Keeping teens alcohol-free

Parental disapproval turns out to be the key reason children choose not to drink alcohol.

from the April 18, 2007 edition

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The ParentsEmpowered.org cam­paign draws on research by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The research finds that alcohol affects a teen brain differently than it affects a mature adult brain. It posits that the brain goes through rapid development and "wiring" changes during the ages of 12 through 21 and that teen alcohol use can damage this wiring.

According to Larry Lunt, chairman of the Utah state agency monitoring alcohol sales, a new law cracking down on sales to young people has increased compliance from 66 percent to 88 percent. Says Mr. Lunt: "We used to say 'reducing underage drinking in Utah.' " But he says the new motto for ParentsEmpowered.org is "eliminating underage drinking in Utah."

Meanwhile, California is considering action against a product that critic Jim Kooler describes as "an insidious strategy to get teens comfortable with alcohol." The product, under labels such as Smirnoff Ice, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Bacardi Silver, and Zima, is flavored alcoholic beverages that The New York Times says look and taste like soda "but offer the kick of a cocktail." Dr. Kooler heads a state-sponsored group that promotes healthy lifestyles for teenagers. He wants California to adopt stricter rules for drinks that contain distilled spirits but are sold and taxed as beer. The Times says that if the products were taxed as hard liquor the tax would jump from 20 cents a gallon to $3.30 a gallon. Maine has already reclassified these drinks, known as alcopops and flavored malt beverages, making them more expensive and difficult to buy. Arkansas, Illinois, and Nebraska are considering doing the same. In California, such reclassification is opposed by small business owners and industry groups.

Gary Galanis, a spokesman for the big alcoholmaker Diageo, told the Times that flavored malt beverages are roughly as potent as beer. The drinks, he argued, come from brewing, not distilling, and the alcohol stems from added flavoring, not hard liquor. But attorney Jim Mosher, who studies underage drinking, says, "If beer has alcohol in it, it's a distilled spirit."

Mr. Galanis says the real problem with underage drinking is not alcopops, but access to alcohol. The numbers, he says, show that underage drinkers get alcohol from siblings over age 21 or parents. From an oddly different viewpoint, this spokesman for the alcohol industry agrees with organizations such as ParentsEmpowered.org that what parents and families do may hold the key to combating underage drinking.

• John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is currently a professor of communications at Brigham Young University.

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