Underage drinking is costly, requiring education and compliance

To The Citizens of Pinal County:

The following information is attributed to the Underage Drinking Enforcement and Training Center (UDETC). The UDETC is a research and training center established by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (within the U.S. Department of Justice) to support its Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws Program.

According to the UDETC, in 2005 underage drinking cost American taxpayers about $60.3 billion in medical care, work loss and pain and suffering associated with the multiple problems resulting from the use of alcohol by youth.

What this translates to is a cost of $2,094 per year for each youth in the nation. Excluding pain and suffering, underage drinking through medical care and loss of work costs employers about $21.1 billion each year. Youth violence and traffic crashes attributable to alcohol use by underage youth in the United States represent the largest costs for the nation. However, a host of other problems contribute substantially to the overall cost. Among teen mothers, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) alone costs the United States $1.1 billion.

There are many educational programs that have been developed by UDETC and others to inform and educate youth, parents, businesses and law enforcement on ways to prevent underage drinking. However, education is not the only solution.

To make an impact on underage drinking there must be the enforcement of laws that prohibit consumption by persons under the legal drinking age and the sale of alcohol to minors. To that end, many law enforcement agencies around the country, including the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, conduct alcohol compliance checks, or bar checks, as a means to identify which businesses, including liquor stores, restaurants, convenience stores, grocery stores or bars, are selling alcohol to underage youth.

Year-round compliance checks on alcohol sellers can help cut sales to minors, according to a study led by University of Florida College of Medicine professor Alexander Wagenaar. The professor looked at 942 alcohol-sales outlets in 20 midwestern cities.

The study found that law enforcement compliance checks at liquor, grocery and convenience stores led to an immediate 17 percent decline in sales to minors, but that reductions fell to 11 percent within two weeks of the check and to 3 percent after three months. Similar patterns were found at bars and restaurants.

“We found that enforcement has significant effects, but just like enforcement against any offense, you can’t just do it once and think it solves everything,” said Wagenaar. “We have to create an ongoing perception on the part of the managers and owners of these establishments that they have a decent chance of getting caught if they sell to teenagers.”

The five-year study said continuous enforcement was much more effective in preventing underage sales than server training. The study “underscores the potential for enforcement of underage alcohol sales laws to reduce underage access to alcohol,” said Ralph Hingson, director of the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

When time permits, Pinal County deputies routinely conduct compliance checks, mostly at bars, not only for underage drinkers, but those persons who may be too intoxicated to continue being served contrary to law. Our number one goal is to eliminate underage drinking and prevent an intoxicated person from driving.

In doing the compliance checks we have found that all reputable drinking establishments welcome the deputies into their bar/restaurants. They believe our presence helps them to not only prevent underage drinking and overly intoxicated persons from being served, but also helps prevent any unruly customers from getting out of control. On the other hand, not-so-reputable drinking establishments usually frown on law enforcement and find ways to deter us from conducting compliance checks by having employees distract deputies or by claiming harassment.

The Sheriff’s Office will continue to work with civic organizations, schools and youth organizations to educate our youth on the importance of not drinking until they are of age. We will also continue to be very active in the enforcement of Arizona’s liquor laws because lives depend upon it.

Until next month, may God Bless.

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