Police in New Rochelle, N.Y., recently completed a training exercise to equip them to take a more effective role in the fight against underage drinking.

Shawn Cohen of lohud.com reported on the training in a Jan. 26 article:

About 85 police officers from 24 jurisdictions participated in the half-day training exercises on how to prevent underage drinking and safely disperse underage gatherings involving alcohol.

The event was sponsored by the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services in partnership with several groups including New Rochelle FOCUS (Families Organized to Curb the Use of Substances). ...

"House parties are chaotic and, when police departments respond to them, they're placed in chaotic situations," [said Bruce Kelly, coalition coordinator for FOCUS and a former investigator and prosecutor in the Westchester District Attorney's Office]. This training gives them effective ways to deal with the chaos and also make sure kids and parties are dispersed safely."

Labels: laws, underage drinking, parties

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When 20-year-old Benjamin Britt went out into the woods near Trenton, Maine, he was just joining some friends for a party. But as the group passed around bottles of vodka, an alcohol-induced disagreement broke out, and the group scattered. Britt died of hypothermia, a death that officials attributed to underage drinking.

In a Dec. 19 Bangor Daily News article, writer Abigail Curtis addressed Britt's death in the context of the area's ongoing struggles with underage drinking:

Underage drinking cost Maine $234 million in 2007, according to a research paper distributed by the Maine Office of Substance Abuse. The 2008 Maine Youth Drug and Alcohol Use Survey reported that more than a quarter of Maine high school students had used alcohol in the past month and that 12.5 percent had binged in the past two weeks.

Underlying those numbers are countless incidences of fights, car crashes, risky sexual behavior, property crime, poisoning, injury and even fetal alcohol syndrome.

While numbers of sixth- to 12th-grade students who drink seem to be declining, high-risk drinking among 18- to 25-year-olds is now on the agencys radar, said Guy Cousins, director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse. Although it is legal to drink alcohol at age 21, younger legal drinkers are very vulnerable to problematic behaviors such as binge drinking, he said.

"Lowering the drinking age is not the answer," Cousins said. "People talk about there not being as many problems when the drinking age was lower. There were a whole lot more. They just werent reported the same way they are now."

Labels: death, underage drinking, maine

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In a Sept. 16 commentary on the CNN website, former Middlebury College President John M. McCardell Jr. advocates abolishing the U.S. minimum drinking age of 21 and replacing it with a system that educates teenagers and young adults about the proper use of alcohol, and and then licenses them to drink.

McCardell is the founder and president of Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit organization that describes its purpose as "to stimulate informed and dispassionate public discussion about the presence of alcohol in American culture and to consider policies that will effectively empower young adults age 18 to 20 to make mature decisions about the place of alcohol in their own lives."

The following are excerpts from McCardell's CNN commentary:

A study of binge drinking published in the Journal of the American Medical Association announced that "despite efforts at prevention, the prevalence of binge drinking among college students is continuing to rise, and so are the harms associated with it." ...

Yet, in the face of mounting evidence that those young adults age 18 to 20 toward whom the drinking age law has been directed are routinely -- indeed in life- and health-threatening ways -- violating it, there remains a belief in the land that a minimum drinking age of 21 has been a "success." ...

The principal problem of 2009 is not drunken driving. The principal problem of 2009 is clandestine binge drinking. ...

Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young adults. We can either try to change the reality -- which has been our principal focus since 1984, by imposing Prohibition on young adults 18 to 20 -- or we can create the safest possible environment for the reality.

A drinking age minimum of 21 has not changed the reality. It's time to try something different.

McCardell's thoughts about minimum-age drinking laws, binge drinking by college students, and other matters related to underage drinking first garnered national interest in 2004, when the New York Times published his op-ed piece, "What Your College President Didn't Tell You." McCardell completed "The Effects of the 21 Year-Old Drinking Age: A White Paper" in 2006 and founded Choose Responsibility the following year.

Labels: underage drinking, binge drinking, drinking_age

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The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has issued a 304-page report on drug and alcohol use in 2008. There were few surprises or changes in the rates of use from other years.

• The use of illegal drugs among teenagers has remained about the same since 2005.
  
• Among children ages 12 to 17 years old, 11.6 percent used such drugs in 2002, compared to 9.3 percent in 2008.
  
• Use of prescription drugs for non-medical reasons dropped from 4 percent in 2002 to 2.9 percent in 2008.

However, among people above the age of 12 years, the non-medical use of painkillers is an area of concern, according to the report. About 2.18 million people tried these substances for the first time in 2008.

When it comes to other forms of illicit drug use, marijuana and inhalants remain the most popular choices, SAMHSA reports:

• People under 18 years old tend to use marijuana and inhalants more than other illegal drugs.
  
• The average age of trying these two drugs is about sixteen years old.
  
• The average ages for trying heroin and tranquilizers are 23 and 24 years old, respectively.
  
• People start experimenting with Ecstasy, stimulants, cocaine, and LSD around ages 19 to 20.

