Most American teenagers drink some time during their high school career. Many see no harm in an occasional drink at a party. In fact many teenagers view alcohol as the "rite of passage into adulthood." For this reason, teenagers are dying to drink alcohol. Unfair as the minimum legal drinking age may seem to eighteen-year-olds who feel they are adult enough to drink alcohol, teenagers are not yet mature and responsible enough to handle the effects of drinking alcohol. According to Crittenton Hospital's records, fifty percent of all teenagers seen in the emercency room are from alcohol-related injuries (1).

The average teenager takes their first sip of alcohol at the age of thirteen (Crittenton Hospital 1). This is really chilling because of all the harmful effect alcohol has on a young person's body. Alcohol causes problems with the stomach, pancreas, liver and other internal organs. Not to mention what alcohol does to a person while drinking it. Alcohol causes blurred vision, bad breath, it makes a person's face red and puffy, and it makes your stomach bloated. All those empty calories in alcohol can give a person what is called a "beer belly". Alcohol robs a person of the abi

"The loss of life, property damage, economic costs and negative health effects associated with underage drinking as well as a public outcry for attention, provide sufficient reasons to make the illegal use of alcohol by teens a greater concern for police" (Little and Bishop 1). Many police officers do not make teenage alcohol use an enforcement policy. Little and Bishop state that many police officers rate this type of enforcement activity among the lowest of police responsibilities because of the hassles involved with it (1).

A.A.S.T. Webnet Domain. Drinking and Driving : Facts in Brief. Online. Internet. 1 April, 1999. http://www. Aast.org/abstract.html

Alcohol and a college student is a very costly mix. Many young college students are not yet mature enough to manage school and drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol in college is considered a "rite of passage". Therefore, college students don't feel they've had the whole college experience unless they drink alcohol. The Madd Organization reports that each year, students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol, more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee or books combined. On a typical campus a student spends about $446 a year for alcohol (4 "Here's the 411..."). Not only are college students spending so much money on alcohol but they are also killing themselves with it. According to Crittenton Hospital, Four Michigan college students died from alcohol-related incidents since October '98, including one from Michigan State University after drinking twenty-four shots of alcohol on his birthday (1). At Ferris State University, a twenty-year-old dental hygiene student fell out of her 48" × 32" bedroom window after drinking hard liquor. Her blood alcohol content level was 0.22 - twice as high as the legal limit for driving!

Alcohol is a "gateway substance" for some immature youths. It is usually the first step on the road to use harder addictive drugs like cocaine or heroin. Others will find themselves addicted to alcohol and continually fighting the battles of an alcoholic. Per an interview with Denise Biewiersoff, probation officer, most of the teenagers that she sees for alcohol problems also have drug problems. She finds that most of them smoke marijuana. (Telephone Interview). According to the Madd Organization, ten million Americans are addicted to alcohol. But even more scary alcohol and tobacco kill more than fifty times the number of people killed by cocaine, heroin, and every other illegal drug combined (1 "Research on Youth...").

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2726
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)