Teenage drinking

Freeduck--

In this neck of the woods, the kids are always changed with underage drinking and DWI and sometimes vehicular homicide.

A teenage drunk who killed his two best friends (they were all drunk--and not wearing seatbelts) in October was picked up in may for DWI.

His friends explained that he feels so bad about the October accident that he has to drink to forget.

He's now 18.

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act limits the age for purchasing or public possession of alcoholic beverages.
But prohibiting drinking alcohol privately is state's affair.

I'm not entirely sure why it would be such a good idea to make what the parents did in this case a felony, as it appears Illinois is poised to do. The parents are, I'm sure, already facing some potentially catastrophic financial consequences of this action -- making them felons just compounds the financial and familial problems without providing any kind of solution.

That said, if the parents broke the law then they should be punished. If the law is too harsh or too lenient, then that's an argument to change the law.

I agree with Jes that having the kids police themselves is ludicrous. Most adults will say they can drive when they shouldn't. Expecting kids to be more self-aware than adults is ridiculous (and, in this case, criminal).

I'm not entirely sure why it would be such a good idea to make what the parents did in this case a felony, as it appears Illinois is poised to do. The parents are, I'm sure, already facing some potentially catastrophic financial consequences of this action -- making them felons just compounds the financial and familial problems without providing any kind of solution.

Different here as well: all (should know) that you can't drive after three, four beers. And those youth with a fresh driving licences aren't allowed to drive after alcohol consumption at all. (That, however, only since recently, after we got a lot of terribel accidents.)

High levels of drinking among adolescents are particularly troubling given recent evidence that, in contrast to long-held assumptions, a tremendous amount of structural and functional brain development takes place during the teenage years (Geidd et al., 1999; for review see Spear, 2000;2002). Evidence is accruing that alcohol, and perhaps other drugs, impact brain function and behavior differently during adolescence than during adulthood. Further, preliminary data suggest that adolescents might be more vulnerable than adults to impairments following repeated alcohol exposure. Source

Peers stood by as teens veered toward tragedy
Mary Schmich
7:00 AM CDT, July 25, 2007

I'd bet that there was one teenager in the Hutsells' basement that night who knew that something wrong was going on, who feared that something bad was going to happen, who wanted to speak up.

There was one teenager, at least one, who wanted to say, "Hey, guys, maybe you shouldn't drink so much." Or "Hey, don't get in the car with that guy, he's drunk." Or "Mr. and Mrs. Hutsell, maybe you should come downstairs and talk to these guys, like, seriously?"

You can blame the parents -- and a jury just did -- for the homecoming-night party in October that ended when two 18-year-olds died. The partygoers drank, they drove and their car slammed into a tree barely a block from Jeffrey and Sara Hutsells' Deerfield home.
It was shocking. And only too normal. Funerals for teenagers who die while driving drunk are as all-American as football.

I remember that funeral when I was in high school. Don't you? Funerals of young drunken drivers are practically a teenage rite of passage.

And then the parties carry on.

What makes this case different is that the parents could go to jail for letting teenagers drink in their home, a verdict that to some people seems both just and useful: Parents, don't let this be you!

But blaming the parents doesn't solve the problem. Punishing parents who allow a teenage drinking party on their property won't change much except the location of the parties -- unless some other things change too.

One thing that needs to change is the teenagers themselves. Not just the ones who drink too much but the ones who stand by, unable to summon the courage to speak up when they sense danger.

I feel sure those teenagers exist, as much today as they did back when I was one of them.

In high school, I wanted to be a regular girl, not one of the eggheads or the goody-goodies, so I went to parties, often after football games. Occasionally they were at someone's house, but more often they were out in an open patch of nighttime desert -- this was Phoenix -- where you could build a fire and freely scatter beer cans. Those parties were called "boondockers."

I'd go and then just stand around, arms crossed, congealed by an uneasiness I couldn't name, while many other people drank, some until they slurred and staggered and threw up. Sometimes I drove home with those people.

I never drank, not in those days. I never openly objected to the drinking either. I just watched, knowing something wasn't right.

In those scenes as I remember them, I'm glaring, as if one or two of the beer guzzlers might feel my disapproval and shape up. In reality I probably didn't glare. Glaring would have been bolder than I was and made me seem prissier than I wanted to be.

But sitting on the "L" the other day reading about the Hutsells, I had a flash of one party in particular, at a friend's house when his parents were away. All the guys and some of the girls were drunk. Some very bad things were happening.

A drunken boy I generally respected squatted down next to me.

"I'm sorry," he said. He said he hated having me see him that way. He said his friend did too.

I shrugged but felt a flicker of realization: Maybe my opinion mattered to a couple of people. Maybe my values did.

In every high school, in every generation, there will be the kids who drink to the edge of danger, and then into oblivion. And there will be others who know they should speak up but don't.

Reading about the party at the Hutsells made me wish I'd been braver in high school. It made me wish more parents would encourage that kind of courage in their kids.

When we talk about peer pressure it's usually something negative. Peer pressure to drink, do drugs, have sex, shut up. But peer pressure can work the other way.

Speaking up doesn't have to be the same as being preachy. If someone at the Hutsells' party had spoken up, there's a chance that the rest of us would never have known there was a party.

Funerals for teenagers who die while driving drunk are as all-American as football.

I was really shocked by this:

Quote:

Funerals for teenagers who die while driving drunk are as all-American as football.

There has been another deadly crash with youth last night, but not related to alcohol or excessive speed, it is said.

Walter Hinteler wrote:

I was really shocked by this:

Quote:

Funerals for teenagers who die while driving drunk are as all-American as football.

While lurking in this thread, it struck me that statements like these usually bolster concerns about underage drinking. Why aren't they bolstering concerns about underage driving? Why not raise the legal driving age in America? Here in Europe, it stands at 18 years in most of our countries -- and our teenagers function anyway.

While lurking in this thread, it struck me that statements like these usually bolster concerns about underage drinking. Why aren't they bolstering concerns about underage driving? Why not raise the legal driving age in America? Here in Europe, it stands at 18 years in most of our countries -- and our teenagers function anyway.

Law suits are covered by insurance.

The trial has been the topic of discussion in every grocery aisle, social gathering, and kitchen table. What are your thoughts? Should parents be held responsible if teens drink in their homes (they did not provide the alcohol and claimed they were unaware that anyone was drinking)? An amended underage drinking law has been passed by both the IL House and Senate making it a Class IV felony for parents to allow underage drinking in their home or provide access to the home for that purpose. The Bill is awaiting the governor's signature.

Most importantly -- and I know this sounds cold-hearted -- I think the story starting your initial post is an anecdote. A statistic of sample size one; or maybe five, or ten, or however many teenagers were involved. No sound public policy will ever come of sample-size-one-statistics. As a statistically literate person, you know that well.

So instead of answering your question, I would throw a question of my own back at you: How many deaths of the kind you describe does teenage drinking actually cause per year? Once I know that, I may be able to weigh the likely consequences of parents policing their children's alcohol intake against the loss of every family's privacy from the proposed legislation. But one story, however dramatic, and however close it has hit to your home, doesn't justify the government turning parents into alcohol cops.

Every day, three teens die from drinking and driving. At least six more youth under 21 die each day of nondriving alcohol-related causes, such as homicide, suicide, and drowning.