Adults often supply underage drinkers: study

Last Updated: 2008-06-26 9:02:01 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - More than 40 percent of the nation's 10.8 million underage drinkers got their alcohol free from adults -- and many got it from their own parents, U.S. health officials said on Thursday.

Up to 650,000 youths and underage adults were given alcoholic beverages by their parents or guardians in the past month, they said.

Congress effectively raised the U.S. legal drinking age to 21 in 1984 when it passed a measure that threatened to take highway funding away from states that did not comply.

Acting Surgeon General Dr. Steven Galson said parents enable underage drinking far too often.

"Many parents don't realize how risky drinking alcohol can be for kids. There are 5,000 people under the age of 21 who die every year related to alcohol. That is a really disturbing number of people," Galson said in a telephone interview.

"Alcohol use is related to many, many types of injuries," he said, including sexual assault, falls, automobile accidents and increased rates of suicides and homicides.

Galson said underage drinking has remained fairly stable from year to year, so "the bottom line is that the problem is not going away."

The report by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 3.5 million underage drinkers each year abuse or are addicted to alcohol.

The report is based on a nationwide survey of 158,000 people aged 12 to 20 who answered questions about behavior and social situations involved in underage drinking.

Not surprisingly, alcohol use increased with age. The report found that 7 percent of youths aged 12 to 14 were using alcohol, compared with 27.5 percent of youths aged 15 to 17 and 51.3 percent of 18 to 20 year olds.

It found that in the past month, one in five people aged 12 to 20 have engaged in binge drinking -- drinking five or more drinks at a party, for example.

More than 80 percent of underage drinkers said they were with two or more friends the last time they drank.

The study found that when there were two or more people present, underage drinkers drank an average of 4.9 drinks, compared with 3.1 drinks when only one other person was present, and 2.9 drinks when they were drinking alone.

More than half of underage drinkers said they were at someone's house when they had their last drink, and 30 percent were in their own home.

The study's findings will be used in an underage drinking prevention campaign by the Office of the Surgeon General.