Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine on underage/abusive drinking.

According to a study by a research team from Columbia University, more than a third to nearly a half of all liquor industry revenue in the United States comes from sales to underage drinkers and adults who abuse alcohol.

"The combined value of illegal underage drinking and adult pathological drinking to the industry was at least $48.3 billion, or 37.5 percent of consumer expenditures for alcohol in 2001." Susan E. Foster and others in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

I haven't seen much discussion of this study and how valid it is, but have seen an advertisement signed by a number of former Surgeon Generals and Betty Ford seeking a Congressional investigation into whether drinks companies are targeting young people.

Any comments on the validity of the study itself?

Regards, Bob

I think it's interesting that people can vote or fight for their country at the age of 18, but are assumed incompetent to consume alcohol for three years thereafter.

In Italy the drinking age is 16, and I rarely see or hear of binging or other abuses there.

I think it's interesting that people can vote or fight for their country at the age of 18, but are assumed incompetent to consume alcohol for three years thereafter.

In Italy the drinking age is 16, and I rarely see or hear of binging or other abuses there.
_________________
Oliver
Oliver McCrum Wines

Totally agree, Oliver. Of course, as one of those stalwart young men tapped to provide cannon fodder (not being a senator's son of having Cheney-ish other priorities) during the recent unpleasantness of the Viet Nam thing, I might be a bit prejudiced in my views.

As to the way most European coutries handle drinking issues, I think an awful lot of it has to do with the way the culture approaches it. And I know for a fact that the very limited (as in almost no) tolerance for alcohol abuse or public intoxication amongst drinkers has a lot to do with the restraint and judgement shone. And if the good old U.S. of A. would simply enforce the rules they have on the books, that would go a long way to dealing with the problem we have here.

Case in point: a young high-school age girl I know, reasonably average, had five moving violations (including reckless driving), with strong suspicisons of some drinking involved, and two serious accidents (one involving a totaled vehicle) before her license was suspended for a year. She views it as a really annoying inconvenience. I suspect had a hammer come done on the first or second offense, and consequences ensued at that time, she might feel a bit different. (But then again, maybe not.) All I can say is that the average young European shows significantly more personal judgement than the average American kid.

In Italy the drinking age is 16, and I rarely see or hear of binging or other abuses there.

I'm also in agreement. I feel that what it comes down to is the existence (or lack) of a "drinking culture" - that is to say, of norms of cultured behaviour when it comes to drinking. I equate binge drinking (especially the rowdy, destructive kind) to a complete lack of culture and personal refinement, not to mention common sense. It rarely happens with wine anyway, I think, because people engaging in that kind of behaviour are more likely to look for much less expensive means of getting wasted.

Personally, I've always looked at wine as not just that which is in one's glass but the entire process by which wine comes to be. This incorporates the viticultural aspect, the farming aspect, the enological aspect and finally, the relation of wine to culinary activities and at the very end - its consumption, usually in the presence of good food and good company.

I think that in North America, we really need to work on building such a drinking culture, and can surely look to Europe's ancient wine-producing societies for a few hints.

It may be true, but I am always skeptical of anything coming from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse and from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Our attitudes towards alcohol need to change in this country.

Our attitudes towards alcohol need to change in this country.

And in ours too!

No idea how valid that study is, but I would note that it doesn't really touch on what we do here - wine, at least above the Thunderbird level, isn't implicated in such abuse problems.

Are North American attitudes to alcohol different than those in Europe? With the sole exception of Quebec, which tends to be at least a bit more European in that regard, I'd say certainly.

Gauging actual rates of alcoholism in any culture is problematic - an estimate at best. France, Portugal and Denmark have far higher consumption than the US, but who can say what proportion constitutes abuse.

As for spoiled North American brats - slapping their wrists after they total the car you bought for them and making them ride with friends for a month before buying them another one hardly ranks with practice in Europe, where cars tend to be much harder to acquire, are more highly valued and generally stay in service for longer than in the North American disposable society.

Tell em to go out and get a job to earn the money to buy a car and I'll bet the accident rate among teenagers would plummet.

I am quite disgusted with my peers whose children EXPECT a car when they get their license - and the parents cave and give the little blighters their own car. Unrealistic to expect that sort of atmosphere to foster any sense of responsibility at all, IMHO.

