Part 1 of 2: Special Report

UNDERAGE DRINKING A NATIONAL PASTIME

Young Women Are Leading The Way In The Growth Of Student Alcohol Use

Nathan Roberts, a happy-go-lucky young man from Findlay, had a lot to
celebrate last weekend. He was turning 21, and spirits were high on the
Ohio State University campus where the Buckeyes had just trampled the
football team of arch-rival University of Michigan.

A junior at Ohio University and an avid sports fan, Nate had gone to
Columbus to be with friends. Sunday, he and some friends went to several
bars to celebrate his birthday. They got back to a friend's house around 2 a.m.

Six hours later, the friend awoke and found Nate. It first appeared he was
suffocated by his own vomit. But the coroner determined Nate was poisoned
by a lethal blood-alcohol level of 0.36. His stunned parents buried their
soccer-loving son Friday morning.

The prospect of a child dying from an alcohol-related accident has crossed
the minds of most parents of teens and young adults. And while few have to
deal with the unthinkable loss of a child, many parents - including George
and Laura Bush - have had to grapple with the headaches and heartaches of
underage drinking.

It's a pastime that shows no sign of declining in popularity despite
stricter laws, anti-drinking school programs, and a king's ransom of tax
dollars devoted to stamping it out. Compared to the population of teens who
drink, the number who use marijuana, cocaine, and drugs such as Ecstacy is
small.

Indeed, alcohol consumption by the young is one of America's national
disconnects.

The minimum drinking age, set by law at 21 for the purpose of reducing
traffic deaths, is largely ignored by America's youth.

The numbers tell the story. At Bowling Green State University, 58 percent
of students surveyed this year by the Core Institute at Southern Illinois
University said they had consumed five or more drinks at one sitting in the
previous two weeks. Researchers call that "binge," or high-risk drinking.

One government researcher calculated that college students spend more on
booze than on books.

And almost two-thirds of the country's high school seniors report getting
drunk at least once. A recent survey of students at South Toledo's Bowsher
High School indicated that 62 percent drank before they were 15, a
statistic that drew cheers at a school assembly last week.

Nevertheless, groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving are calling for
ever stronger measures, including a federally funded national advertising
campaign against underage drinking.

Others are beginning to voice concerns that zero tolerance for youngsters
who drink is impossible, and a national lie.

Marketing Alcohol

Recognizing alcohol's growing impact on youth internationally, the head of
the World Health Organization this year called for an examination of the
marketing of alcohol to young people.

"By mixing alcohol with fruit juices, energy drinks, and premixed
'Alcopops, ' and by using advertising that focuses on youth lifestyle, sex,
sports, and fun, the large alcohol manufacturers are trying to establish a
habit of drinking alcohol at a very young age," said Dr. Gro Harlem
Brundtland of the WHO.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 made such incidents seem trivial
in comparison, President and Mrs. Bush quietly dealt with their twins,
Jenna and Barbara, who at age 19 were caught drinking and using fake IDs in
the spring. Compounding the situation was Jenna's bust for drinking just
weeks earlier.

Drinking With Friends

At 17, Sylvia (not her real name), a senior at St. Ursula Academy in Ottawa
Hills, has dealt with two frightening situations in which friends drank to
the point of passing out and convulsing.

One friend went to a concert at Centennial Terrace after sousing up at the
home of a girl whose parents weren't around. Police at the concert
intervened when they saw the girl's companions trying to figure out how to
get her to a car. Some of the students got scared and split, but Sylvia and
another girl went to the hospital and stayed with their sick friend through
the night.

The other incident occurred at a party at a boy's house. His parents
weren't home. A friend of Sylvia's smoked two bowls of pot and drank seven
or eight beers.

"She started having seizures. Nobody wanted to take her to the hospital.
She fell asleep and we put her on her side so she wouldn't roll in her
vomit and suffocate," said Sylvia.

She said her own best friends don't drink much, but that others in their
larger circle smoke pot and drink regularly. "You'll hear girls joking
about it, about who had to have their stomach pumped," she said. "A lot of
parents may be completely naive. The kids come home at 2 a.m. or stay the
night at somebody else's house."

