WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly half of all U.S. high-school students admit to recently drinking alcohol illegally, and most of them were binge drinkers, according to a government survey published on Tuesday.
These binge drinkers -- who had five or more drinks in a row -- were more likely to have sex, fight, smoke or use drugs, the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
"Our study clearly shows that it's not just that students drink alcohol, but how much they drink that most strongly affects whether they experience other health and social problems," said Dr. Jacqueline Miller of the CDC's Alcohol Team, who led the study.
"It also underscores the importance of implementing effective strategies to prevent underage and binge drinking, such as enforcing the minimum legal drinking age and reducing alcohol marketing to youth, which can help us change social norms regarding the acceptability of underage and binge drinking."
Across the United States, the minimum drinking age is 21, while most teens leave high school by age 17, 18 or 19.
Writing in the journal Pediatrics, the CDC team said they analyzed data from 15,214 high-school students (aged 14 to 18) who completed the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
They found that 45 percent of the students admitted having drunk alcohol in the past month. Of these, 64 percent were binge-drinkers.
And the binge drinkers were not simply experimenting -- 69 percent reported having done so more than once in the past 30 days.
Teen drinkers in general were more than twice as likely to be sexually active as non-drinkers, the researchers found.
They were more than four times as likely to smoke cigarettes and more than twice as likely to have been in a physical fight, the researchers found. These rates went up even higher for binge drinkers, they reported.
The binge drinkers were more than five times as likely as non-drinkers to be sexually active, more than 18 times as likely to smoke cigarettes, and more than four times as likely to have been in a physical fight. They were also far more likely to smoke marijuana and attempt suicide, the researchers said.
Drinkers also did more poorly in school, according to the survey.
Among other studies on teenage alcohol use, in September the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 16.5 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds admitted to drinking. That study included students younger than high school age.
The 2006 Monitoring the Future survey, done by the University of Michigan and published in December, found that 75 percent of 12th graders, the oldest high school students, had tried alcohol.
Well thats an interesting study but it isn't saying anything new. What I find amazing is how easy it is for an underage person to get alcohol. If that was stopped somehow, then the problem would decrease largely.
I never did drink in high school, too scared back then. However at age 18 and in college, I of course started drinking and still do now at 22.
When I was 18 getting booze was no problem. It was 10 years ago, but there was always that one shady liquor market somewhere that wouldn't ID you. If me and my buddies were getting off work from the video store we would ask one of the older dudes to get us some brew. And on party nights we would get this buddy of ours who was a year younger yet looked 25 to buy it for us.
Funny though, once I hit 21 I hardly ever got carded.
But with regard to the study, I find it interesting that there are still so many underage kids getting booze. It was hard enough for me in 1996. I can imagine how much they've cracked down since then.
Everyone always has an older friend or a friend with a fake ID.
This one guy in my dorm freshman year in college was make some crazy fake IDs. He had the hologram and everything. I don't know if other IDs have it, but there's a little coded pattern thingy on the back of Virginia IDs that you can scan and will bring up the information to tell if it's a real ID. This dude had a computer program that you entered the information into and it created one of those.
Then he got busted that musta been bad times.
for some odd reason, while the word "Ganya" was still just a thought-dropping in my head, I thought it'd only be four letters. But apparently it's five. yep.
In Cali you just have to swipe the magnetic strip and your age pops up. It has the holograms too. A lot of liquor stores and bars have this little device that you swipe your ID and your age flashes.
I went to this frat party at SDSU back in the day and there was a 7-11 across the way. On this bulletin board behind the counter there were about 50 fake ID's tacked on there. Classic.
Never tried to snag a fake ID myself. Always knew someone.
Even I drink……till completely drunk. With friends I think it is okay. I do realize that drinking and driving can have serious consequences…don’t worry I do not drive . But I remember that one day I was so drunk that I bumped against a pillar. ****!! It pained like hell and blood was coming out of it. Arriving at home I searched for the safety kit…It was nowhere to be found. Luckily I saw some batigras in a drawer and I pasted it on the wound. From that day I drink less and make sure that my friend drop me at my place.
01-02-2007 09:04 PM
that musta been bad times.
. But I remember that one day I was so drunk that I bumped against a pillar. ****!! It pained like hell and blood was coming out of it. Arriving at home I searched for the safety kit…It was nowhere to be found. Luckily I saw some 
