<p>About the “popular” kids: When D.D started middle school she rapidly developed a large circle of friends who all seemed to get along famously with her. She was having a blast. </p>
<p>We were remarked to her that it appeared she was popular in school, she immediately made a face and said “No way. Nobody likes the popular girls”! I guess the word has a different meaning nowadays.</p>
<p>What the hell is a “supervised” drinking party. I’ve never been to one of those.</p>
<p>Well, it depends what you consider “risk”:</p>
<p>[College</a> Students at Risk During Alcohol-Related Blackouts](<a href=“http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/college/a/blduke030214.htm]College”>How Heavy Alcohol Use Damages Memory Function)</p>
<p>Nearly three-fourths of all respondents (74.2 percent) reported consuming alcohol in the two-week period prior to the survey. Of those, nearly one in 10 (9.4 percent) had experienced at least one blackout during that same time period, while 40 percent reported having experienced at least once during the previous year.</p>
<p>“This study shows that the common assumption that blackouts only happen to alcoholics is wrong,” said Aaron White, Ph.D., assistant research professor of psychiatry at Duke and lead author of the study. “It is very possible for social drinkers, such as the students we surveyed, to experience blackouts if they overdo their consumption of alcohol. The study suggests that college students are much more familiar with blackouts than many people, including us, assumed.”
Frequency of Blackouts</p>
<p>Using an e-mail survey, the researchers collected data from 772 undergraduate college students at Duke University during the spring 2001 semester. The student group surveyed was evenly divided among freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, and between males and females. All students included in the survey were aged 18 years or older.</p>
<p>The survey was a 19-point questionnaire designed to acquire information on demographics, drinking habits, family history of problems with alcohol, frequency of blackouts and the types of events the students later learned they had participated in during the blackout episode.</p>
<p>The researchers acknowledge that while they are pleased with the survey response and sample size, they only examined students from one university. While they expect that the sample of Duke students is likely representative of a broad cross-section of American college students, they stress that larger studies need to be completed before statements can be made about blackouts among college students as a whole. </p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Now a 40% blackout rate might not seem like a lot to you. So try this one on:</p>
<p>[College</a> Drinking: A Snapshot of Annual High-Risk College Drinking Consequences](<a href=“http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/StatsSummaries/snapshot.aspx]College”>http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/StatsSummaries/snapshot.aspx)</p>
<p>They definitely do take place. My D graduated from a parochial prep school. Some of the parents at the school were known to have drinking parties at their homes. They figured it was fine, since they would take the kids’ keys (boys & girls all spent the night). The school’s president heard about one such party and called the parents. The president told us about his conversation (he didn’t name the parents … he just relayed the conversation). Apparently, after he & the dad talked and it appeared the dad saw no problem with it … the president expressed how it went against everything the school was trying to teach the kids … and the dad told him, “You run your g%&d*#%(& school and I’ll run my home.”</p>
<p>Yes, these would be “supervised.” By adults … well, that could be debated.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, recently there have been a few cases in Massachusetts where this happened… the parents were JAILED and charged with providing alcohol to minors. </p>
<p>Apparently, teens aren’t the only ones who sometimes use poor judgement…</p>
<p>Brain damage risks
e-mail story | print story
AMA report on alcohol’s adverse effects on the brains of children, adolescents and college students</p>
<p>What is the summary report?
Harmful Consequences of Alcohol Use on the Brains of Children, Adolescents, and College Students (PDF, 69KB) is a compilation and summary of two decades of comprehensive research on how alcohol affects the brains of youth. The report’s aggregation of extensive scientific and medical information reveals just how harmful drinking is to the developing brain and serves as a wakeup call to parents, physicians, elected officials, law enforcement, purveyors of alcohol including the alcohol industry and young drinkers themselves.</p>
<p>Why is this report important?
The average age of a child’s first drink is now 12, and nearly 20 percent of 12 to 20 year-olds are considered binge drinkers. While many believe that underage drinking is an inevitable “rite of passage” that adolescents can easily recover from because their bodies are more resilient, the opposite is true.</p>
<p>The adolescent brain
The brain goes through dynamic change during adolescence, and alcohol can seriously damage long- and short-term growth processes. Frontal lobe development and the refinement of pathways and connections continue until age 16, and a high rate of energy is used as the brain matures until age 20. Damage from alcohol at this time can be long-term and irreversible. In addition, short-term or moderate drinking impairs learning and memory far more in youth than adults. Adolescents need only drink half as much to suffer the same negative effects.</p>
<p>Drinkers vs. non-drinkers: research findings</p>
<p>Adolescent drinkers scored worse than non-users on vocabulary, general information, memory, memory retrieval and at least three other tests
Verbal and nonverbal information recall was most heavily affected, with a 10 percent performance decrease in alcohol users
Significant neuropsychological deficits exist in early to middle adolescents (ages 15 and 16) with histories of extensive alcohol use
Adolescent drinkers perform worse in school, are more likely to fall behind and have an increased risk of social problems, depression, suicidal thoughts and violence
Alcohol affects the sleep cycle, resulting in impaired learning and memory as well as disrupted release of hormones necessary for growth and maturation
Alcohol use increases risk of stroke among young drinkers
Adverse effects of alcohol on the brain: research findings
Youth who drink can have a significant reduction in learning and memory, and teen alcohol users are most susceptible to damaging two key brain areas that are undergoing dramatic changes in adolescence:</p>
<p>The hippocampus handles many types of memory and learning and suffers from the worst alcohol-related brain damage in teens. Those who had been drinking more and for longer had significantly smaller hippocampi (10 percent).
