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09/12/02 CBS News
Harmful effects of underage
drinking
(CBS) A new study by the American
Medical Association challenges the assumption that young drinkers are more
resilient than their elders to the harmful effects of boozing.
Not so,
Richard Yoast, director of the AMA's Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, told
CBS Radio News.
"Children who started drinking before the age of
15 had a much higher risk of having long-term life-long alcohol problems and
alcoholism than those who began drinking after that," he said. "The brain is
still developing up until the early 20s. In fact, the adolescent brain is less
resilient than the adult brain."
"Our brains go through important
transformations during adolescence," says Sandra Brown, Ph.D., chief of
psychology services at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Diego and
whose brain research is included in the report.
The AMA report, Harmful
Consequences of Alcohol Use on the Brains of Children, Adolescents, and College
Students, examines two decades of scientific research on how alcohol alters the
developing brain and causes possibly irreversible damage.
On average,
children now try alcohol for the first time at the age of 12, and nearly 20
percent of 12 to 20-year-olds report being binge drinkers (having 4-5 drinks in
a row).
"It can certainly interfere with their learning abilities," said
Yoast. "It affects areas such as memory and learning and a lot of thinking
skills, for example."
The AMA report also shows adolescent drinkers
scored worse than non-users on vocabulary, visual-spatial and memory tests and
were more likely to perform poorly in school, fall behind and experience social
problems, depression, suicidal thoughts and violence.
The AMA study also
found that young drinkers are at high risk of suffering "possibly irreversible"
brain damage.
The AMA is asking cable stations and television networks
to stop airing alcohol commercials targeted at youth. In particular, it asks
broadcasters not to air alcohol ads on programs that air before 10 p.m. or that
have 15 percent or more underage viewers, or air commercials depicting mascots,
cartoons or other characters targeted to younger viewers.
"It's time TV
executives and the alcohol industry stop profiting at the hands of those most
harmed by drinking," said Dr. J. Edward Hill, chairman of the AMA.
A
recent nationwide poll conducted for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found
that nearly 70 percent of Americans favor a ban on TV liquor ads and 59 percent
support banning beer commercials on TV.
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