U.S. Underage Drinkers Spend Billions on Alcohol Annually

(May 01, 2006) -- Underage drinkers spent $22.5 billion on alcohol in 2001, which amounted to 17.5% of total U.S. consumer spending on beer, wine and liquor that year, according to researches here.

U.S. public health officials should be concerned about this amount of underage drinking because those who start drinking young are more likely to become alcohol abusers later in life, said Susan E. Foster, M.S.W., and colleagues at Columbia University here.

Also troubling is the finding that adult alcohol abusers spent nearly $26 billion on drinks in 2001 (about 20% of total consumer spending), so that underage drinkers and adult problem drinkers together account for more than $48 billion, or 37.5%, of the alcohol industry's revenue, the researchers reported in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

The study analyzed data from several national surveys, including the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, the 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the 2001 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, the 2000 U.S. Census, and the 2000 to 2001 National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

Together, children and adolescents ages 12 to 20 and adults 21 and older spent a total of more than $128 billion on alcohol in 2001, the study found.

Less than half of individuals ages 12 to 20 (47%) reported drinking alcohol in the previous 30 days, compared with a little more than half (53%) of the adults. However, the proportion of problem drinkers in the younger group was much higher. Nearly 26% of the younger drinkers met the standard DSM IV diagnostic criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence, compared with less than 10% of the adult drinkers, the researchers reported.

Almost all (97%) of the problem adult drinkers began drinking before the age of 21, the investigators noted.

"Projected into the future, this present pattern of illegal underage drinking and adult abusive and dependent drinking will realize at least one-half trillion dollars in cash revenues for the alcohol industry over the next decade-an extraordinary commercial motive to insure that such consumer behavior continues unabated," the authors said.

Individuals ages 12 to 20 are targeted especially hard by advertisements for alcohol. For example, this group is exposed to 45% more magazine advertisements for beer and 27% more magazine ads for distilled spirits than adults of legal drinking age. A similar pattern is found for radio and television ads, the authors said.

"The financial interests of the alcohol industry appear to be antithetic to the public health interests of the nation in preventing and limiting pathological drinking," the authors said.

"The public health implications of this research are two-fold. First, because of this apparent conflict of interest, the alcohol industry is not a good candidate to regulate its own marketing and sales practices, particularly as they relate to underage drinking," they suggested.

Second, the fact that more than one-quarter of underage drinkers already met the standard DSM IV diagnostic criteria for abusive and dependent drinking "underscores the critical importance of comprehensive prevention strategies and treatment options tailored to the needs of teens," they concluded.

Last updated: 05/06

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