The latest news on extreme binge drinking is in. Apparently, a new study of Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey data from 2005-2011 found that about one in ten high school seniors have engaged in "extreme" drinking, defined as 10 or more drinks in the same occasion at least once in the past two weeks. And about one in twenty have consumed 15+ drinks (!) in the same timeframe. Rates were highest in the Midwest and in rural areas (i.e. so-called "blue-collar America"), and more common among males than females. We have already noted similar findings four years ago.
While clearly only a small minority in engaging in such truly dangerous drinking, it is not a trivial fraction either, and
is probably an underestimate. And, most relevant to the drinking age
debate, these numbers have not changed significantly since MTF
began following them in 2005, despite ever-intensifying enforcement of the 21 drinking age and its ancillary laws. So recent
declines in prevalence of 5+ drinks in a row appear to be somewhat
misleading, especially since underage drinkers tend to undercount their
drinks. Lying (or exaggerating or minimizing) is also fairly common in teen drug and alcohol surveys.
For what it's worth, according to the same surveys about 25% of seniors and
18% of sophomores admit to having had 5+ in a row in the past two weeks,
and these numbers are leveling off after a decade-and-a-half-long decline. It
seems that fewer teens are drinking, but the more they do when they
do. That may explain why in emergency rooms in several cities across
the country, admissions related to teen binge drinking increased in recent years in spite of surveys showing that teen drinking and "binge" drinking are both at record lows.
Tracking this highly dangerous behavior is long overdue. We already know that among
college freshmen, 20% of males and 8% of females have done extreme
drinking (10+ males, 8+ females) in the past two weeks. But that was a
one-semester snapshot in the fall of 2003, with no other years for
comparison. The rate of "binge" drinking (using the 5/4 definition) in
the past two weeks was 41% for males and 34% for females, which does
jibe well with known statistics (roughly 40%) that use that definition.
But one must wonder if there is even any relationship at all between
the rates of drinking, "binge" drinking, and "extreme" drinking. And it is an important distinction to draw, as studies show that a higher cutoff (e.g. 7/6 or 8/6) has better predictive value for the more serious alcohol-related problems than the rather unscientific 5/4 definition.
Indeed, from 1993 to 2005, the percentage of
college students who "binge" drank (5/4 definition) in the past two
weeks has not changed a whole lot, but the percentage who do so three
more times in the past two weeks ("frequent binging") has gone up
significantly. And since the aforementioned study found that extreme
drinking was strongly correlated with frequent "binging," the former
most likely rose as well. Further evidence comes from another study
that found that the number of alcohol poisoning deaths (a good indicator
of truly dangerous drinking) among college students nearly tripled from
1998 to 2005.
Bottom line: when you criminalize normative drinking, you inevitably
normalize truly dangerous drinking. We saw the same thing during
Prohibition. And we all pay a heavy price for it.