The prefrontal area (behind the forehead) undergoes the most change during adolescence. Researchers found that adolescent drinking could cause severe changes in this area and others, which play an important role in forming adult personality and behavior and is often called the CEO of the brain.
Lasting implications
Compared to students who drink moderately or not at all, frequent drinkers may never be able to catch up in adulthood, since alcohol inhibits systems crucial for storing new information as long-term memories and makes it difficult to immediately remember what was just learned.</p>
<p>Additionally, those who binge once a week or increase their drinking from age 18 to 24 may have problems attaining the goals of young adulthoodmarriage, educational attainment, employment, and financial independence. And rather than “outgrowing” alcohol use, young abusers are significantly more likely to have drinking problems as adults.</p>
<p>What can be done to stop this epidemic?
The AMA advocates numerous ways to combat this growing epidemic, including:</p>
<p>Reducing access to alcohol for children and youth
Reducing sales and provision of alcohol to children and youth
Increasing enforcement of underage drinking laws
Providing more education about the harmful effects of alcohol abuse
Reducing the demand for alcohol and the normalization of alcohol use by children and youth
A major source of the normalization of alcohol use by children and youth is alcohol advertising. Television networks and cable stations have profited tremendously from the alcohol industry’s aggressive marketing to underage drinkers. These ads are proven to heavily influence the normalization and glamorization of drinking in the minds of children, and television has continued to endanger the health of these young viewers in spite of such findings.</p>
<p>With these new findings of the adverse effects of alcohol on the brain of children and adolescents, the AMA calls on cable TV and the TV networks to pledge not to run alcohol ads targeted at underage youth. This means no alcohol ads before 10 p.m., none on shows with 15 percent or more underage viewers and no commercials with cartoons, mascots or other youth-focused images.</p>
<p>What can I do?
Please visit our Web site to learn 10 things you can do to combat underage drinking as well as to send an e-mail or a fax to the TV networks and cable TV about your concerns about advertising alcohol to youth. </p>
<p>[AMA</a> (Alcohol) Brain damage risks](<a href=“http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/9416.html]AMA”>http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/9416.html)</p>
<p>My D and her BF went out to dinner Friday night to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and the waitress asked them if they would like cocktails before she took their meal order. D is 15 and her BF is 17! D was very surprised, as she doesn’t look any older than she is (16 or 17 would be pushing it). Her BF does look a bit older, but definitely not 21! I’m sure that if her BF wasn’t driving that night, he would have taken advantage of that mistake - but luckily, he is very strict about not drinking and driving. Stuff like that happened when I was a teenager, but then the drinking age was only 18, so it was more understandable.</p>
<p>Yes, Toblin, there sure are supervised drinking parties. (The halfwit in our neck of the woods who had a keg party for 7th grade son comes to mind) Hard to tow the line with “fun Dads” like that around!</p>
<p>This is from our local paper: [Zetsche’s</a> wife focus of teen booze scandal - 08/16/05](<a href=“Detroit Local News - Michigan News - Breaking News - detroitnews.com”>Detroit Local News - Michigan News - Breaking News - detroitnews.com). This is an article about the wife of Daimler Chrysler’s president, who was cited for serving minors. It was big news around here a couple years ago.</p>
<p>Just a question:</p>
<p>Would you all feel having a party at which alcohol was served to 18 year-olds was wrong in a country where the drinking age was 18? Or is all this outrage merely based on the 25 year-old higher drinking age?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the drinking age were 18 I would have no problem with 18-year-olds drinking at a supervised party at my house. But the drinking age is not 18, it is 21. That being said I have a moral and legal responsbility as a parent to make sure the law is respected in my home. </p>
<p>When my wife and I host parties for our friends we also make sure to the greatest extent possible that our friends do not drive after drinking excessively at our home. We have called friends’ children to drive their parents home, had friends sleep on our couch, etc. rather than have them get in a vehicle intoxicated.</p>
<p>We have also had our children come pick us up from various functions, in fact we have notified them well in advance that their was a distinct possibility that we would need them to pick us up rather than run the risk of a DWI or even worse an alcohol-related accident.</p>
<p>1of42, the law is the law. As parents, we are responsible for upholding the law as it relates to alcohol. When I was in college, the drinking age was 18. My parents let me have parties when I was home on break. In that case, though, everyone was able to drink legally. It’s fine to disagree with the drinking age being 21 … but it’s not fine to ignore the law just because you disagree with it.</p>
