Type: book
Abstract: Excess drinking is associated with lost productivity, traumatic injury, early death, crime and violence, and neglect of family responsibilities.These and related concerns have long engendered public support for government regulation of the production, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages.Drinking by youths is a particular concern.Every state bans the sale of alcohol to those under age twenty-one.Despite this age-based prohibition, drinking is widespread among teenagers.According to a national survey of high school students, Monitoring the Future (MTF), the thirty-day prevalence of drinking in 1998 among twelfth graders was 52 percent, and over half those (33 percent of the total) said that they had gotten drunk in the previous month; the thirty-day drinking prevalence for tenth graders was 39 percent, for eighth graders 23 percent.These alcohol-use rates are higher than use rates for other abused substances, including tobacco and marijuana (www.isr.umich.edu/src/mtf/data).Indeed, alcohol is the illicit drug most widely used by teenagers.
Authors: Philip J. Cook, Michael J. Moore
Institution: Duke University
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Chicago
OpenAlex ID: W4229534594