How "overage drinking" menaces teens

June 2, 2010

Rather than confronting vexing social or behavior problem with careful study and scientific analysis, we Americans rush to find a powerless demographic scapegoat to blame it on. From the Chinese and opium to African Americans and crack cocaine, politicians and authorities exonerated middle America's powerful constituencies as innocent and raged against feared minorities and immigrants. Now that most of these groups have gained power sufficient to prevent being attacked, officials relentlessly blame young people for every behavior and health problem from drugs and violence and AIDS to alcohol, smoking, and obesity. But is this "concern" for the health, safety, and lives of young people, typically invoked as the basis for obsessive focus on them, really genuine? If it is, adults should be as or more willing to examine how our own behaviors and privileges endanger the young. Our study, summarized and linked below, finds that not only is "overage" adult alcohol use strongly connected to what we call "underage" drinking at the family, community, and societal levels, adult drinking, including by adults 25 and older, kills more teenagers than "underaged drinking." Drinking over-21 drivers kill far more teens than drinking teen drivers kill adults. The study further documents how alcohol abuse by adults in families, communities, and populations closely predicts teen alcohol abuse. I admit that as a person who enjoys wine myself, the fact that American adults' alcohol privilege represents the sixth leading cause of death to teenagers is very disturbing. Even more disturbing, the anti-teen-drinking crusades to "save our precious children" through ever-rising stigma and bans on "underage drinking" mysteriously go silent, and the loud calls for restrictions abate, when adult drinking turns out to be both the model for adolescent troubles and the biggest alcohol-related killer of youths age 10-19. At a quality alcohol and drug treatment center, utmost care and attention is given to all patients

 


Traffic Crash Victimizations of Children and Teenagers by Drinking Drivers Age 21 and Older

Mike Males, YouthFacts.org, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, May 2010

Objective: Motor-vehicle crash victimizations by age of the drinking driver and the age of the victim, particularly the toll inflicted by drinkers 21 and older on children and teenagers, have not been quantified in detail. This article presents and analyzes the available data. Method: Cases of fatal crashes involving drivers who tested positive for alcohol use were extracted from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System's online encyclopedia for 1998-2007. These data, along with data for other drivers, passengers, and vehicle nonoccupants involved in the same crashes, were arranged in cross tabulations showing relationships of ages of drinking drivers to ages, injury severity, and person type of corresponding victims. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates of alcohol-related crash involvements were used to estimate all alcohol-related traffic victimizations by driver and victim age. Results: Drinking drivers age 21 and older caused an estimated 2.7 million crashes from 1998 through 2007 that victimized persons younger than age 20, killing 3,630 children below the age of 16 and 4,290 teens ages 16-19 and injuring 470,000 children and 390,000 teens. Drinking drivers age 21 and older victimize 1.3 times more teenage drivers than vice versa and account for large majorities of passenger and nonoccupant alcohol-related crash victimizations of both children and teens. Conclusions: If tabulated as a separate mortality cause, drinking and driving among those age 21 and older would represent the sixth leading cause of death for teenagers and the ninth leading cause for children. The hazards of underage and overage drinking to young people are integrated issues requiring unified countermeasures. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 71, 351-356, 2010)