Underage drinking rate still high
By Amy Geiszler-Jones
Kansas youths apparently aren’t getting the message about underage drinking and its consequences, and some adults don’t understand how serious the problem has gotten, according to an assessment done by two Wichita State researchers.
With a grant provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Kansas Department of Transportation contracted Elsie Shore, a psychology professor who has done several alcohol-related studies, and Jim Salt, a doctoral student, to do an assessment of underage drinking in Kansas.
"The idea was to get a sense of the scope of the problem specifically in Kansas and also nationally, in terms of demographics and the way the problem is being addressed so far with prevention and enforcement," says Shore.
What they found – based on existing surveys, supplemented with focus group and other interviews they conducted during the past year – was that 83 percent of Kansas youth have tried alcohol by the time they are high school seniors. While the number is high, Shore and Salt point out, it has decreased since 1995 and is similar to the national average of 80 percent.
Salt and Shore also found that on average two-thirds of Kansas high school students drank alcohol in the past year, and approximately 38 percent of sixth- through 12th graders have taken a drink in the past month.
"What’s striking is that kids are drinking at a pretty young age, and they are drinking high-content alcohol," says Shore. Also troubling is that "they’re drinking it very quickly, and they’re drinking a lot."
But numbers tell only part of the story.
"In general, youth underperceive the risks associated with underage drinking," Shore and Salt’s report said. Those risks include not only alcohol-related crashes, but the development of alcohol problems, injuries related to falls and other accidents, violence, vandalism and date rape.
And some adults aren’t getting that message either. "There appears to be a lack of awareness among adults about the consequences of underage drinking other than those related to drinking and driving," the report said.
Some adults fail to understand that youth are drinking at an earlier age and that they are drinking in such high-risk fashion with more than just a six-pack of beer being split among a group of teens.
When they conducted focus group research in five Kansas counties and interviewed community officials and residents, "we also encountered issues of lack of public support for underage drinking enforcement," Salt says. "We heard about parents who will call up police, call up city council members, call up the mayor when the police may have arrested their child for underage drinking, asking ‘Don’t you have something better to do? Shouldn’t you be out catching real criminals?’ That’s real problematic, especially in small communities, and can create an unpleasant environment for people to do their jobs."
The report recommends targeting prevention efforts not only at youth, but at parents and community members, as well.
In the enforcement area, "we found that Kansas has a pretty good set of laws related to underage drinking, with a few gaps, but the issue seems to be more on what happens after that," says Salt. "There’s a lot of variability in enforcement, some of that due to resources." For instance, sometimes the police may make more underage drinking arrests, but the cases aren’t being prosecuted because of caseloads in the prosecutor’s office. In some areas of the state, there appears to be a need for training police, prosecutors and judges on underage drinking issues, the report recommends.
Overall, while the issue is multi-faceted, Kansas appears to be on the right track with the laws and prevention efforts already in place, Salt and Shore say. The two say the recent establishment of the Governor’s Substance Abuse Prevention Council, comprising several state agencies, that will coordinate the state’s efforts is an important one and can enhance efforts to curb underage drinking, as well.
According to the OJJDP, in 1996 underage drinking and its associated problems cost the United States $52.8 billion in emergency response, medical care, criminal justice, substance abuse treatment and prevention, lost productivity, property damage, and pain and suffering. The costs in Kansas are estimated to be more than $388 million, Shore and Salt’s report said.
