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My husband and I had a very disturbing weekend.

It centered around an issue that far too many parents either don't take seriously enough or bury their heads in the sand and avoid altogether.

I'm talking about teenage drinking.

Fortunately, the weekend turmoil resulted not from my own kids' drinking but from the ignorance and denial exhibited by other parents. But before I climb up on my soapbox, let's take a look at some frightening statistics.

Currently, alcohol use among young people under 21 is the leading drug problem in the U.S. According to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University:

More youths in the U.S. drink alcohol than smoke tobacco or marijuana, making it the drug most used by young Americans.
Every day, 5,400 young people under 16 take their first drink of alcohol.
In 2005, one out of six eighth-graders, one in three tenth-graders, and nearly one out of two twelfth-graders were current drinkers.
In 2004, more than 7 million youths ages 12 to 20 reported binge drinking, which is defined as "having five or more drinks on at least one occasion in the past 30 days."

In addition, recent surveys have also found that:

Girls are binge drinking more, while boys are binging less or increasing their binging at a slower rate than their female peers.
Twelfth-grade female drinkers and binge drinkers are now more likely to drink distilled spirits than beer.
The new "Alco pops" are particularly attractive to girls, and are most popular with the youngest drinkers.

The consequences of underage drinking are heartbreaking:

Every day, three teens die from drinking and driving.
At least six more youths under 21 die each day in non-driving alcohol-related cases, such as homicide, suicide and drowning.
More than 70,000 college students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape each year.
Recent studies have found that heavy exposure to alcohol may interfere with adolescent brain development, causing loss of memory and other skills.

For a complete report of this Executive Summary, please see http://camy.org/research/statu s0306/

A Parent In Denial

These are sobering statistics, ones that every parent should take note of. So why is it that most of the parents I talk seem to be in complete denial?

This weekend, my husband and I were awakened at 1:20 a.m. by a parent who called to tell us that our son had been drinking and was running around drunk. When I asked what made him think our son was drunk, he claimed that our son and several others

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