By Brian Carnell

Saturday, March 16, 2002

Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse made headlines across the country in February with its report claiming that under-age drinkers consumed 25 percent of the alcohol in the United States. That initial flourish of coverage turned into a bad hangover for the Center when it turned out the actually figure was about 11 percent.

The study was based on government data that the Center improperly analyzed. Since it is difficult to obtain enough surveys from younger people, the government data oversamples them to improve the validity of this data. So, even though underaged people make up only 20 percent of the population, they make up 40 percent of those surveyed by the government.

When it released its report, the Center never adjusted the statistics for oversampling of young people, leading it to wildly overstate their alcohol consumption.

Oddly enough, although the Center is arguing about the need to reduce teenage drinking, it's legitimate findings highlight one of the problems with the outright ban on drinking for under 21 -- it probably promotes binge drinking. According to a New York Times story on the study, "While teenagers drink less frequently than adults, they tend to drink larger, more dangerous amounts at one time."

It would be interesting to compare binge drinking among teenagers before and after the introduction of the 21-year-old drinking age.

Source:

Disturbing finding on young drinkers prove to be wrong. Tamara Lewin, The New York Times, February 27, 2002.

Discuss (0 Replies) | Printer Friendly