The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence fights the stigma and the disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions.

NCADD News Update

Additional Material for 1/13/2004 News Release
Announcing Alcohol Awareness Month

SOME PERTINENT FACTS ON UNDERAGE DRINKING:

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• Alcohol is the most frequently used drug by high school seniors. ¹
  
  
• High school students lack essential knowledge about alcohol and its effects. Nationwide, an estimated 5.6 million junior and senior high school students are unsure of the legal age to purchase alcohol; one third do not understand the intoxicating effects of alcohol; and more than 2.6 million do not know a person can die from an overdose of alcohol. A projected 259,000 students think that wine coolers or beer cannot get you drunk, cannot make you sick, or cannot do as much harm as other beverages. ²
  
  
• Due to heavy or binge drinking, nearly one out of every five teenagers (16%) has experienced "black outs," after which they could not remember what happened the previous evening. ³
  
  
• Alcohol is a factor in the four leading causes of death among persons ages 10 to 24: motor-vehicle crashes, unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide. ⁴
  
  
• Girls are beginning to drink at younger ages. In the 1960s, 7% of 10- to 14-year-old females used alcohol; by the early 1990's, that figure had risen to 31%. ⁵
  
  
• More than 67% of young people who start drinking before the age of 15 will try an illicit drug. Children who drink are 7.5 times more likely to use any illicit drug, more than 22 times more likely to use marijuana, and 50 times more likely to use cocaine than children who never drank ⁶
  
  
• Of the estimated 5.4 million junior and high school students who have ever consumed five or more drinks in a row, 39% say they drink alone; 58% drink when they are upset; 30% drink when they are bored; and 37% drink to feel high. ⁷
  
  
• Approximately 88% of 10th graders and 75% of 8th graders report that it's very easy or fairly easy to get alcohol. ⁸
  
  
• The typical American young person will see 100,000 beer commercials before he or she turns 18. ⁹
  
  
• The total cost of alcohol use by youth is $58,043 billion per year, the equivalent of $216.22 for every man, woman and child in the United States. ¹⁰
  
  
• Use of alcohol or other drugs at an early age is an indicator of future alcohol or drug problems; people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at 21. ¹¹
  
  
• Researchers estimate that alcohol use is implicated in one to two-thirds of sexual assault and acquaintance or "date" rape cases among teens and college students. ¹²
  
  

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  RESOURCES:    ¹ Johnston LD, O'Malley PM, Bachman JG. National Survey Results on Drug Use from the Monitoring the Future Study, 1975-1998; Volume I: Secondary School Students. Rockville, MD: NIDA. ²Office of Inspector General. Youth and Alcohol: A National Survey. Drinking Habits, Access, Attitudes, and Knowledge. Washington, DC: US Dept. of Health and Human Services; June 1991. ³Summary Findings American Academy of Pediatrics Survey: Teen Alcohol Consumption, AAP, September 1998. ⁴Kann, L., et al. (2000). Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance -- United States, 1999. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vol. 49(SS05): 1-96. ⁵National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, Substance Abuse Among Women in the U.S. United States Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1996. ⁶ Cigarettes, Alcohol, Marijuana: Gateways to Illicit Drug Use, Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University, 1994. ⁷ Office of Inspector General. Youth and Alcohol: A National Survey. Drinking Habits, Access, Attitudes, and Knowledge. Washington, DC: US Dept. of Health and Human Services; June 1991. ⁸Johnston LD, O'Malley PM, Bachman JG. National Survey Results on Drug Use from the Monitoring the Future Study, 1975-1998; Volume I: Secondary School Students. Rockville, MD: NIDA. ⁹ CSAP. Jam: The Performance Magazine. Rockville, MD: SAMHSA; n.d. ¹⁰Costs of Underage Drinking, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 1999. ¹¹J. Hawkins, R. Catalano, "Risk and Protective Factors for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Adolescence and Early Adulthood: Implications for Substance Abuse Prevention, 1989, p. 78; Grant and Dawson, "Age at Onset of Alcohol Use and Its Association with DSM-IV Alcohol Abuse and Dependence," Journal of Substance Abuse, Vol. 9, pgs. 103-110, 1997. ¹²Youth and Alcohol: Dangerous and Deadly Consequences, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1992.
  
  
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National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc.

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