FastFacts

Young people consume almost 3.6 billion drinks annually – or 10 million drinks each day!

Of the three leading causes of death for teens – homicide, suicide and accident fatalities,
alcohol is a primary causative factor in all categories of death!

A study by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation found that in 2001,
underage drinking resulted in 3,170 deaths of teens and nearly 1 million injuries!

Underage drinking cost the citizens of the United States $61.9 billion in 2001.

These costs include medical care, work loss, academic underachievement or dropping out of school, the costs of youth violence, youth traffic crashes, high-risk sex, youth property crime, youth injuries, poisonings and psychoses, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome among teen mothers, youth alcohol treatment, etc.

During 2004, an estimated 142,701 alcohol-related emergency department (ED) visits were made by patients aged12-to-20.

Alcohol use and higher levels of use among adolescents is associated with poor grades, absenteeism and higher rates of school dropout.

Young people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence and are two and a half times more likely to become abusers of alcohol than those who begin drinking at age 21.

In 2000, 73,752 youth 12- 20 years old were admitted for alcohol treatment in the United States , accounting for 9% of all treatment admissions for alcohol abuse in the country.

Every year on the college campus: more than 70,000 students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape; there are 696,000 alcohol related assaults; there are 599,000 students injured because of alcohol; the average cost for alcohol-related vandalism is $80,000 per college, 95 percent of violent crimes on college campuses are alcohol-related.and 1,700 students die from alcohol related accidents or events.

Higher levels of alcohol use are associated with unplanned or unprotected sexual activity among adolescents. This poses increased risk for teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV.

Binge drinking – consuming enough alcohol to become legally intoxicated – is growing at a much faster rate among girls than boys. Teen girls appear to be more vulnerable to many of the adverse consequences of alcohol – they appear to be more impaired than men after drinking equivalent amounts. Adolescent girls who drink even moderate amounts of alcohol may experience disrupted growth and puberty, and teen girls who binge drink are 63 percent more likely to become teen mothers.

Fully 96 percent of all underage drinking takes place under “binge” circumstances – five or more drinks in a row – enough to reach and go above legal intoxication!

It was estimated in one study that 8.2 percent of adolescent males and 6.2 percent of adolescent females meet the diagnostic criteria for alcohol (or other drug) dependence.