In her latest salvo against the alcohol industry, Surgeon General Antonia Novello released two reports last week indicating that teenagers who drink are more likely to commit crimes or to be victims of crimes and accidents.
In her eighth and ninth reports on the use of alcohol and tobacco by teenagers since assuming her post, Dr. Novello charges that alcohol plays a large but unrecognized role in many crimes, accidents, and pregnancies, as well as in school dropout rates.
“First, the teenager takes a drink, then another, and finally the drink takes the teenager,’' she said, “and according to these reports, where it leads him or her is not a pretty sight.’'
Alcohol advertisements that portray young people engaging in water sports and other physical activities that become risky after even one or two drinks should be withdrawn by the industry, she said. Young people, she said, often fail to understand that mixing drinking and risk-taking is ill-advised.
According to the new reports, some of the “unrecognized consequences’’ of underage alcohol use include:
- Crime and victimization. Almost one-third of the teenagers who commit a serious crime have consumed alcohol just before committing the crime, the report said. And among college-age crime victims, the report said, one study found that 50 percent were under the influence of alcohol when they were assaulted.
Nearly 25 percent of 10th-graders, and one in eight 8th graders, are binge drinkers, federal surveys have found.
