September 16, 2010
I have been involved in many programs through my youth, , but only one had a lasting impact: The Friday Night Live (FNL) program. The FNL is offered to middle and high school students to fight against underage tobacco and alcohol abuse and usage.. Tobacco and alcohol use has become an epidemic in our society today (You can strengthen this para by inserting the numbers right here –how many people, what is the actual impact? OR, conversely, since you are already on the topic, you can talk more about the FNL program. I still don’t know what they do, but I think you are moving to another area of the topic.). Young youth are turning to alcohol as a sense of comfort. Alcohol use in youth which includes every individual that is under the legal drinking age is one of today’s leading public health problems.
According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism approximately 5,000 youth die a year as a result of underage drinking. These deaths break down to 1,900 deaths from motor vehicle crashes, 1,600 from homicides, and 300 from suicide, along with hundreds of other injuries that are not deaths such as falls, burns, and drowning.
The above chart reflects the findings of a study done by Monitoring the Future in 2005, which is data collected on an annual survey of the United States youth. The data concluded that three-fourths of 12th graders, more than two-thirds of 10th graders, and about two in every five 8th graders have consumed alcohol in their lifetimes; admitting when they consumed alcohol they drank heavy with about four to five drinks at a single time (Melissa, please re-read the previous sentence out loud and re-write it). This data also shows that 11 percent of 8th graders, 22 percent of 10th graders, and 29 percent of 12th graders reported engaging in heavy (or “binge”) drinking in the past two weeks. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA] defines binge drinking “as a pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration [BAC] to 0.08 grams percent or above.”
Research also shows that many of today’s youth begins to drink at very young ages. In 2003, the average age for youth drinking alcohol for the first time was about 14, compared to the age of first time drinkers in 1965 which was about 17 1/2. Individuals that reported to start drinking before the age of 15 were four times more likely to also report meeting the criteria for alcohol dependence during their lives. New research has shown that the serious drinking problems (including what is called alcoholism) which typically has been associated with middle age actually begins to appear much earlier. This would mean it being done during young adulthood and even in adolescence.
Even though drinking under the age of 21 is illegal many of today’s youth break this law because youth aged 12 to 20 years old drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States.. 90% of this alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinking. In a study conducted in 2009 by the Youth Risk Behavior Survey they found that among the high school students questioned in the past 30 days: 42% drank some amount of alcohol, 24% binge drank, 10% drove after drinking alcohol, and 28% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol. This shows that today’s youth are putting themselves at risk by either driving drunk or getting into a car with someone that has been drinking. This is what results in DUI’s and alcohol related car accidents. These horrible things are not only done by youth, but our youth are contributing to the current problem we are faced with of alcohol related car crashes.
Today’s youth seem to not care about the simple fact that drinking under the age of 21 is illegal because nearly 10 million admit to consuming alcohol in the last 30 days. One of the bigger questions I have found myself asking is where these youth are drinking this alcohol, but the bigger question is where are they buying this alcohol from? As shown above in the chart taken from http://www.centurycouncil.org/stop-underage-drinking our youth are consuming this illegal alcohol at parties that their parents are not at. This would be like a jock in high school or middle school throwing a party and everyone showing up and underage drinking is quickly in effect. I have actually seen a lot of this happen in my hometown where I grew up. Any party that was in town everyone attended. Not only did everyone attend the party, but there would be underage drinking anywhere one turned. This happens because there is security at these parties, but they only patrol outside and dont pay attention to the alcohol and party on the inside. With no one keeping their eyes on the booze at parties this gives youth the chance to grab alcohol and drink it at the party or take it and leave to drink it somewhere else. Two things in these statics I can see others questioning. These two things would be the other option that these youth have put into the chart. What does the other option contain? I ask this because other can mean many different options from drinking at school to drinking on the bus. So I would like to know what the other option has to do with. Also one thing that bothers me very much about these statics is that 43% admit to drinking at a party in their parents’ home or the 30% that admit to drinking at home. Does this mean that the parents are actually allowing these underage minors to drink the alcohol? Or does it mean that they are taking it from inside their home because their parents are not hiding it well enough? I find these two questions very interesting and will speak on both of them in a later blog.
The bigger question I mentioned before is where our youth are supplying themselves with this alcohol. The very sad truth is that more than half of our youth (65%) are getting the alcohol from their very own friends and family (http://www.centurycouncil.org/stop-underage-drinking). This means they could be giving money to their loved ones and having them go buy it or they could have taken it from the person they love or friends. The big issue I see in our society with underage drinking is that family seems to encourage and distribute the alcohol to our minors and this I see as a big problem.
Underage drinking cost our society dollars that we shouldn’t have to spend because underage drinking should not be such a big problem in our society. There is a reason why laws have been passed to not have underage drinking happen. Our congress would not make a law that they did not know anything about. Underage drinking costs California in 2007 the following: $838 Million in Medical costs, $1.9 Billion in Work lost costs, $5.3 Billion in Pain and Suffering Costs. This is a lot of money that our state is forced to pay because our youth feel the need to drink and try to become youth at a young age. If our youth could wait until they hit twenty one to start drinking then our state wouldn’t have to spend money on the underage drinking problem that shouldn’t be going on in the first place. If underage drinking wasn’t such a big health problem in our society then the money we wouldn’t be using towards the problem could go towards today’s economy.
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