<p>Right. My point was this: if everyone’s real problem is that it’s the law, why all of this constant refrain of disapproval about all the horrible consequences that these parties have?</p>
<p>If the real issue is that it is illegal, I would’ve expected a litany of responses along the lines of “it’s illegal, therefore I won’t do it”, without all the justification of why it’s so dangerous.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just me, but I see a lot of unconscious justification of the drinking age, suggesting to me that a lot of people think it’s a bit arbitrary.</p>
<p>kelsmom: I disagree with that. While disobeying the drinking age is a bit different from other incidents of the past century, I consider civil disobedience of a law that one considers arbitrary, capricious and stupid to be acceptable. And though I’m sure I’ll get some flak for this: you probably don’t disagree with me. You just don’t happen to think that civil disobedience of this law is unjustified. If I pointed you to… say… segregation laws of times past, you’d probably agree with me that disobeying them was the right thing to do.</p>
<p>I happen to think that drinking age (and drug prohibition, for that matter) laws are laws that it is moral to disobey, but that’s a separate discussion and YMMV. Thankfully, we don’t have such a ridiculous drinking age in Canada, so this issue doesn’t have to be dealt with.</p>
<p>mini: Still waiting on those statistics about drinking-related health outcomes in Ontario vs. America. And yes, I tried to find them myself. Couldn’t.</p>
<p>You have a right to do whatever you want to do, but in doing so, you will surely have to deal with whatever consequences arise from your disobedience of the law. As a PARENT, though, it is irresponsible to ignore the law where it concerns our minor children … and it is downright unacceptable to break the law where it involves other people’s children. </p>
<p>I do not think that one can fairly equate ignoring laws involving segregation with ignoring laws involving drinking. The former is a moral issue; the latter is a “pleasure” issue. It won’t HURT anyone to wait until 21 to drink.</p>
<p>Also, my original post was referencing teenage like High School kids. I wasn’t clear about that, sorry. These kids I was referring to were 16, Juniors. Anyway, yes, still illegal.</p>
<p>“mini: Still waiting on those statistics about drinking-related health outcomes in Ontario vs. America. And yes, I tried to find them myself. Couldn’t.”</p>
<p>Liver Cancer/Cirrhosis data are readily available from your health ministry, or from the Canadian Liver Foundation Epidemiology Unit, Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A8, Canada. General information on alcohol and drug-related health outcomes can be found at [CCSA</a> - General Health & Addiction Statistics](<a href=“http://www.ccsa.ca/CCSA/EN/Statistics/GeneralHealthAndAddictionsStatistics.htm]CCSA”>http://www.ccsa.ca/CCSA/EN/Statistics/GeneralHealthAndAddictionsStatistics.htm) Note that general prevalence data from surveys conducted in Canada generally start at age 15 (in the U.S., the National Survey on Drug Use and Health starts at age 12.)</p>
<p>I have already posted a link to the rate of liver cancer and cirrhosis-related deaths in the U.S. and Washington State.</p>
<p>Mini, you’re taking the fun out of my nightly 1.5 glasses of chardonnay! (only kidding. thanks for the stats)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That may be true, but it’s only your opinion that there is a substantive difference between the two. It is an opinion I happen to sort of agree with, but that was my point - you don’t disagree with civil disobedience when you think it’s justified, you just don’t think it’s justified in this case.</p>
<p>It’s a bit inane to say being allowed to drink is just a “pleasure” issue. Yes, it is only immoral to infringe on what I would consider an adult’s civil right insofar as it is stripping them of pleasure. It won’t hurt anyone (in any really legitimate way) to wait until 21. But hey, it didn’t really HURT Rosa Parks to have to sit at the back of bus… and you see my point. No, I’m not really arguing moral equivalence, but just because someone is not strictly HURT by a law does not mean it is not a moral issue.</p>
<p>mini: Traversing statistics here is something you are clearly more suited to do, and have obviously already done in some form or another. Again, you made an assertion that rates of alcohol-related disease were higher in Ontario. Please either provide the numbers that you are using to come to that conclusion (not instructions as to how I might possible find them), or retract the argument.</p>
<p>Eek, 1of42! We certainly differ in our interpretation of what “hurts” people. I don’t want to debate this particular issue, since it is off-topic … but I definitely must declare my belief that Rosa Parks was indeed hurt by being made to sit in the back of the bus!!!</p>
<p>I agree, she was certainly hurt. But that’s my point - we’re both running on opinion. Your opinion happens to be that her civil disobedience was justified and laudable, but civil disobedience of drinking laws is not. I’m saying that I think both are justified, and that your difference of opinion with me is merely that - opinion, not impartial fact. :)</p>