I am quite disgusted with my peers whose children EXPECT a car when they get their license - and the parents cave and give the little blighters their own car. Unrealistic to expect that sort of atmosphere to foster any sense of responsibility at all, IMHO.

Personally, I've always thought of such caving in as being rather antithetical to parenting. Parents ought to give youngsters the proper formation wherein the latter would appreciate such things from the get-go. Just going by what I've seen over the years, the "stress-free" style of parenting is ... non-parenting! Small wonder, then, when vehicles get totalled and licenses get revoked. But that said, there's lots in our combined North American culture today that could stand to get real.

[James Roscoe]

I would be somewhat suspicious about who paid for this study. But I also wonder whether there isn't something there. I have always thought that North American culture has a history of drinking hard liquor rather than wine and beer. This might account for some of the problems discussed above. Europe has a wine and beer culture. Europe also is a culture which tends to involve its alchohol with food, while on this side of the Atlantic we tend to drink it alone. There are a lot of other factors, but I thought I'd throw some grist into the mill.

The Puritanical Christian view of alcohol consumption in the U.S. drives a good deal of teen-age "forbidden fruit" binge drinking in my opinion. Make it a sin and the "utes" will be the first to sign up. Euros have a much more matter-of-fact approach to the drinking of alcohol; it's available, it goes well with food, drink it or don't, no one really cares. You won't be damned to hell-fire eternal for sipping a cocktail. The European message is much less appealing for kids looking to thumb their nose at Mom, Dad, or society. However, I'm not naive enough to believe that teenage binge drinking is non-existent in Europe.

The Christian Fundamentalist branch of my wife's family came to our house for dinner a couple of years ago. I didn't server wine with dinner, but they couldn't help seeing my fully stocked wine refrigerator. Afterword my wife's uncle pulled me aside and asked, in all seriousness, how many time a week I got drunk! We never invited them back.

[James Roscoe]

Sam, That is the other side of the coin. In part North Americans have been dependent on grain alcohol rather than wine and beer for much of our history. It was just easier to make in eastern North America. The 19th century saw the rise of prohibitionists (why they get chucked in with the beer swilling Puritains, I don't know) and culminated in the 22nd Ammendment (or was it the 21st?). In any event, the contradictory messages we send out really screw things up, especially for young people. Europeans generally don't do that. If a message of responsibility was sent out then we'd be in a lot better shape on these types of issues.

The Puritanical Christian view of alcohol consumption in the U.S. drives a good deal of teen-age "forbidden fruit" binge drinking in my opinion.

Sam, I totally agree. There are unarticulated yet implicit shades and echoes of Prohibition still very much written into the way alcohol is legislated on our continent, unfortunately. I wish we did have a more "normal" approach to these things here; a more "holistic" approach, you might say.

I always use the example of how ridiculous it is that alcohol rules forbid something as civilized as a family having a bottle of wine with their picnic at the city park. It's that darned one-size-fits-all mentality that lumps all drinking together - e.g. having wine with one's canapés or burgers, vs. guzzling cans of beer or hard liquor at night and then leaving empty cans or bottles all over the place. Something's got to give so that our society doesn't frown on the former, but treats it as a civilized, natural thing, much as would be the case elsewhere.

Yes Paul, a few Jackasses in the park spoil it for those of us who wish to responsibly enjoy a little wine on a picnic. Unfortunatly we live in a world that legislates with these "worst case scenarios" in mind. Then again if I was taking my kids to a park and there were broken beer bottles all around, I'd probably get "prohabitionist" really quickly.

True, Ed. The litter that those types cause also gets me bristling. It's all about refinement of manners, and that's another thing that has suffered over the years. Gee, some might even think that they have a right to litter ...

Unfortunatly we live in a world that legislates with these "worst case scenarios" in mind.

Nothing unfortunate about it - that's the way laws MUST be written (and I've done my share of creating legislation).

You set it up so that if there is an abuse you have a law with teeth that allows you to control the problem, while tacitly intending to turn a blind eye when an act, technically in violation of the law, is in fact harmless.

The guy having a civilised sip of wine with his family doesn't, or at least shouldn't be sanctioned, while the horde of drunk kids listening to loud music and disturbing others in the area would be controlled.

