Teens drink 20 percent of U.S. alcohol
NEW YORK, Feb 25, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Teens and
adults who drink heavily account for more than half of all alcohol consumption
in the United States, with teens alone accounting for nearly 20 percent, even
though they're not legally allowed to drink, a study released Tuesday said.
"One half of the alcohol consumed in this country (consists of) underage and
excessive adult drinking," the study's lead author, Susan Foster from Columbia
University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse or CASA, told
United Press International.
Using three national surveys involving more than 217,000 people age 12 or older,
Foster and other researchers, including CASA President Joseph Califano,
estimated underage drinking and adult excessive drinking combined made up 50.1
percent of all the alcohol consumed in 1999. The legal drinking age in the
United States is 21.
The alcohol industry disputed the findings and pointed out that a group led by
Califano was forced to retract the results of a similar study about underage
drinking released last year.
In that study, Califano's group reported underage drinkers drank 25 percent of
the total volume of alcohol consumed in the United States. It later turned out
the figure was based on an inaccurate estimate and the level was closer to 11
percent, according to statistics from the federal government.
The new study, which appears in the Feb. 26 issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association, estimates underage drinkers consumed nearly 20 percent of
the alcohol consumed in 1999. This amounted to $22.5 billion or about 19 percent
of the $116.2 billion consumers spent on beer, liquor and wine.
The study defined excessive drinkers as adults who consumed more than two drinks
a day. Such adults consumed 30 percent of the total volume of alcohol in 1999.
This amounted to $34.4 billion of the total alcohol sales or nearly 30 percent.
"The implications of this analysis are that the alcohol industry has an interest
in underage and excessive adult drinking," Foster said. "We simply can't rely on
industry itself to curb underage and adult excessive drinking," she said.
Underage drinking is "a big public health problem," Foster said, noting that
underage drinking increases the chances of homicide, suicide, brain damage,
pregnancy and HIV infection.
She called for advertising and education campaigns similar to those aimed at
reducing smoking and illegal drug use.
Other efforts could include raising taxes on alcoholic beverages, stepping up
enforcement of existing drinking laws, and encouraging or requiring the alcohol
industry to exercise restraint in its ad practices, particularly in "those ads
that have high youth appeal," Foster said.
Parents also should play a major role in efforts to curb underage drinking, she
said.
"These findings should cause alarm for parents" because "there's a clear link
between underage and adult excessive drinking," Foster said. Kids who start
drinking before they are 21 are twice as likely to develop alcohol problems and
those who start before they are 15 are four times as likely, she said.
Parents should spend more time with their children, know who their friends are
and send clear messages against alcohol and drug abuse, Foster recommended.
"This is just another attempt by CASA to inflate figures to get another
headline," Lisa Hawkins, spokeswoman for the Distilled Spirits Council of the
United States, a trade group representing liquor manufacturers, told UPI.
"They have a long history of playing loose with figures to drive their own
agenda," Hawkins said, referring to last year's discrepancy.
In another incident in 1994, then Health and Human Services Secretary Donna
Shalala called a CASA study seriously flawed and misleading, Hawkins said.
The current CASA results seem to conflict with another SAMHSA study from 2000
that found rates of youth who had used alcohol in the previous month dropped
significantly in recent years -- going from 41 percent in 1985 to 19 percent in
1998. Rates for binge drinking among teens also declined, going from 22 percent
to 8 percent during that same period.
"Nobody wants underage drinking and we all fight very hard to stop it but we're
not going to get anywhere if we inflate these figures," Hawkins said.
Dr. Ting-Kai Li, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism in Bethesda, Md., wrote an accompanying editorial to the article, but
he told UPI he could not comment on the accuracy of CASA's numbers because the
institute has not conducted independent research.
Whatever the level of underage drinking, it is clear "this is an important
problem that we need to pay attention to," Li said. Solutions include the
involvement of parents and education, he said. "It has to be a multi-pronged
attack on a very complex behavioral problem," he said. "There is no silver
bullet."
Hawkins also faulted the CASA researchers for defining an adult excessive
drinker as someone who has more than two drinks per day, explaining that federal
guidelines specify this level of drinking could produce some health benefits.
Hawkins pointed that the guidelines do not classify more than two drinks per day
as excessive.
Li said the federal definition for moderate drinking is up to 14 drinks per week
or up to four drinks on any one day for a man and seven drinks per week or three
drinks on any one day for a women.
Regarding allegations the alcohol industry puts out ads aimed at youth, Hawkins
said: "That's flat out wrong."
She added, "We don't want underage drinkers as our customers" and noted that
alcohol manufacturers abide by a voluntary code that says "advertising is to be
responsible, tasteful and directed to adults."
In addition, Hawkins said, CASA's own analysis concluded "the primary influences
over a youth's decision to drink is parents and peers and not advertising."
--
(Reported by Steve Mitchell, UPI Medical Correspondent, in Washington)
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
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