Girls prefer hard lemonade and bottled mixed drinks, she said. The most
common drinking spots are at somebody's house or in parking lots at
fast-food restaurants, she said.

Just Say No

It has been 20 years since the dialogue about youthful drinking took a
serious turn in the United States.

Among the results have been Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No!" campaign and
scare tactics such as crushed cars hauled to school parking lots or
wheelchair-bound people speaking at assemblies.

There have been warnings about damage to one's health and the widespread
DARE program taught by sheriff's deputies to fifth graders.

Each year, surveys ask hundreds of thousands of elementary, high school,
and college students for details about their alcohol use. One of the most
telling responses is about heavy drinking.

Most researchers agree that figure has either remained stable, or is
creeping up, and the rise appears to be led by girls who are reaching for
the tavern's glass ceiling.

In the Core Institute survey of tens of thousands of college students, 46.5
percent said they consumed five or more drinks at one occasion in the
previous two weeks; another survey by a Harvard University researcher
recorded 44 percent.

Six out of 10 high school seniors said they've been drunk at least once,
and 4 out of 10 said they had at least five drinks at one sitting in the
previous month, according to a University of Michigan survey. Most high
school students say they'll drink even more once they hit college.

Moreover, children are drinking earlier. Of 45,000 students polled in 1999,
52 percent said they had their first drink by eighth grade, the Michigan
study found.

In some ways, the war against youthful drinking has boiled down to a public
relations battle, with tax dollars dueling alcohol advertisements for the
attention of a wealthy, consumer-driven society.

A May report by the U.S. General Accounting Office identified $71 million
dedicated to preventing underage drinking in 2000. However, the GAO said
$1.8 billion is given to agencies and the states for a variety of programs
that address, in part, both alcohol and drug use. Anti-drug advertising
programs received $184 million last year.

What has been the result of decades of warnings about youthful drinking?

That's hard to measure, said Dr. Ruth Sanchez-Way, director of the Center
for Substance Abuse Prevention, part of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services. But without the warnings, she said, young people would
drink even more. Her center has a $175 million annual budget and funnels
$1.6 billion to the states.

Despite costly programs, the strongest messages come from the home, she
said. "The most important part of nonuse is family attitudes and parental
attitudes," she said.

Designating A Driver

Perhaps the most noticeable difference among youngsters who have grown up
hearing anti-drinking messages and their parents, who did not, is that
today 's youth often use a "designated driver." And, they know that people
who get drunk can die of suffocation or poisoning.

The designated driver program, originally aimed at adults, has helped
reduce deaths among all age groups. Promoted by the alcohol industry in the
1980s to encourage responsible drinking, it called for bars to give free
soft drinks to the nondrinker in a group.

The concept has sometimes been criticized by alcohol-prevention
professionals who say it encourages drunkenness. But for youngsters
admonished by worried parents to be safe, "designated driver" has become
part of the vocabulary.

Waiting to get ID'd in front of the Main Event, a popular East Toledo bar,
three underage men said they usually use a designated driver. "Anybody
who's smart does," said one.

They don't expect to buy alcohol here, but they know that plenty of
underage youth "preload," which means they drink before arriving at a bar
or party.

Like other taverns that appeal to teens and young adults, the Main Event,
with its large patio and deafening music, employs a legion of bouncers. It
has had numerous liquor violations for underage drinking.

Supervising is a harried-looking Rob Croak, the bar's operator. His other
bar, Frankie's Tavern down the street, has had even more violations.

"Places like this catch the heat," says one of the boys in line. "There's
more bouncers here than about any place."

Parents' Dilemma

Although the United States is often mocked by other countries that view our
21-year-old drinking age - the oldest of any developed nation - as
intolerant, we're not alone in wrestling with youthful excess.

Last summer, British Prime Minister Tony Blair took an unpopular stand when
he suggested that inebriated hooligans should be smacked on the spot with a
hefty fine. A few days later, his 16-year-old son was found lying drunk and
covered in vomit at Leicester Square in London.

Euan Blair had been celebrating the completion of exams with friends.

