Alcohol advertisements affect minors

By Rebecca Smith
Daingerfield ISD recently protested a variance allowing a business owner to sell beer and wine across the street from an elementary school.
So why isn’t alcohol usually allowed to be sold across the street from a school in the first place?
The school district’s biggest concern, of course, is for their students. According to research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the number of alcohol retailers increases female students’ (but not males, oddly enough) perception of how easy they believe it will be to get alcohol. And ease of access is a known risk factor for use among minors. (The research also says that “Underage alcohol purchases from commercial sources are more likely among female buyers and at convenience stores that sell alcohol products.” I would love to know why that’s the case.)
There’s also a great amount of research on the effects of alcohol advertising on minors.
“Researchers followed 3,111 students in South Dakota from seventh to ninth grade, and found that exposure to in-store beer displays in seventh grade predicted onset of drinking by grade 9, and exposure to magazine advertising for alcohol and to beer concessions at sports or music events predicted frequency of drinking in ninth grade,” according to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth.
It seems like a no-brainer that increased access to alcohol leads to increased use of alcohol, and the idea has been backed up by research. Several organizations, including the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, consider controlling the number of alcohol outlets as an effective method for reducing alcohol-related harms and underage drinking.
Increasing the number of alcohol retailers is associated with several negative consequences: increased incidences of assaults and violence, increased rates of drunk driving and alcohol-related crashes, increased likelihood that underage individuals will obtain alcohol, and increased youth exposure to alcohol marketing, according to the National Institute of Health.
Underage drinking is dangerous; there are many dangers for teens that don’t apply to adults, who are more likely to drink responsibly. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 90 percent of teens who drink, binge drink (binge drinking, also called high-risk drinking, is defined as more than four drinks for women and more than five drinks for men in a 2-hour sitting). Minors under the influence of alcohol are more likely to carry out or be the victims of physical and sexual assault, more likely to complete suicide or homicide, more likely to become pregnant or contract a STD. Teens who drink by 15 are six times more likely to become alcohol dependent and five times more likely to drop out of high school. Drinking underage can cause permanent brain damage to a teen’s learning centers of their brain. About 5,000 minors die every year in alcohol-related accidents, more than are killed by all other illicit drugs combined.
The TABC hearing to discuss the district’s protest will be held July 25 at 9 a.m. at the Morris County Courthouse. According to the school district’s lawyer, the public is welcome to attend if interested