US teen drinking falls to ‘historic’ low

Underage drinking rates among 12- to 16-year-olds in the US has declined significantly in 2016, with consumption rates dropping to new ‘historic’ lows, a government study has found.

Underage drinking in the US has fallen to historic lows, a new report finds

The 2016 Monitoring the Future Survey, released jointly by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the University of Michigan, found that 8^th, 10^th and 12^th grade students are consuming less alcohol monthly and annually, with both measures continuing to decline in 2016.

The study also found that the proportion of students reporting binge drinking at least one in the two weeks prior to the survey have at least halved since the 1990s.

Monitoring the Future has tracked substance abuse among US high school students for 42 years. For the 2016 report, 45,000 students from grades 8-12 from 360 secondary schools took part in the survey.

“Key to this success is educating parents and other adults about the consequences of providing alcohol to teens,” said Kraig R. Naasz, Distilled Spirits Council president and CEO. “While there is more work to do, these historic declines in teen drinking underscore the effectiveness of public-private partnerships.”

Naasz added that the spirits sector has played a part on this process through its collective support for the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility and the Federal Trade Commission’s ‘We Don’t Serve Teens’ initiative, which equips parents to talk to their children about alcohol use.

The fall in US teen drinking is backed by a June 2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also found underage drinking in the country is at a historic low.