The problem is always the gap between lawmaker and law-enforcer and the degree of latitude and judgement that you might not in any case wish to delegate to every police officer out there.

That's why many laws end up being enforced rigidly in circumstances where the originators of the law would have intended to let the actions slide, but you can't write a lax law and still have the power to address the really egregious examples of violation.

So if some small minded martinet fines you for letting a piece of paper blow away on a windy day. keep in mind that the same law allows the authorities to deal with those who dump their garbage in public places.

Very sensible and thoughful comments from all.

The culture in Italy bears a little more investigation. Children are often made very welcome at the restaurant tables, doted over by family members and treated as special guests by the staff. They will often have a small glass of wine, possible with a little water added. The sense of inclusiveness is very different to dining in UK and I suspect the same is true in US. This coupled with an education in sensible convivial drinking as part of a meal, rather than drink on it's own, has IMO a guiding effect on Italians. Possibly the biggest threat to this, is the rise of Irish and English "Pubs" in Italy, where beer is the centrepiece. Still Italy has some of the oldest wine bars in the world (We drank in Copernicus's "local" last year!) and the patrons, whilst often young rarely get drunk. Maybe the guidance in their youth and the sense of style that suggests getting drunk isn't "cool" work in their favour.

I must admit that I find the aged 21 limit in some (many?) states in the US seems overtly "protective" and probably adds to the "problem" of under-age drinking. Maybe they should set the age limit to 50 and the problem would become an epidemic

regards

Ian

Unfortunatly we live in a world that legislates with these "worst case scenarios" in mind.

Nothing unfortunate about it - that's the way laws MUST be written (and I've done my share of creating legislation).

You set it up so that if there is an abuse you have a law with teeth that allows you to control the problem, while tacitly intending to turn a blind eye when an act, technically in violation of the law, is in fact harmless.

The guy having a civilised sip of wine with his family doesn't, or at least shouldn't be sanctioned, while the horde of drunk kids listening to loud music and disturbing others in the area would be controlled.

The problem is always the gap between lawmaker and law-enforcer and the degree of latitude and judgement that you might not in any case wish to delegate to every police officer out there.

That's why many laws end up being enforced rigidly in circumstances where the originators of the law would have intended to let the actions slide, but you can't write a lax law and still have the power to address the really egregious examples of violation.

So if some small minded martinet fines you for letting a piece of paper blow away on a windy day. keep in mind that the same law allows the authorities to deal with those who dump their garbage in public places.

You make sense.

Another facet of the problem with alcohol in this country is the penchant for Americans to take what appears to be the easy way out (but isn't really) when they see a study like this, equate it to "substance abuse" driven by heatless corporations in their evil search for profits, and demand we ban the substance that's "causing" the problems, or punish the producers of the substance.

What they're doing is failing to recognize (or saying they are unwilling to recognize) that it is not the substance, and it's usually not the producer of the substance, but he society and how it deals with the issues that is the problem.

Same thing with drugs, and sex and children: easier to utter such empty banalities as "Just say no!", or to demand we teach abstinence-only sex education to maintain ignorance, or simply to deny that our children actually want to engage in such disgusting things. (Of course, they are engaging in the same disgusting things we were either trying desperately to do or tying desperately to ignore in ourselves when we were that age, but it's infinitely more convenient to ignore that, innit?)

[James Roscoe]

It's the message that messes things up. Responsibility is the key.

"Totally agree, Oliver. Of course, as one of those stalwart young men tapped to provide cannon fodder (not being a senator's son of having Cheney-ish other priorities) during the recent unpleasantness of the Viet Nam thing, I might be a bit prejudiced in my views."

Question for you Hoke. The old enough to fight and die, not old enough to drink argument has great emotional force. I did a bit of pro bono legal work during and after the Vietnam War and we rarely saw vets or active service people charged with underage drinking. I'm not sure what the armed services policy was on either drugs or underage drinking, but friends and clients of mine indicated there was a great deal of don't ask, don't tell going down.

My own opinion then and now is that there would be great popular support for reducing the drinking age for people who are actually in the Armed Services. Those who were actually serving would be licensed to drink even though they were not yet 21.

Why should guys like me who was successful in staying out of Vietnam benefit from lowering the drinking age?

Regards, Bob

Bob:

As you untuit, there was a great deal of myopic oversight of young soldier's drinking....as Bill said earlier, laws and regulations are often passed but go (relatively) unobserved at times.

