Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center

Resource Alert Summary – March 2012

Movie Alcohol Exposure (MAE) may influence early youth drinking behavior

According to a December 2011 article published in an online public Journal of the British Medical Association, BMJ Open, watching movies featuring alcohol use accounted for 28 percent of the youth who started drinking and for 20 percent of those who moved on to binge drinking. Movie Alcohol Exposure includes viewing actors in real or implied drinking behavior as well as alcohol product placement.

During a two year study of more than 6,500 U.S. youth aged 10 to 14, Dartmouth Medical School researchers (Stoolmiller et al. 2011) surveyed youth four times about their consumption of alcohol as well as potentially influential factors such as movie viewing and market exposure, home environment, peer behavior and personal rebelliousness.

Youth in the survey sample who started drinking alcohol more than doubled from 11 percent to 25 percent over the two years, and the proportion of those who started binge drinking (five or more drinks in a row) tripled from 4 percent to 13 percent, the researchers found. They also reported watching an average of 4.5 hours of popular feature films per week; 95% of which were rated as showing drinking in a positive light or having product placement. Higher levels of MAE was predictive of increased rates of onset and progression to binge drinking.

While researchers discovered a statistical relationship between alcohol use in movies and teen drinking, it does prove a cause-and-effect relationship. However results confirmed an earlier study in Germany showing MAE effects. Authors suggest the strong relationship between alcohol product placement in movies and youth identification with positive images of movie stars drinking impacts underage drinking behaviors which warrants parent and community awareness and further study.

The full study can be accessed by visiting this link:

RESOURCE ALERT LEGAL CASE

“Does an underage buyer, working with the police on a compliance check, have an obligation to stop and identify themselves to a doorman who is not paying attention to the minors when they enter?”

On January 19th, 2012 the Iowa Court of Appeals rendered their opinion in the matter of the Motif, LTD v. Iowa Alcohol Beverage Division. The Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division (IABD) administrator ruled licensee Motif, Ltd., d/b/a Bo-James, did not exercise reasonable care to ascertain the ages of underage patrons when it served them beer. Bo-James appealed. The district court reversed and remanded for dismissal of the agency’s complaint. IABD appealed arguing substantial evidence supports the administrator’s ruling.

This case will take the reader into the Court’s analysis of the issues developed around the question of sufficiency of evidence when this case works its way through the Iowa regulatory and legal system.

The case in its entirety can be found and reviewed by simply visiting this link:

NATIONAL ELECTRONIC SEMINARS

Looking at Underage Drinking Data: What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012

Time: 3:00-4:15 p.m. ET

Speakers: Dr. Ted Miller, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation; Maryann Harakall, Maine EUDL Coordinator and Diane Riibe, Project Extra Mile

Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States, more than tobacco and illicit drugs. Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States. So what costs do we as a society bear as a result of this behavior? How is this data used by states and communities to aid in their planning and resource allocation on underage drinking?

This program will look at the latest cost data to include how it is compiled and calculated and will also feature data users from the public and private sectors providing our audience with information on how important data can be for the EUDL program and how it can be used to plan and allocate. Further we will discuss how non-profit advocacy organizations can find data sources for their work and how this cost data has specifically been used successfully in Nebraska.

Please join us for this most informative and useful call. *Visit this link to register.*

UDETC RESOURCES Spotlight: Underage Drinking Cost Sheets

The UDETC offers underage drinking costs sheets for the Nation, each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia. These costs sheets delineate the estimated costs that are incurred as a direct result of underage alcohol consumption in terms of youth violence, traffic crashes, property crime, injury, alcohol treatment and several other categories. These sheets can be found for review and download on our website at this link:

To see the entire Resource Alert for this month visit this link: 

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Summit Prevention Alliance or the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) or the Underage Drinking Enforcement Training Center (UDETC) and are solely of the author/source.