BRITISH YOUTH TOPS BINGE DRINKING LEAGUE

Parents Must Share Blame For Growth Of Underage Boozers

Parents have to take some blame for British teenagers being near the top of
international leagues in binge drinking, intoxication and experimenting
with illegal drugs, researchers said last week.

Three in 10 of 15- to 16-year-olds have been drunk at least 20 times in
their lives, one in three have tried an illicit drug, and one in five claim
they were smoking at least a cigarette a day by the time they were 13.

The sorry tale of Britain's status for boozing and drug use was revealed in
a European school survey project on alcohol and other drugs, covering
60,000 teenagers in 30 countries. It also pointed to a possible explanation
for the UK's love affair with alcoholic excess at the weekends. Nearly one
in 10 of British youngsters questioned claimed that their families did not
know where they were on a Saturday night, and only half said their parents
always knew where they were on such evenings.

That was worse than many Euro pean countries, including France, where seven
in 10 teenagers said parents knew their whereabouts.

Retailers and publicans were criticised for turning a blind eye to sales of
drink and tobacco to under-age buyers. Martin Plant, director of the
alcohol and health research centre, Edinburgh, and coordinator of the UK
part of the survey, said the high tobacco use posed the greatest and most
lasting risk to health.

He said policy must take account of the fact that 120,000 people a year
died prematurely in the UK from smoking-related diseases, against up to
35,000 from alcohol and 1,200 from illicit drug taking.

"Tobacco kills a higher proportion of regular users than any other drug.
The legal age for alcohol purchase is 18. With tobacco, the most dangerous
drug on the planet, it would be better if the age was raised from 16 to 18,
to 21, or 50." He also said that French parents seemed to communicate more
with their children. "That suggests to me French parents may be better at
establishing or delineating some kind of boundaries for what is acceptable
for their teenagers."

The researchers pointed out that adult drinking cultures had changed
rapidly in some parts of Europe with big falls in France and Italy but
soaring consumption in eastern states.

The results showed that 20% of the UK teenagers said they had smoked at
least a cigarette a day when they were 13 or younger - although their
lifetime consumption by 16 put this country 20th in the table, one of its
more "healthy" results.

However, young people in Britain vied with those in Denmark, Ireland and
Poland to be the heaviest drinkers in Europe. Their experience of other
drugs was also more widespread than young people in other countries.

There were strong indications that drug use was falling, including that of
Ecstasy, perhaps as a result of widely publicised tragic consequences.