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Keep Teenagers Safe: Zero Tolerance On Alcohol May Increase Drinking And Driving Marsha Rosenbaum, San Jose Mercury News. Wed, Dec. 29, 2004. Every holiday season, researchers from the University of Michigan's Youth and Social Issues Program issue a report detailing the year's trends in student drug use. The 2004 Monitoring the Future survey released last week revealed little change -- with marijuana, "ecstasy," amphetamines and steroids showing slight declines in use, while hallucinogens, cocaine, heroin, other narcotics and tranquilizers remained steady. Alcohol, however, the most widely used drug among high school students, increased in prevalence since last year among older teens, with nearly 77 percent of seniors having tried it at some point before graduation, and 60 percent admitting getting drunk -- half within the past month. As a result, parents, school officials, and law enforcement have properly expressed heightened concern about teenage consumption of alcohol. But some of the policies designed to eradicate underage drinking may be making things worse. It's worth remembering that teenage drinking is nothing new. It's been a part of American culture since the first Puritan settlers in the 17th century. Alcohol has always been America's drug of choice -- the substance we still use to celebrate ("Let's drink to that!"), recreate ("I can't wait to kick back and have a cold one!"), and medicate ("Boy, I really need a drink!"). Since alcohol is used throughout our society, it is no wonder that teenagers use it too, despite serious attempts to stop them. As City University of New York professor Harry G. Levine, an eminent alcohol historian, told me, "For 400 years, adult Americans have drunk alcoholic drinks -- rum, ale, corn whiskey, lager beer, roaring '20s cocktails, gin, wine, scotch, vodka and, nowadays, piņa coladas in cans. And for 400 years, each generation of American parents have also worried about the drinking and drunkenness of their teenage children and fretted about their incapacity to eliminate it, or even reduce it. None of that is new. But the riskiness of teenage drinking is greater now than in the past because of our reliance on automobiles." The most lethal aspect of underage alcohol use, by far, is drunken driving. The National Highway Safety Administration reported in 2003 that nearly 2,400 teens died in car accidents involving alcohol. While I applaud increasing alcohol education and crackdowns on drunken driving, including the loss of a driver's license for a DUI, I worry that some of the current efforts to eliminate underage drinking may actually reduce teen safety. Designated-driver programs have fallen out of favor as we move toward punitive, zero-tolerance policies. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, for example, has followed the lead of sexuality education and taken an abstinence-only posture, and in Naperville, Ill., a sober 20-year-old can be ticketed under "presence" laws for chauffeuring friends who have been drinking. One of the most disturbing trends targets parents. State and local "social host" laws are popping up all over the country, from Oregon to Florida to Vermont, which hold parents criminally responsible for allowing underage drinking in their homes, evidenced by their confiscation of car keys. These parents do not condone or promote drinking. Nor do they provide alcohol at parties. But they understand that underage drinking will occur, whether or not they approve. Ultimately they believe their teens are safer at home where they can be supervised, than on the road. I hate to see safety-oriented parents vilified, but worry even more about the teenagers they're trying to protect. When I ask young people how they'll respond to the proliferation of these laws, which will effectively eliminate the availability of parentally supervised homes where they can "hang out," none say they'll stop drinking. Instead, they say they will simply move the party to the street, the local park, the beach or some other public place. And they'll get there by car. New Year's Eve is coming up, and there will be parties. We ought to get real, and while we encourage and promote sober gatherings, have a fallback strategy that makes sure drinking and driving don't mix. --------------- MARSHA ROSENBAUM directs the Safety First drug-education program (www.safety1st.org) at the Drug Policy Alliance in San Francisco (www.drugpolicy.org). She is the author of "Safety First: A Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs and Drug Education'' (2004), and the mother of two young adults. |
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