Underage Drinking As a National Priority

Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States, more than tobacco and illicit drugs. Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States.1 Early-onset underage drinking has been linked to alcohol-related problems not only during adolescence but also in adulthood.  Some facts presented by Dr Ralph Hingson, ScD, MPH, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in a 2009 commentary titled “The Legal Drinking Age and Underage Drinking in the United States” are listed below.2

On the average day in the United States, nearly 8000 children ages 12 to 17 begin to drink. 

High school students who use alcohol or other drugs frequently are up to 5 times more likely than other students to drop out of school. 

Underage alcohol use is more likely to kill young people than all illegal drugs combined.

More than 1,700 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 in the U.S. are killed each year—about 4.65 a day—as a result of alcohol-related injuries.  Nearly 599,000 students in this age group each year are unintentionally injured while under the influence of alcohol.

Underage drinkers tend to drink heavily, on average 5 drinks per occasion 6 times per month.

Frequent binge-drinking high school students (almost 1 million in the United States) are more likely to engage in a variety of high-risk behaviors when intoxicated. They are more likely to drive after drinking, ride with drinking drivers, never wear seat belts, carry weapons, and, in the past year, be injured in physical fights and suicide attempts. They also are more likely to engage in unplanned and unprotected sex, use illicit drugs, drink and use illicit drugs on school property, and have poor academic performance.

Human brain development continues into the third decade of life, raising concerns that heavy alcohol use during adolescence may produce disproportionately greater cognitive deficits among adolescents relative to adults.

These data reflect a pervasive issue that culminates in immense social, financial, and human costs.  Because its impact is broad and far-reaching, policymakers, public health officials, parents, and community members have responded. Some initiatives to address the issue in recent years have been:

• In 2006, the US Congress passed the Sober Truth on Preventing (STOP) Underage Drinking Act to help states and communities address this chronic problem.
• In 2007, The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking appealed to Americans to do more to stop current underage drinkers from using alcohol and to keep other adolescents from starting.
• In 2007-2008, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provided funding for communities to conduct Town Hall Meetings on underage drinking.  

Alcohol use by 9- to 15-year-olds is an overlooked but very serious problem in the United States. In the 9-11 year old Despite its known health and economic consequences, underage drinking is generally viewed as a normal part of growing up. Unfortunately, the public is largely unaware both of the potentially harmful outcomes of early alcohol use and of the large numbers of underage drinkers, especially younger ones. The data on the onset of alcohol use at very young ages are compelling and demonstrate the need for a prevention campaign.

The Leadership To Keep Children Alcohol Free Foundation was established to help make childhood drinking a national health priority. Childhood drinking is defined by the Foundation as youth between the ages of 9-15 years old who experiment with and in some cases, subsequently habitualize alcohol consumption.  The Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization comprised of Governors' spouses, Federal agencies, and public and private organizations. It is the only national effort that specifically targets prevention of drinking in the 9- to 15-year-old age group.

1Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Drinking in America: Myths, Realities, and Prevention Policy. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; 2005. Available at http://www.udetc.org/documents/Drinking_in_America.pdf* (PDF). Accessed March 28, 2008.]

2Dr Ralph Hingson, ScD, MPH, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in a 2009 commentary titled “The Legal Drinking Age and Underage Drinking in the United States”, Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2009;163(7):598-600.