Binge-drinking rates decline among young

Federal study looks at boozing by minors

Underage drinking and bingedrinking rates among young people are on the decline nationwide, a new government study finds.

A report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released Thursday found underage drinking among residents ages 12 to 20 dropped 6.1%. Underage binge drinking decreased 5.1%.

The survey examined the years 2002 to 2013. In the study’s final year, 22.7% of young people reported that they had an alcoholic drink in the last 30 days.

“While we’re always very happy about these declines, we can’t lose sight of the fact that we have approximately 9 million underage drinkers in the country,” said Rich Lucey, special assistant to the director at SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse.

About 14.2% of underage people reported they had engaged in binge drinking — defined as having five or more drinks on the same occasion — in the last 30 days. That percentage is down from just under 20% in 2002.

For those ages 18 to 20, however, the rate of binge drinking has stayed between 39% and 44% for the past two decades, Lucey said.

“We as a country could all do a much better job … to really start to drive those numbers down because I don’t think any of us are comfortable with an alarmingly high rate of binge drinking among that population, especially when we know the consequences related to it,” Lucey said.

The report used data from the National Survey for Drug Use and Health, which measures drinking rates among those 12 and older.

The survey found 59.4% of the college-age population reported drinking in the last 30 days.

Alcohol also still remains the primary drug used by youth with 22.7% reporting they drink, compared to 16.9% who said they use tobacco and 13.6% who said they use illicit drugs.

Lucey attributed the drop to an increased focus on reducing underage drinking at the federal, state and local levels over the past 10 years. But, he said there’s still room for improvement.

“Parents are the No. 1 influencer of young people that age,” he said. “We need to help them have those difficult conversations.”