STOP Underage Drinking Act Going to President’s Desk

Result of collaboration between brewers, distributors, advocacy groups.

The STOP Underage Drinking Act, aimed at curbing illegal, was approved by both chambers of Congress this week and is awaiting the president’s signature.

Both Beer Business Daily (subscription required) and Beer Marketer’s Insights (subscription required) cite a high level of collaboration between wholesalers and suppliers, as well as advocates, in getting the bill passed in a lame-duck session –an unusual feat.

Says Nehl Horton, Senior Vice President-Communications and Government Affairs: “Collaboration is the key to leveraging the combined resources of the beer industry to achieve things that are good for all of us. This is an opportunity we ought to build off of.”

Studies Show Underage Drinking Receding

Drinking by high school students drops to 15-year low.

The problem of illegal underage drinking is decreasing – not, as advocacy groups suggest, increasing – in the United States, recent government studies suggest.

Recent studies show fewer youth are drinking. Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show improvement with the problem of drunk driving. Highlights from the studies can be found here and here.

Alcohol use among eighth and 10th graders declined in 2005 to its lowest level since tracking began in 1991, according to the University of Michigan “Monitoring the Future” study, which is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Drinking by high school seniors actually fell to its lowest level since tracking began in 1975, according to the study.

The latest “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also showed signs that efforts to curb illegal underage drinking are working. The number of high school students who consumed at least one drink of alcohol in the past 30 days fell to 43.3 percent in 2005, its lowest level since tracking began in 1991 – and a 15 percent decline since that year.

The number of high school students who drank five or more drinks in a row in the past 30 days fell to their lowest point since it was first monitored in 1991.

Meanwhile, the NHTSA reported the number of fatalities in teen drunk-driving crashes fell 11 percent between 2000 and 2004. They were down 64 percent from 1982. Total fatalities in drunk-driving crashes dropped 3 percent between 2000 and 2004 and declined 39 percent from 1982.