Underage Drinking Among Teenagers Essay

Adolescence is a transition time when the body is undergoing many significant changes, such as hormonal alterations and brain development. Exposing the brain to alcohol during this period may interrupt processes of brain development, possibly leading to mild cognitive impairment as well as to a further escalation of drinking. According to information issued from the United States government publication entitled Prevention Alert, teen alcohol abuse showed many negative side effects. One is long-term physical effects, such as fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis (Overview of alcohol-related problems, 1997). Alcohol affects every system in the body. For example, drinking alcohol can cause headache, upset stomach and dehydration

Dr. J. Edward Hill, president of the American Medical Association, told the 2005 Annual Texas Institute on Substance Abuse and Treatment that underage drinking costs the United States economy $ 4.7 million every hour, almost $105 million a day, and is facing today. When people talk about a bright future in the safe hand of the forthcoming generation, people are ignoring the fact that the future generation is risking their future as also the future of our society, by indulging in drinking from an early age. Teen drinking will probably always remain a problem, but the extent of the problem might be minimized depending on how one can handle the situation in a given society. For example, different cultures have different percentage of teen drinking problems based on how they structure their laws, how alcohol is typically introduced to underage people, and so on. Some people argue that drinking problems are not as big of an issue in some European cultures where younger teens may be introduced to alcohol at a younger age and it is not as strictly controlled. Other people argue that it is better to have the drinking age kept up higher like it is in the United States in order to avoid problems. In our society, they rarely realize alcoholism is a serious disease because there are many adults, especially their parents, who drink alcohol around

Drinking and driving is another danger of teenage alcohol use. Forty percent of all alcohol-related fatal car crashes involve teens. Teens may not realize they are too impaired to drive, or they may be afraid to call home for a ride. Other effects of teenage drinking include decreased inhibitions that may lead to risk-taking behaviors. Alcohol intoxication impairs the judgment and teens who are intoxicated may engage in a number of dangerous behaviors. According to a 1999 study conducted by the Pacific Institute on Research and Evaluation (PIRE), about 3,500 deaths per year are caused by drinkers under the age of 21. Homicides account for the greatest number of these (roughly 1,600 per year), followed by drunk driving (1,400), and teen suicides (260). The remaining 300-odd deaths are caused by other accidents, drowning, burns and alcohol overdoses. Thirty states lowered the legal drinking age to 18 during the 1970s. In response to evidence of increased traffic fatalities (Wagenaar, 1983; Williams et al., 1974), however, almost all states raised their minimum drinking age between 1978 and 1987. In 1984, federal legislation was enacted that threatened withholding a portion of federal highway funds from states with a minimum drinking age lower than 21. All states eventually complied (Chaloupka et al., 2002). Evidence indicates that the uniform higher drinking age reduced alcohol-related