By Maia Szalavitz Can you honestly say that you never drank
alcohol during high school? If so, you are in a distinct
minority: nearly 80% of high school seniors admit to at least
trying a drink and about 50 percent report having consumed
alcohol during the last month. While these numbers are down from
their peaks in the late 70s and early 80s, a large majority of
young people still drink regularly long before they reach the
legal age of 21. Clearly, efforts to eliminate underage drinking
have failed. It is also plain that many successful Americans
have a history of high school and college alcohol use -
sometimes involving of periods of excess. If youthful drinking
were a genuine bar to political office, higher education or
career advancement, government, academia and industry would
grind to a halt. Nonetheless, the media and some activist
groups, government agencies and foundations constantly promote
the idea that most teen drinking is extremely risky and carries
a high probability of causing alcoholism or de