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Underage drinking laws
Written by Administrator Friday, 15 August 2008 16:46 |
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Underage drinking laws are in place because underage drinking is an enormous issue for public health. Among children and adolescents alcohol is their chosen drug, and around 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die from car crashes, suicides, and homicides each year, all involving underage drinking.
A state law was put into play in the early 20th century that made access to alcohol restricted for young people. What these laws did was prohibit the sale of alcohol to those under the age of 21, but didn’t prohibit young people from directly consuming alcoholic beverages or prohibit adults from purchasing alcohol for young people under 21. Since then, underage drinking policies have gotten stricter in the United States.
Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 which is still in effect today. The law required that part of Federal highway funds are held back from any and all the States that didn’t prohibit young people under the age of 21 from buying or having alcoholic beverages in public. By 1988, all States passed the legislation, meeting the Federal funding requirements.
The United States Congress put The Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act (STOP) in place in 2006. This Act authorized $18 million in federal funds to fight underage drinking. This funding aided in the enhancement of an interagency committee to coordinate efforts by Federal agencies to address the issue of underage drinking.
In March of 2007, the U.S. Surgeon General at the time, Kenneth P. Moritsugu revealed a Call to Action on Underage Drinking. This was developed in collaboration with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Call to Action on Underage Drinking identified six goals that needed to be reached by the government, young people, parents, and school officials. The goals included: (1) engaging schools, parents, government, communities, social systems, and youth in a nationwide effort to prevent and reduce underage drinking and its consequences; (2) facilitating healthy adolescent development and preventing and lowering underage drinking; (3) promoting understanding of underage drinking across individual adolescent characteristics as well as across environmental, ethnic, cultural, and gender differences; (4) improving public health monitoring of underage drinking and its policies (5) conducting research on adolescent alcohol use and its consequences; (6) and promoting consistent policies across all levels of government.
Many States have adopted a wide variety of underage drinking laws, in addition to the minimum drinking age laws, to address the problem of underage drinking. Some of the laws apply to young people under 21 directly. On the other hand, some include minimum ages for both alcohol sellers and for those who serve alcoholic beverages, keg registration requirements, and penalties for hosting underage parties where alcoholic beverages are present.
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 17 September 2008 16:57 ) | |
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