The number one problem among young people today is underage drinking. More than 11 million drinkers in the U.S. are adolescents between the ages of 12 and 20. The average age to start drinking is 13. Of the young drinkers, 20% engage in binge drinking (consuming 5 or more drinks on a single occasion) and 6% were heavy drinkers (consuming 5 or more drinks on a single occasion on at least 5 different days). Out of these 11 million, 10.4 million have had at least one drink in the past month, of these 6.8 million were binge drinkers and 2.1 million were heavy drinkers. By the time these young people are high school seniors, more than 80% have used alcohol and approximately 62% have been drunk. This information is not surprising when more that 50% of the attempts to buy alcohol by minors were successful.
Due to underage drinking there are many more alcohol-related accidents than before. In 1998, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) completed a seven-year study on under age drinking. This study found that young people who begin drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism and twice as likely to develop alcohol abuse (a maladaptive drinking pattern that repeatedly causes life problems) than those who begin drinking after the age of 21. About 40% of these who begin drinking before age 15 become alcohol dependent at some later time compared to those 25% who begin drinking at age 17 and those who begin drinking at ages 21 and 22. Teens who start drinking before age 15 are more likely to have sex than those who have not. You can come to a conclusion that most sexual assaults and "date- rape cases happen while one or both people are under the influence.
Alcohol abuse can have life-threatening, life-altering, and life-ending consequences. There's a thin line between alcohol use and grade point averages. Students who drink are more likely to earn lower grades than those who don't drink.