evening, he drank three beers. His unsteady gait walking back to the car unnerved her, justifiably: halfway home, they almost crashed.

"Three beers could have been all it took to destroy my life, my hopes, and my future," she said, seated with six classmates at the table in Spilka's ornate State House meeting room.

"Thank you for sharing your personal story," the senator replied.

Another student mentioned his grandfather had died of alcoholism just one month earlier. "I'm sorry to hear that," Spilka said softly.

Holliston high school sophomores and members of the Holliston Drug & Alcohol Awareness Coalition meet with Senate President Karen E. Spilka at her office in the State House April 1. SPH's David Jernigan runs a program that exposes Massachusetts high school students to policymaking and advocacy. This year's issue is a state senate bill to raise the alcohol tax by the equivalent of 10 cents per drink.

Divulging personal details to leaders isn't a typical part of the curriculum for these students. Their face time with Spilka, to discuss a proposed hike in the excise tax on alcohol, capped an initiative spearheaded by veteran Boston University researcher David Jernigan.

The Holliston students were among 60 Massachusetts high schoolers, from as far away as rural Wilbraham in the west, who fanned out across the state capitol last month to share data and insights on alcohol policy with lawmakers. In the three months before the visit, Jernigan, professor of health law, policy, and management at BU's School of Public Health, drilled them in democracy and alcohol policy via Zoom and an in-person training at BU, assisted by Hannah Martuscello (SPH'26).

It's the second year that Jernigan has recruited young activists from the Massachusetts Alcohol Policy Coalition, a statewide coalition of school- and community-based preventive healthcare programs he cofounded.

In the video above, Somerville High School junior Bhavika Kalia describes what she learned from a BU initiative on alcohol policy that brought her to the Massachusetts State House.

The goal is to prepare tomorrow's researchers and advocates to address vital causes, in keeping with the philosophy Jernigan explains to BU Today: "Let's stop treating young people as receptacles for information and start treating them as citizens, to speak on their own behalf, to speak on behalf of their peers."

Education and social justice both run deep in Jernigan's blood. His father taught at BU's School of Theology in the 1950s and became the director of the Albert & Jessie Danielsen Institute, which treats mental health issues and offers spirituality-based training for caregivers. Jernigan recalls that when BU's most famous alumnus, Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS'55, Hon.'59), was assassinated in 1968, "My parents took us out of school, and we all went to Marsh Chapel and joined the [memorial] vigil."

"I grew up steeped in the Christianity of witness to injustice," he says. "And the more I got into alcohol research, the more obvious it was to me: this is a huge injustice that's being perpetrated." Low-income Americans drink less than their affluent counterparts, he notes-especially when taxes raise the cost of consumption-but die at higher rates from alcohol abuse, partly due to inadequate access to the quality healthcare enjoyed by wealthier people.

Jernigan, a School of Public Health professor of health law, and Hannah Martuscello (SPH'26) led BU's initiative.

The proposal to increase the Bay State booze tax (the assessment method is complex, Jernigan says, but the hike works out to "a dime a drink"), comes atop a current rate that he calls "pathetic. Roughly a penny for beer, roughly two cents for wine, and I think just under a nickel for spirits. We are 7th lowest in the country for beer, 13th lowest for spirits, 12th lowest for wine."

A globe-trotting advocate who has devoted four decades to alcohol policy, Jernigan says he's working on similar tax measures in Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, and South Africa. To prep their young charges back home for their day on Beacon Hill, he and his master's degree student Martuscello offered insights on both policy and presentation: "What does a powerful pitch sound like? How can you combine data and personal stories from your experience? How do you weave core values into a pitch? Hannah did a whole chunk on presentation skills, covering things like speed, volume, tone of voice, word emphasis skills."

The students didn't get to meet Governor Maura Healey, whose signature will be needed on any tax increase. "The point is really to give the young people the experience of being advocates on an issue they care about," says Jernigan. "It's easier to arrange it with their local lawmaker than to say, 'Hey, governor, we'd like to bring 60 kids in for three minutes.'"

Missing Healey didn't spoil the day for the student who'd spoken of her father's near-crash. "There were a lot of things I learned with the program," she said. "Meeting the Senate president was amazing. I was not expecting to do that."

Spilka had stressed that legislative progress can be slow. Said the student, "I'm really happy that we could do our part to help with that progress."

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