And shortly after her granddaughters had been cited for underage drinking
in Texas, former First Lady Barbara Bush spoke at a Junior League event. At
one point she rolled her eyes and made reference to what her son must be
experiencing. "He is getting back some of his own," she told the group.

The heavy drinking of President Bush and his decision to give it up at the
age of 40 have been well publicized.

Parents who drank, smoked pot, or took illegal drugs when they were young
may be unsure about how to handle their drinking teenagers. They fear for
their safety but don't want to crack down so hard they'll push their
children away.

In the mid-1990s, a Toledo mother who knew her own teen drank thought there
might be value in providing a safe place for him and his friends to party.

She and her husband rented a cabin at Maumee Bay State Park, purchased
cases of beer, and lots of food. Their son, a senior at St. Francis de
Sales High School, invited 20 boys and girls, all of whom gave their car
keys to the parents upon arrival. The plan seemed foolproof.

It was a good time. The teens swam and played games at the lodge, then
walked back to the cabin to eat, drink, and be merry. The parents didn't
get much sleep, worried that a teen might sneak into their room for car
keys. "We were a nervous wreck," she said.

Then, before dawn the next morning, one boy left to go to work. The roads
were icy. "He was in no shape to drive," she said. "His parents would have
killed me if they knew he'd been drinking." To her relief, he got to work
without mishap.

Now, she regrets hosting the party. "I would never do that today," she said.

A few months after the party, she watched as parents of her son's
classmates discreetly permitted kids to imbibe at graduation festivities.
"Parents would say, after the other parents leave, the kids could drink and
crash in the basement. But things can go to hell quickly," she said. Often,
word of a party - with or without parents present - gets around and
carloads of drunk teens show up at the party house, she said.

"It's a huge, huge problem. It's out of control," she said. "I don't know
that 21 has really helped. There's got to be a better way."

When her next child graduated a couple years ago, she hosted a gathering at
a church hall and flatly forbade teens from drinking alcohol.

In 1995, the president of the Ottawa Hills Parent-Teacher Organization and
her surgeon-husband hosted the annual "senior sleepover" - a backyard
campout for students the night before school started.

When one father showed up early and found his son drunk, he hauled him to
the police station where the boy vomited. The hosting parents, who had
taken the students' car keys when they came to the party, said no adult
gave alcohol to the youngsters. There was no conviction because the police
report apparently didn't provide adequate information.

Occasionally, consequences are tragic.

In 1996, at a party following Maumee High School's graduation, car keys
were collected from teenagers who camped out, ate hot dogs, and drank from
two kegs of beer. At 6 the next morning, three friends left to get breakfast.

Driving his 1982 red BMW at 80 miles per hour, one of the youths was trying
to overtake another vehicle when he lost control and smashed into a pole.
The car exploded. Two of the three were killed.

Zero Tolerance

While some people believe that a person old enough to fight for their
country or to marry should be able to buy a drink, there is no serious
movement to lower the minimum age. But it's so widely ignored, some say
it's dishonest to criminalize the behavior.

"I'm not a fan of zero tolerance, to expect them to live under this
anachronistic rule that people have been ignoring for several years," said
Joel Epstein, the author of Sex, Drugs and Flunking Out: Answers to the
Questions Your College Student Doesn't Want You to Ask.

"Many, including many college presidents, deans, police chiefs, etc.,
quietly grumble, but few seem to have the courage to say, 'If it doesn't
work, then we should change it,'" he said. "Additionally, there is not
likely to be legislative action on this as no congressperson is courageous
enough to take on MADD and the other groups who advocate for a 21-year-old
drinking age," said Mr. Epstein, who reached his conclusions after working
for a federally funded program that tries to reduce college alcohol and
drug use.

Without question, any reduction in highway deaths related to alcohol is
good, he said, but there are other ways to achieve the same goals.

"I come down on the side of this law being utterly unenforceable given the
current environment," he said. "I think it's quite naive to expect
meaningful enforcement of underage drinking laws unless the country's ready
for it."

TOMORROW: The dangers of binge drinking on college campuses.