by Erin Miller
West Hawaii Today
emiller@westhawaiitoday.com
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 8:31 AM HST
Hawaii County is set to receive $2.1 million from the state to stop underage drinking, the lieutenant governor’s office announced Tuesday.
The amount coming to the county is just $200,000 less than what the City and County of Honolulu will receive. The money is part of a 2006 federal grant awarded to the state to address underage drinking, Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona said in a statement released Tuesday. Aiona was unavailable for additional comment.
A spokesman said community organizations in each county will decide how the funding will be distributed. The allocations to each county were based on a complicated formula that considered equity between the four counties, population of 12- to 17-year-olds, the burden on each county and the magnitude of resources available in each county to address underage drinking, spokesman Travis Taylor added. The goal was to get each community to back up their funding request with data on underage drinking in the county and not to make all the spending decisions in Honolulu, he said.
According to a 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Underage Drinking Enforcement Center, underage drinking cost Hawaii $188 million in 2007. That figure was calculated based on youth violence, traffic crashes, property crime, injury and alcohol treatment. Excluding pain and suffering costs, the direct cost to the state is about $89 million annually. The center ranked Hawaii’s costs as the fourth-lowest among the 50 states.
Additionally, the report cited Centers for Disease Control statistics showing about 36,000 underage youth in Hawaii drink alcohol each year. In 2007, 59 percent of ninth- to 12th-graders had consumed at least one alcoholic drink; 21 percent reported having their first drink of alcohol, more than a few sips, before they turned 13. Fifteen percent of high schoolers reported having five or more drinks in a row, the definition of binge drinking, in the last 30 days. Six percent had had at least one alcoholic drink on school property in the last 30 days.
Young people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence and two and a half times more likely to become alcohol abusers than those who begin drinking at 21, the report said. In Hawaii in 2007, 809 people 12 to 20 years old were admitted to alcohol treatment, about one-third of all treatment admissions in the state, the report added.
The state ranks fourth in the country for alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths, according to a 2008 study.
This is an interesting article.
Even with regulations, there are abuses of the system, and indeed keeping underage drinking to a minimum is a good thing. Because alcohol is legal, it is easier to keep it out of the hands of children, but that doesn’t mean it will be 100% perfect. Still, the level of control for alcohol (and tobacco) is far greater than the black market for drugs.
A drug dealer does not check for ID and will sell to anyone. If cannabis were legal, taxed and regulated, it would be more difficult for children to get their hands on it.