Add in that often the civil policemen were often sympathetic in a 'brothers in arms' sentiment with GIs and would as often as not give them a warning, admonish but not charge, or simply get some buddies to help out an over-served GI of tender age.

Also, while I was in the service and overseas, the rule on the federal bases was 18 years old, rather than in some states at the time that had mandated 21. And some, oddly enough, were 19! (legislatures being curious and odd).

So you are correct, they were enforced more in the breach than observance.

Didn't really matter anyway. As you might imagine, underage drinkers in unifrom sneered at and largely disregarded the alcohol consumption laws wherever they were.

In the service, at that time, it wasn't alcohol that was considered a problem. Alcohol was considered almost a rite of passage. It was drugs, or at least drugs other than alcohol that were the problem.

Which meant, of course, that it wasn't the drugs but the underlying attitudes that were the problems.

I think it's interesting that people can vote or fight for their country at the age of 18, but are assumed incompetent to consume alcohol for three years thereafter.

In Italy the drinking age is 16, and I rarely see or hear of binging or other abuses there.

Regarding binge drinking and other abuses by adolescents in the USA but not in Italy, I think it's a direct result of how alcoholic beverages are viewed by the culture at large. In Italy, wine and beer are considered an integral part of meals. In the USA, most folks do not have alcohol with meals, and we bombard our youngsters with the message "alcohol is a drug". Then we act all surprised and horrified when they treat it that way.

Regarding the high drinking age: Traditionally the drinking age in the USA was 21, as was the age of majority. During the Vietnam War era in the 1960s, the "if you're old enough to fight, you're old enough to vote and drink" agrument was made, and it eventually won out. The voting age was lowered to 18 (where it still is), and the drinking age followed suit shortly thereafter. Two undesireable consequences became apparent immediately:

1) Drinking among high school age (15-17) adolescents increased sharply. The reason was access. When the drinking age was 21, most underage drinking occurred on college campuses--among those 18-20. They got their booze from other students in their dorm who were 21 and who bought for them. The 15-17 crowd doesn't usually mix socially with 21 year olds, so this method of access wasn't generally available to the high school set. When the drinking age was lowered to 18, high school seniors of drinking age were buying for their younger classmates.

2) Drunk driving accidents and fatalities ionvolving 18-20 year olds skyrocketed. The accident rate was always high because these are young, inexperienced drivers just learning how to operate a car. Now you've added alcohol to the mix. Drunk driving causes fewer accidents in the 21+ age group simply because they have had more experience operating moter vehicles.

So after a few years, the US drinking age was put back up to 21. In Massachusetts, where I went to college, the age was lowered to 18 my sophomore year, so as a freshman I was in the culture where the seniors in our dorm made package store runs for us. I lived through the period where the age was 18, and I supported raising the age back to 21. The road carnage was just too gruesome. Bottom line is, US youth had its chance to show whether or not it could handle alcohol, and it turns out we couldn't.

-Paul W.

And some, oddly enough, were 19! (legislatures being curious and odd).

The purpose behind 19 is to set the age high enough that those who are of drinking age are no longer interacting with the high school age adolescent population, and thus not as prone to buy booze for them. Lots of kids turn 18 while still in high school. 19 year olds in high school are rare.

-Paul W.

Hoke wrote:
And some, oddly enough, were 19! (legislatures being curious and odd).


The purpose behind 19 is to set the age high enough that those who are of drinking age are no longer interacting with the high school age adolescent population, and thus not as prone to buy booze for them. Lots of kids turn 18 while still in high school. 19 year olds in high school are rare.

-Paul W.

Which brilliant legislative and parental thinking led to the interesting situation where one county was at 19 years old, and the next county was at 18 years old, and (quite literally) hundreds of kids every night, with lots more on the weekends, driving up to the next county, getting bombed out of their minds, and then driving back home, with the usual litter of crashed vehicles and dead bodies scattered willy-nilly along the highways.

Still, it wasn't all for nought: at least they got some good film footage for all those gruesome movies they'd show in school to scare the kids from drinking!

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Very effective at controlling population growth, and even more fodder for the ones so vehement about passing more idiotic laws to prevent people from drinking, and to encourage them to drink irresponsibly.