• Alcohol is the drug of choice for youth in Mecklenburg County. Lifetime use of alcohol among 6-12^th graders is 34.8%, compared to 24.9% for cigarettes, 17.1% for marijuana, and 1% for crack/cocaine. Current use for alcohol is 14.9% compared to 7.3% for marijuana, 10.7% for cigarettes, and 0.3% for crack/cocaine.¹

• Lifetime use of alcohol was 28.5% among 8^th graders, 54% among 10^th graders and 65.5% among 12^th graders.¹
   
• 12% of high school students engaged in binge drinking (defined as four drinks for females and five for males in one drinking session) in the last 30 days.¹
   
• 35% of youth who drink got alcohol from friends; 15.8% were given alcohol by parents and 14% took it from home; only 3.6% bought the alcohol themselves.¹
   
• The more unexcused absences, the greater the likelihood that students consumed alcohol in the last 30 days.¹
   
• 1,318 persons under 21 were charged with driving after consuming in fiscal year 2004/2005

State and National

• Underage drinking costs the citizens of North Carolina $1.3 billion in 2001 – a cost of $1705 for each youth in the state. North Carolina ranks 44^th highest among the 50 states for the cost per youth of underage drinking.²
   
• The earlier children start drinking, the higher risk they run for alcohol dependence later in life. In fact, young people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence and are two and a half times more likely to become abusers of alcohol than those who begin drinking at age 21.³
   
• Alcohol often plays a role in the three leading causes of deaths of teenagers and young adults: unintentional injuries, homicides and suicides^4,5
   
• Alcohol kills 6.5 times as many young people as all illicit drugs combined.
   
• The prevalence and toll of underage drinking is widely underestimated. Despite the magnitude of the problem, the federal government invests 25 times less in underage drinking prevention ($71.1 million in FY 2000) than on prevention of illegal drug use ($1.8 billion in FY 2000).
   
• Despite minimum purchase laws, underage drinkers consume as much as 20 percent of all alcohol – mostly beer – sold in the U.S.
   
• Teenagers whose parents talk to them about the dangers of drugs are 42% less likely to use drugs than those whose parents don't, yet only 1 in 4 teens report having these conversations.

¹ Substance Abuse Prevention Services. 2004 Student Drug Survey Results. Available online at http://www.preventionservices.org/press/index.html
² Underage Drinking in North Carolina: The Facts. The International Institute for Alcohol Awareness (IIAA), a project of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE).
³ Grant, B.F.,  &  Dawson, D.A. (1997). Age at onset of alcohol use and its association with DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence: Results from the National Logitudinal Alcohol Epidemiological Survey. Journal of Substance Abuse 9:103-110
⁴ Arias E, Anderson RN, Kung HC, Murphy SL, Kochanek KS. Deaths: final data for 2001. National Vital Statistics Report 2003; 52(3): 1-100
⁵ Mokhdad A, Marks JS, Stroup DF, Gerberding JL. Actual causes of death in the US. JAMA 2004; 291(10): 1263-4.