Why teen drinking and driving has been cut in half in past 20 years 

October 11, 2012

  The number of high school students who drink and drive has decreased by half in the past 20 years, with graduated driver-licensing systems, zero-tolerance laws, and parental involvement proving to be effective deterrents.

Nine out of 10 high-schoolers chose not to drink and drive in 2011 - a 54 percent decrease since 1991 - according to an October Vital Signs report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The analysis is based on the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 1991 to 2011, which asked high school students 16 and older if they had driven a vehicle at least once during the past 30 days after drinking alcohol.

Safety advocacy groups and government agencies have been working for years with youths and parents to raise awareness about the dangers of underage drinking and reckless driving.

"The study is encouraging," says Jan Withers, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). "It's evidence that the work we've been doing in America to bring the teen drinking-and-driving rate down is working."

Ms. Withers's passion for this issue comes from personal experience. Twenty years ago, her 15-year-old daughter Alisa was hanging out with a good friend and some older boys who were drinking. Her daughter didn't drink, but she got into a car with a driver who had been drinking. Trying to impress his friends, the 17-year-old driver sped the car up to 120 miles per hour and lost control of the vehicle. The other teens survived, but her daughter did not.

Her daughter is always with her, Withers says, especially as she talks with youths, parents, and legislatures about underage drinking.

Parental involvement - particularly when it is ongoing, positive conversations with teens about drinking - will reduce both the volume and frequency of underage drinking by as much as 30 percent, shows research by Robert Turrisi, professor of bio-behavioral health at Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

In addition to parental involvement, state regulations have contributed to the decreasing number of teens drinking and driving.

"Graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems help new drivers get more experience under less risky conditions," the report says.

To read more, click this link: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1011/Why-teen-drinking-and-driving-has-been-cut-in-half-in-past-20-years

Source: Christian Science Monitor 

Washington: Alcohol poisoning killed student; aunt says energy drinks had role

October 31, 2012

Acute alcohol poisoning caused the death of a Washington State University freshman early Saturday, according to the Whitman County coroner. But an aunt of Kenny Hummel, 18, said at a Wednesday news conference in Seattle that consumption of caffeinated energy drinks contributed to the death of her nephew, who grew up in Lynnwood.

Hummel's blood-alcohol level exceeded 0.4 percent, said Peter Martin, Whitman County coroner. That's five times the legal limit for driving and "in the lethal range," he said.

It was 2:30 a.m. when friends found him, and campus police say he had started drinking Friday evening.

Since August, said WSU spokesman Darin Watkins, four students have drunk so much that they stopped breathing and had to be revived at Pullman Regional Hospital with a tube placed down their throats.

And, said Watkins, as he reviews the WSU police reports for each weekend he sees between one and three cases in which students who've overdosed on alcohol are taken to the hospital for detoxification.

On Wednesday at a Seattle news conference, Hummel's aunt, Lea Ann Easton, a Portland attorney, said that drinking a number of containers of a caffeinated energy drink also played a role in his death.

Without the extra pep from such a drink, said Easton, instead of consuming more alcohol, her nephew "would have puked and passed out."

The coroner is sticking by his conclusion. "It's a provocative argument that energy drinks keep you awake so you can continue to keep drinking," said Martin. "But from our standpoint, the sole cause of death was the alcohol."

He said he would ask the state's toxicology lab about testing for the amount of caffeine in Hummel's system, but didn't know if that was doable. Martin said he wouldn't know toxicology results for at least two weeks.

It's not even clear how much 5-Hour Energy Hummel consumed.

One empty container was found in the dorm room along with some unopened ones, said Steve Hansen, WSU assistant police chief.

"I'm not saying he didn't have others someplace else," Hansen said.

Easton said her nephew's classmates told her he'd had several of the energy drinks Friday evening, along with hard alcohol.

What is clear is that at WSU and other colleges, alcohol abuse has become such a problem that the schools have instituted programs to bring home the problem to freshmen.

Many research papers link energy drinks with alcohol abuse at college.

A 2007 Wake Forest University School of Medicine paper about "Caffeinated Cocktails" concluded that almost one-quarter of college drinkers reported mixing alcohol with energy drinks, and that these students "had dramatically higher rates of serious alcohol-related consequences" such as "serious injury, sexual assault, drunk driving, and death."

To read more, click this link: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019568223_wsudeath01m.html

Source: Seattle Times

Washington: Some liquor store owners feel burned by state, terms of privatization 

October 25, 2012

Don Sidhu has held various jobs at gas stations; he's driven ice cream trucks and taxi cabs and worked in a small business since he came to the United States from India in 1992.

Sidhu put a lot of money into his new business when the Liquor Control Board auctioned off the 167 state-run liquor stores to private retailers in April. He says he and his brother have put in $1.5 to $2 million from the four stores they bid on, including one in Kirkland's Houghton neighborhood.

But Sidhu - like several other liquor store owners in the state - has felt the impact since liquor privatization took effect last June.

He was forced to close Liquor Store No. 57 in Houghton two weeks ago because he said the store lost 85 percent of business since privatization.

"We're broke. The landlord (at one location outside of Kirkland) is coming after us because the personal guarantee is signed," said Sidhu. "I'm looking for everything, there's nothing I can do."

To read more, click this link:  http://www.kirklandreporter.com/news/175501951.html

Source: Kirkland Reporter 

Idaho: Liquor sales rise in Idaho after I-1183

October 26, 2012

The Idaho State Liquor Division quietly opened a liquor store last week in State Line, citing overwhelming sales at one of its Post Falls stores since Washington state enacted new liquor taxes and fees in June.

The store, at 7209 W. Seltice Way, is Idaho's first new state-operated liquor store in three years, says Jeff Anderson, director of the state liquor division.

The store, in which the state began selling liquor on Oct. 17, is in a freestanding, 3,500-square-foot building barely 100 yards from the Washington-Idaho border, next door to Lew's Smoke Shop, on the north side of Seltice Way.

Anderson says the state first put an additional Post Falls-area outlet on its drawing board more than five years ago but tabled the plan during the economic downturn.

"Market conditions at the border with Washington have changed," he says, referring to Initiative 1183, the voter-approved measure that privatized liquor stores in Washington State while tacking on new taxes and fees.

The new system has driven Washington buyers across the border in search of cheaper spirits, especially at its Post Falls stores, which are a short hop from Interstate 90, Anderson says.

To read more click this link: http://www.spokanejournal.com/article.php?id=8635

Source: Spokane Journal of Business