Tragically, another teenager died in a car wreck on Nov. 14, this time in Montgomery County. The role alcohol played is unclear, according to police, but they do know that the teenager who died had just left an underage drinking party ["Teens' Beer Party Raided After Montgomery Crash," Metro, Nov. 16]. Sadly, in many ways this is not news. On any given day, 7,000 youngsters 16 and younger will take their first drink of alcohol.
"Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among America's youth," said the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine in a landmark report on underage drinking in September 2003.
Unfortunately, underage drinking seems to grab our attention only when enough of our children die or are harmed at one time to make the problem impossible to ignore.
Here is another statistic: Every day at least nine teenagers will die somewhere in the United States, either from drinking and driving or other alcohol-related causes.
What did the Montgomery County police find at the North Potomac home they raided?
"Remnants of 12-packs and 30-packs." In other words, these kids were not just having a glass of beer with their pizza.
That police account provides the gritty reality for yet another statistic: More than 90 percent of the alcohol consumed by 12- to 20-year-olds occurs when the young people are having five or more drinks.
Our media are saturated with messages that equate alcohol with having a good time. These ads never show the deadly consequences of teenage alcohol use.
Montgomery County parents, school officials, and law enforcement officers are asking themselves what more they can and should do. That should happen, and parents can only hope to make a difference.
But the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine said a year ago that a community-by-community, episodic response isn't the answer to this problem. Even if Montgomery County does all that it can, its actions will have only a tiny impact on the almost 11 million underage drinkers nationwide and the more than 7 million who consume five or more drinks at a time.
The problem of underage drinking needs a national response spearheaded by public health leaders such as the secretary of health and human services and the surgeon general. And the response must be sustained.
Each generation of parents needs to be reminded that their children could become one of the many faceless statistics. Each generation of teenagers, too, must believe that alcohol can kill them.
-- Jim O'Hara
is executive director of the Center
on Alcohol Marketing and Youth
at Georgetown University.
ohara@camy.org
