Last month the state released its “roadmap” to combat underage drinking, a 24-page plan filled with recommendations on how everyone from law enforcement officials to community members can prevent underage drinking.

Advocates are hailing the new plan, but what the report doesn’t talk about is New Hampshire’s own mixed messages on drinking.

John Bunker is president of New Futures, a Portsmouth-based nonprofit that works to reduce underage drinking problems. New Futures helped compile the roadmap. He says it will take advantage of the momentum behind existing efforts and create a strategy “unique to New Hampshire’s particular needs.”
“The scope of the problem is really significant here in the state,” he says. According to the roadmap, almost half of the state’s high school students reported using alcohol regularly. One-third of high school students reported binge drinking, or consuming more than five drinks on one occasion.

Though the roadmap mostly cites studies about the use of alcohol among high school students, Bunker says the plan is targeted at “anyone under the age of 21.”

“The issue of underage drinking is a concern in middle schools as well as high schools, and in some cases even elementary schools,” he says.

Why is underage drinking such a big deal? Youth who begin to drink at a young age are at four times greater risk for developing alcohol dependency later in life. Additionally, recent research shows alcohol can have a “significant impairment effect on the development of the brain,” even after the age of 20. According to the state’s report, underage drinking-related incidents, including car crashes and violent crime, cost New Hampshire more than $214 million a year.

“Issues around drinking are not just the acute affects of intoxication, but long term implications,” Bunker says.

In New Hampshire, the problem seems to be slightly worse than the rest of the country, at least according to the Center for Disease Control’s 2003 Youth Risk Behavior study. In New Hampshire, 47 percent of high school students surveyed reported having a drink within the past month, while 31 percent reported binge drinking. Nationally, 45 percent said they had had at least one drink, and 28 percent said they engaged in binge drinking.

The goal of the roadmap is to reduce the availability, opportunity and demand for alcohol among young people. Bunker says this will be accomplished with a heavy public information campaign and a coalition of law enforcement, politicians, educators, the media and young people themselves.

But the state is still sending mixed messages. For all the talk about responsibly educating kids about the dangers of imbibing too much of the devil’s brew, the state government still has a monopoly on hard alcohol sales. The report doesn’t address the state’s own role in the liquor trade, nor does it attempt to critique the aggressive promotional campaigns of the state’s liquor stores, several of which are strategically located on the state’s highways. A quick look at the state Liquor Commission’s Web site shows what brands are on sale this month, while other information such as alcohol prevention programs and regulations are buried elsewhere on the site.

The report addresses the effects of alcohol advertising on teens, and Bunker notes that the marketing strategies booze companies use make alcohol attractive “without specifying the impact alcohol can have that’s detrimental.”

One of the state’s most noted changes in the war on underage drinking was the recent passage of the state’s “party host law,” which holds accountable whomever is in charge of a gathering where underage drinking occurs.

Giving booze to a bunch of underage kids so they can party probably isn’t a good idea, but what if you just want to let your kid enjoy a glass of wine with dinner? That isn’t cool either, according to Bunker. Having a drink at dinner or at a family gathering “sends a message, and parents need to be cognizant of what message they want to send.”

Lowering the drinking age back to 18 will not reduce the “forbidden fruit” aspect of alcohol, according to Bunker. In fact, the fear is that would make alcohol available to even younger children. And the belief that kids in Europe—where the drinking age in some places is under 18—handle alcohol more responsibly than their American counterparts is also a myth, he says. Recent studies have suggested that underage binge drinking is a greater problem in Europe than in the U.S.

The statistics make it seem like maintaining the 21-year-old drinking age is good sense, but it flies in the face of other age-restricted activities such as voting, owning a gun and marriage, all of which carry much more responsibility than having a beer. There are a few people in the state that at least recognize the cognitive dissonance that results from being old enough to join the Army and shoot people but not old enough to buy a beer with a meal. Rep. Jim Splaine (D-Portsmouth) has filed a piece of legislation for the 2006 session that would lower the drinking age for those enlisted in the armed forces.

But to Bunker, the “ages of initiation” vary in our culture for good reason. Voting at 18, drinking at 21, renting a car at 25 and running for president at 35 may seem like arbitrary restrictions, he says, but these age limits take into account the benefits and risk of each act. “Keeping the drinking age at 21 … keeps kids healthy,” he says. “It saves lives, it saves money and it’s good public policy.”

But for all these efforts, kids are still going to drink before it’s legal, just as their parents did in years past. Shortly after the state unveiled the roadmap, Gov. John Lynch’s daughter was busted at the University of New Hampshire for underage drinking. And even Bunker admits that he had a few sips before he was of lawful age.

“Yes,” he says. ”I made some decisions that I look back in retrospect and wish I hadn’t made.”