From Deseret News archives:
Keep young people sober
As a story in this newspaper reported earlier this week, 22 percent of students in Utah said they drank alcohol in the month prior to being surveyed, compared with 67.9 percent nationally. Binge drinking involves 40.1 percent of college students nationwide, but only 5.2 percent here.
Those are impressive statistics. They mean a lot of public and private strategies have gotten a foothold here. Mostly, they mean most students here, whether because of religious training or for health reasons, have learned they don't need alcohol to enjoy themselves. But about 1 in 5 Utah students still hasn't gotten the message.
Some lawmakers at a Higher Education Legislative Task Force meeting recently said that isn't good enough. They're right.
Underage drinking is no longer just a moral debate. Research suggests that alcohol causes significantly more damage to the developing brain than previously thought, and most human brains need 21 years or more before they are considered adult brains. People who consume alcohol before that time have a much higher risk of becoming dependent or of damaging their ability to learn in ways that are irreversible.
Governments can help get this word out, and they have been making efforts. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., for example, has launched a campaign around the Web site parentsempowered
.org. That site presents a lot of information about alcohol's effects on young minds.
But no government program can compensate for what parents can teach in their own homes. If parents, themselves, drink, they need to explain to their children why it is not OK for people under 21 to do so. Especially, they need to teach that binge drinking is never good at any age. If parents don't drink, they need to teach their children why.
Otherwise, advertisers, popular media and a host of others will be more than glad to teach them something different.
