Aaron Hulkonen

Messenger Staff Writer

Alcohol among youth has been a big problem for awhile now. More specifically student drinking is a big problem with just about every high school. Statistics are that by 18, 87.6% of people have tried alcohol, and 71% reported that they drank in the past year. If you start drinking alcohol around the age of 15 your 15 times more likely to develop an alcohol dependency or abuse of alcohol.

The reason that alcohol is so easy to get is because how abundant it is. Just about every home has some alcohol and sometimes you’ll even be able to get it from a friends parents. The problem is just about anyone has connections to alcohol and its the easiest to consume among the drugs. Another problem is that students get peer pressured from other students to do things they wouldn’t do on their own, such as alcohol. In fact that is how many people start drinking.

“I usually get it from some of my friends who have connections with someone who can buy it” said a student from Placer High School.

“I was with a guy that I liked, and I thought that he thought that I would be lame if I didn’t drink with him, so I drank with him” said a student from Placer High School.

“I was with a group of friends at a party, and they started drinking, so I drank with them” said another student from Placer High School.

Alcohol is the most used drug by people that are under the age of 21 and there are over 4,300 deaths per year related to alcohol. Over 11% of alcohol consumed in the U.S is by minors, mostly from binge drinking. In the past month 8% of students that consume alcohol have driven with someone who was also under the influence. It is also stated that half of 10th grades consume alcohol on a regular basis.

Everyday more than 300,000 people drive drunk, but fewer than 4,000 of them get arrested for it. Every 53 minutes someone dies because of a drunk driver, and every 2 minutes someone is injured do to drunk driving. In America there is on average 28 deaths a day do to drunk driving. Before consuming alcohol make sure you’re in a safe environment and you have a place to stay or someone to call if there is an emergency.