Costs of Underage Drinking

• NCJ Number: 178228
• Author(s): David T. Levy Ph.D; Kathryn Stewart; Phillip M. Wilbur
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 15 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)
• Corporate Author: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
• Sale Source: NCJRS Photocopy Services; Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Prepared for the OJJDP National Leadership Conference, Reston, Va., July 11-14, 1999

Annotation

This document presents estimates of the costs of traffic crashes, violent crime, burns, drowning, suicide attempts, fetal alcohol syndrome, alcohol poisonings, and treatment associated with underage alcohol consumption and concludes that the total cost of alcohol use by youth is more than $58 billion per year.

Abstract

This cost is the equivalent of $216.22 for every man, woman, and child and $577.91 for every household in the United States. The amount would total more than $134 million per congressional district if shared equally by each congressional district. The total amount of Federal spending on alcohol prevention services for people of all ages is less than 1.6 percent of the annual costs of alcohol use by youth alone. Most of the costs result from alcohol-related traffic crashes and violent crime. These findings suggest the need for policymakers and the public to have a clear understanding of the problems associated with underage drinking. Many effective prevention and enforcement strategies have been developed that can be applied more broadly and actively to reduce the enormous costs. Finally, preventing underage drinking needs to be a high social and political priority if progress is to occur. Figures, table, and 20 reference notes