Using tactics like fake I.D.s, older friends, crooked clerks or tapping transients’ shoulders outside convenience stores, underage Oregonians are drinking more alcohol than ever before.
As part of a national strategy to combat drug abuse, a team from the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention is meeting with state experts to determine the effectiveness of Oregon’s drug, alcohol and tobacco prevention efforts all this week.
Jim Sellers, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Human Services said in Oregon, underage drinking has increased across the board, with a massive increase among underage women. The federal team will meet with experts, tabulate information and create a report documenting Oregon’s strengths and weaknesses in prevention and support efforts. Prevention, Sellers said, is key.
“It’s so much less expensive to stop problems before they occur,” he said.
Sellers said Oregon spends $5.5 million annually on drug alcohol and tobacco prevention, but contrasted it to tobacco companies that spend ten times that amount annually on advertising in Oregon.
“People are able to make better decisions after they reach the legal age,” Sellers said. “The hope is parents will talk to their kids about this.”
Some of the state’s efforts include the 21-year-old legal drinking age, the 18-year-old legal smoking age, making liquor available only in state-regulated liquor stores and a the distribution of a variety of tickets including for being minor in possession and for furnishing alcohol to a minor.
“We can’t just rely on one silver bullet,” said Karen Wheeler, addictions policy manager for the Office of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the most effective means of prevention lies with parents talking with their children about the dangers associated with underage drinking.
Wheeler said underage drinking cost Oregonians a staggering $697 million in 2001, the last year such figures were tabulated.
Youth violence resulting from intoxication cost taxpayers $351 million that year, Wheeler said, as well as $90 million for treatment, $86 million for traffic crashes and $59 million associated with high-risk sex.
“Alcohol, sex and, frankly, use of other drugs go hand in hand,” Wheeler said.
Early alcohol use is associated with later addiction, Wheeler said, and the U.S. has fewer problems with underage drinking than do European countries with younger drinking ages.
Wheeler recalled a story from when she was a student at the Southern Oregon University. While she was visiting a boyfriend in Chico, Calif., a friend of his celebrated his 21st birthday. Her boyfriend’s friend took 21 shots of alcohol, overdosing.
“He nearly died,” Wheeler said.
Jeremy Crandall, a 21-year-old recent University graduate agreed that people endanger themselves drinking on their 21st birthdays.
“You’re expected to make it to 21 drinks in a night,” Crandall said. “It’s something that people have ingrained.”
Crandall said many people drink more that night than during any other night in their lives and that it is a stupid and dangerous tradition.
A solution, Crandall said, would be to abolish the 21-year-old drinking age.
Crandall said that when he came to the University he had not drank alcohol before. He began to experiment with alcohol, sometimes getting drunk, and, he said, the experience helped him get to know himself. He learned, he said, and had fun.
He said while problems exist with underage drinking, the problem lies with irresponsible people – not an irresponsible age.
Contact the news reporter at [email protected]