Problem drinking among college students remains a concern:

• Among full-time students ages 18 to 22 years old, 61 percent were drinkers, 41 percent were binge drinkers, and 16 percent were heavy drinkers.
  
• The rates for those in that age group not enrolled in school were 54 percent drinkers, 38 percent binge drinkers, and 13 percent heavy drinkers.
  
• Sixty-eight percent of college graduates drink compared to 37 percent of non-graduates. However, non-graduates had higher rates of binge and heavy drinking.

Labels: drug use, marijuana, inhalants, prescription drugs, underage drinking, binge drinking, research

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Minnesota-based Partners in Prevention has chosen a Wisconsin city for a new program that is attempting to battle underage drinking by focusing on parents.

"The main focus of the grant project is starting a parent mentoring group in Edgerton that will help parents create positive experiences for children, making them less tempted to drink."

The program centers around the building of "developmental assets" that have been proven to reduce the risk of teen alcohol use. These assets include family support, adult role models, and creative activities. Parents who participate will meet one-on-one with a mentor who will help them to implement these developmental assets. Source: Gazette Xtra (Janesville, WI)

Labels: parental_involvement, underage drinking, role_models

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The new show "Gossip Girl" on the CW, which tells the stories of Upper Manhattan's elite teens, glamorizes teen drinking - but the truth of underage drinking is much more sobering. The U.S. Surgeon General's office says that a quarter of the country's alcohol sales are attributed to underage drinkers.

"Although the overall percentage of drinkers has held fairly steady for the past five years, the most recent statistics from that survey show teens have begun drinking at younger ages, and binge drinking has surged - with nearly 7.2 million teens reporting they sometimes down five or more alcoholic beverages in a single setting."

Though the media often glamorizes underage drinking, parental influence far outweighs that of the media. Unfortunately, a high percentage of teens say that they drink at parties that are supervised by adults. Some admit that their parents buy alcohol for them. What small influence the media may have can be counter-acted by parents who model the motto "just say no".

Teens struggling with alcohol and drug addiction need a safe, secure, and structured environment to get back on track. SunHawk Academy is a residential treatment center in a boarding school setting. Learn more at www.sunhawkacademy.com.

Labels: alcohol_abuse, underage drinking, binge_drinking

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The debate rages on about whether it's beneficial or detrimental for parents to allow their underage kids to drink in their home. Some believe that allowing kids to drink at home, where their activity can be monitored, helps diminish alcohol's attraction because it's no longer considered "forbidden". But even if that method works (and there's evidence that it doesn't), law enforcement officials want to remind parents that there are still legal implications for providing alcohol to minors.

"...when a parent allows their teen to drink excessively or permits other peoples' teens to drink in their home, it becomes illegal. A parent could be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor or providing unsafe living conditions,' said Galesburg Police Capt. Lindsey May."

Additionally, in states like Illinois, felony charges could be filed against an adult who allows underage drinking that results in death or serious injury.

Read more about Parental Liability for Underage Drivers at DrugRehabTreatment.com.

Labels: parents, underage drinking, liability

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Many parents experience anxiety when their teen first gets his or her driver's license. What many of these parents don't realize is that they should be very anxious indeed. As a parent of an underage driver, you could be liable for mistakes your teen makes while driving. If your teen is in an accident where someone in his car (or another car) is injured, you might discover that you are at great financial risk, especially if you had previous knowledge that your teen has an issue with alcohol or drugs and did not take steps to intervene in your teen's behavior.

Read more about parental liability for underage driving.

Labels: teenage_drinking, underage drinking, dui, drunk driving

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The number of patients between the ages of 16 and 25 being treated in Victoria for alcohol-related brain injuries rose 16 percent in the last ten years. Many attribute this rise to the high concentration of bars and clubs in the city center.

"Staff at Arbias, which provides support to people with alcohol or substance-related brain damage, are treating about 600 young people annually in Melbourne, up from about 120 a decade ago."

There are currently more than 1,000 establishments in Melbourne's city center that are licensed to serve alcohol. Many of them are open well past 1am. These and other statistics are causing many in Australia to call for the legal drinking age to be raised to twenty-one. Read more at TheAge.com.au.

Parents struggling with troubled teens and drugs can find help at ByParents-ForParents.com. Read The Signs of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Teenagers to learn more to learn more about underage and binge drinking.

Labels: underage drinking, brain_damage, binge_drinking

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Millions of underage children are using alcoholic beverages, according to United States Surgeon General Kenneth Moitsugu. Nearly 7.2 million children are considered binge drinkers, meaning they drink more than five drinks in one sitting.

In a press release dated March 6, 2007, Moitsugu calls for "a change in the culture and attitudes toward drinking in America. We can no longer ignore what alcohol is doing to our children." While there has been a drop in the use of illegal drugs and tobacco among America's youth, underage drinking is still a problem, partly because adults tolerate it.

Moitsugu said that new research shows that alcohol is harmful to adolescent brain development. In addition, those who start drinking before age 15 years are five times more likely to have alcohol-related problems as adults.

Labels: alcohol, underage drinking, binge drinking

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