Can We Cut Underage Drinking?

Proms, graduation parties and last-day-of-school bashes are rites of passage for youths making the transition into adulthood. These traditional end-of-the-year activities have also become an occasion for students to abuse alcohol.

KARIMA A. HAYNES asked two students and a youth alcohol awareness program coordinator about curtailing underage drinking at end-of-school celebrations.

BARBARA BLOOMBERG / Woodland Hills; assistant regional coordinator, California Friday Night Live Partnership, Los Angeles

There is no question that [underage drinking] can be curtailed but there has to be a lot of preparation and communication among teachers, parents and kids. If you create something really fabulous for these kids--and they understand that they can have fun without the booze--they will buy into it.

Our program, Friday Night Live, is a partnership between parents, schools and students. We empower youths to develop their own weekend activities where no booze is served. This program started in the 1980s, when there was a rash of drinking and driving among high school kids. They were getting drunk, driving and killing themselves or other people. It’s called Friday Night Live because they want to live through Friday night to see Saturday morning.

A lot of the students we work with admit that they know where to get booze, but they have chosen not to. It is a relief to know that they are mature and that they have gotten the message.

There will always be a small number of students who will want to live on the edge and think that getting wasted on alcohol or drugs is the way to go. Teens drink because it gives them a sense of freedom. They get high and it’s a good feeling for a few minutes.

But our program’s thrust is to teach them that there is an alternative; there is something they can do to have just as much fun without alcohol being involved.

The public is more concerned with prom night, but we are more concerned about underage drinking all year long.

JIMMY LINARES / 16, North Hollywood; junior, Polytechnic High School, Sun Valley

It is going to be hard to stop underage drinking because there is a lot of peer pressure among students. Some students pressure others to drink during prom and graduation parties so that they can have a good time. A lot of students think they can’t have a good time without drinking. They say, “We are not alcoholics, we just want to have fun. What’s wrong with that?”

But there are a lot of kids at school who look down on drinking at parties and prom because they have drinking problems within their families. I have a few friends who have had alcohol poisoning because they drank too much at house parties. One of my friends who got poisoned still drinks. . . . We had an alcohol-free prom, but people still drink at the after-parties.

SARAH BIRNS / 16, Tarzana; junior, Oakwood School, North Hollywood

No, I don’t think underage drinking can be curtailed. I think that teenagers have a sense of invincibility. There is a lot of glamour surrounding alcohol consumption; all of the celebrities are doing it. Teenagers see drinking as an older, mature and idealized thing in our society.

The fact that underage drinking is taboo encourages kids to do it all the more. Authorities and parents exacerbate the situation by telling kids not to do it. Their advice has a short-term effect on kids. Teens will probably see sobriety as a good thing, but only while influential people are pushing it. Once they are left on their own, they will find that among their friends, drinking is acceptable.

Proms and graduation parties inspire teenagers to drink. It is the end of the year, summer is on the way and the emphasis is on cutting loose. There are alcohol-free proms and graduation parties, but some kids are determined to get wasted, either in the limo on the way to the prom or at the party afterward.

I don’t think that parents’ warnings go in one ear and out the other; they definitely register. Parents encourage them to be safe and responsible by having a designated driver or sleeping over at friend’s house after the party.

But what stays in kids’ minds is that drinking is forbidden, and that makes it enticing to some kids.