Underage
Drinking
Underage drinking is a significant problem
among young people and a solution needs to be found. Alcohol use by young
people is against the law and dangerous, not only because of the risks
associated with acute impairment, but also because of the threat to their
long-term development, especially the students in high school and college.
Moreover, frequent heavy drinking by young adolescents can lead to physical
problems and accidents, such
as car accidents, hangovers, suicide, and death. Today, in United States,
nearly 10.8 million youth, who ages between 12 and 20, are underage drinkers.
The social cost of underage drinking has been estimated at 53 billion including
19 billion from traffic crashes and 29 billion from violent crime. Unfortunately,
underage drinkers are increasing every year. It’s time to take action on
preventing children and teens get alcohol. However, it’s a long-term project
for parents, schools, local groups, local community, and other concerned
adults. And it will take plenty of work over time to change how people think
about underage drinking. In this project, we will mainly evaluate underage
drinking in three perspectives: culture value, regulation, and situation.
The
first point we would like to focus on is laws and regulations in the United
States. There
are many strict laws and regulations on underage drinking, but it seems not has
enough enforcement. According to the 2009 National Survey on Drag Use and
Health, there are 2.4% at age to 22.4% at age 16, and 56.7% at age 20, but
these numbers are still increase these years. When teenagers drink alcohol, the
punishments would be, have trouble with police/ laws, or get trouble from
school, kicked of team club, get grounded, losing computer, kicked out of
house, and lose driving privileges. The percentage of college students drinking
is declined 8% from 1991 to 2008, but this number is still fluctuating. When
underage drinking reported by other people, the maximum punishment they would
get is up to $10,000 depending on the number of offenses, and up to 9 months
jail, with license suspension, the punishment is dependent on different
provinces. Not only the punishments are serious, but also the health problem is
also serious. As we all know that drinking would affect our livers, but it also
alters sleep patterns, basic motor function, thoughts and emotions, and
sometime memory problems (How Alcohol Affects Your Body). No matter how strict
the laws are, and no matter how harmful health problem would cause, there are
still many teenagers drinking. (transitional sentence)
Underage
drinking can bring out various consequences. A lot of media articles and
research data show that underage drinking in college brings up a series of
negative consequences for both individuals and groups. In the past few years,
there has been a significant increase in cases of alcohol-related deaths and
injures, alcohol-related sexual harassments, and driving while intoxicated. A
recent study estimates that more than 1,400 college students between the ages
of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries and
500,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 sustain unintentional
alcohol-related injuries each year (Hingson et al., 2002). Likewise, heavy
drinking is also related to deterioration in school performance. One such study
of 429 students at a large Midwestern University found only a modest role for
alcohol involvement in negative educational outcomes (Wood MD et al., 2000).
Although the US laws and the school policies have been gradually adding
restrictions on underage drinking and alcohol access, college students under 21
still find alcohol to be easily obtained in varies ways, for instance, 1)
paying lower fees for drinks to over 21 students in parties, 2) purchasing
through the hand of students over 21, 3) borrowing colleagues’ IDs or obtaining
illegal fake IDs and 4) purchasing from illegal retailers with higher price. In
the Philadelphia area, news has been reported rapidly on students’ violations
and victims due to alcohol abuse, as well as on local bars, clubs and liquor
stores illegally sales on alcohol to teenagers. One of the most significance
was reported on Nov 11th, 2011, when the Pennsylvania state police
arrested over a dozen of college students from Pennsylvania. The bar was forced
to shut down and the manager and bartenders were charged for not checking
identification (Myfoxphilly).
The
reason why American teenagers are crazy about drinking is cultural value.
Drinking is a normal phenomenon in United States because drinking is part of
role in during the time they grow up. Parents and social situation are
influencing teenagers’ view about drinking. Lots of parents allow their
children drinking at home. Some television shows and movies show the attitude
that drinking is normal for teenagers at some situation such as parties or
hanging out. Alcohol is the most common thing and abused drug among youth in
the United States. Even though drinking age is 21 but people aged 12 to 20
years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in America. More than 90% of this
alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinks. Underage drinkers are the
biggest alcohol consumers in United States. In Europe, there’s no drinking
limit to teenagers. But in Pennsylvania, the underage drinking policy is very
strict. It causes kids feel they need to break the law. There’s a survey about
high school students. First, 42% students drank amount of alcohol. 24% are
binge drank. 10% drove after drinking alcohol. 28% rode with a driver who had
been drinking alcohol. Underage drinking becomes one the most concern
nationally.
As a result, underage alcohol use remains a major public health and
safety problem in the United States. Ensuring underage drinking is decline; each
of us has an important role to play on the prevention of underage drinking
through our individual and social efforts. Rather than enforcing teenagers to
follow the rules, education and communication with them would be effective ways to solve this problem. As a parent, the most important
thing before you start a conversation with teenagers is to check yourself if
you are following all the rules and regulation that you are about to discuss
with your children, because children always adapts several habit of their
parents. Parent should establish a good model in front of children. The topic
of alcohol education is always sensitive and easily generates conflict, so a
friendly talk and a calm environment are needed to start the topic, in which is
easier to convince the children. School must try a better way to educate
students about underage drinking instead of punish them. Given them some
classes about drinking culture but not just list the disadvantage of drinking.
While conflict generated throughout the conversation, it is necessary to listen
respectfully and carefully to children’s idea as well as explain that rules,
limits, regulations, consequences are meant to protect them. Sometimes, teenagers
can be allowing to drinking under some special situations. In addition,
drinking age change to 18 would be helpful to decrease underage drinking.
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