TEENAGERS ON A BINGE

Under-age drinkers consume about 20 percent of all the alcohol imbibed
in this country, according to a report published last week in The
Journal of the American Medical Association. Many parents are already
aware of the horrific problem young Americans have with binge
drinking, but it's time to spread the alarm.

The alcoholic beverage industry dismisses the new study, by Columbia
University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, as an
"attempt to manipulate data to get headlines." But the study gains
credence from being published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal,
where an editorial by the heads of two federal substance abuse
agencies called its findings on under-age drinking "of particular concern."

The center got into trouble last year when it estimated that young
people between the ages of 12 and 20 (below the legal drinking age)
consumed a quarter of all alcoholic beverages sold in this country.
The study turned out to be statistically incorrect. But the new,
well-scrubbed estimates are still awful, and though they are almost
twice as high as suggested by a government survey, the center argues
plausibly that its figures are better.

The bad news certainly did not arrive in a vacuum. The latest survey
of youths' risky behavior by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention found that 30 percent of all high school students had
engaged in "episodic heavy drinking" within the last 30 days, which
means they each had five or more drinks in a row on one or more
occasions during the month. In a University of Michigan survey last
year, 30 percent of high school seniors reported being drunk at least
once in the past 30 days. Teenagers are not just having a glass of
beer or wine with a pizza =E2=80=94 they are binge drinking at a disturbing
rate.

Teenage drinking rates have fallen by some measures in recent decades,
a change that may be partly attributable to the legal drinking age's
being raised to 21 in all states. But as often happens when it comes
to the relationship between Americans and alcohol, many of the young
people who continue to drink appear to be the very ones least able to
control their consumption.

Experts have called for more aggressive educational campaigns, and
some want higher taxes on alcoholic beverages. One clever suggestion
is to require that labels on alcoholic beverages announce the caloric
content prominently. The idea that drinking to excess is fattening
might deter teenagers and adults.

Still, much of the responsibility for policing drinking habits will
necessarily fall on parents. They should be especially disturbed to
learn that the average age at which young people start drinking has
dropped to 14. Research has shown that the younger the starting age,
the higher the likelihood of lifetime alcohol dependence.