Facts from the video "This Place"
How widespread are alcohol problems among youth?
Alcohol use by children, adolescents, and young adults under the legal drinking age of 21 produces human tragedies with alarming regularity.
- Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among America's youth.1
- More young people drink alcohol than smoke tobacco or use marijuana.2
- Alcohol is also the key contributing factor in the four leading causes of death among people under the age of 21. These include traffic crashes, accidents, homicides, and suicides.3
- Each day, more than 7,000 kids under the age of 16 take their first drink.4
- One in five eighth-graders is a current drinker.5
- Each day, three teens in the United States die from drinking and driving, and at least six more die from other alcohol-related causes.6
- Underage drinking costs the United States $53 billion a year in medical care, lost productivity, and the pain and suffering of young drinkers.7
How do we begin to address this issue?
Youth access and underage drinking needs to be addressed as a national public health issue. Similar public health efforts such as the reduction and cessation of tobacco use, the use of seatbelts, and reducing drinking and driving have focused on contributing factors and conditions. Youth access and underage drinking needs to be addressed using the same process.
Face Project Website (about the video)1. Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility, National Research Council. Institute of Medicine. National Academies of Science. 2003
2-7. Ibid