Underage Drinking

According to US Newswire,

The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP) today announced awards of more than $20 million to 50 states and the District of Columbia to enforce state and local underage drinking laws. The awards are made through the Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) program, which supports activities in law enforcement, public education programs, and innovative methods for reaching youth. These awards fund initiatives to limit youth access to alcohol, strictly enforce underage drinking laws and promote zero tolerance for underage drinking while creating positive outlets for our youth.

This sounds like an excellent program going on in the United States and the District of Columbia.  According to US Newswire, “Each state and the District of Columbia received a $350,000 block grant award. Additionally, California, Oregon and Washington each received more than $1 million in discretionary awards to assist with enforcement of laws that regulate the access, possession, and consumption of alcohol by minors in rural communities through EUDL’s Rural Initiative.” With all of the funding to enforce the law, there should not be as many teens drinking alcohol. The Department of Justice is really trying to bring to an end, the underage drinking problem by supporting activities for these teens to get involved in. “Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) is the only federal initiative directed exclusively toward preventing underage drinking. The program is a $25 million initiative consisting of block grants to each state and the District of Columbia, and discretionary awards to selected states to fund best and most promising activities at the local level” (US Newswire). Underage drinking is most definitely a huge problem, especially when there are programs that fund activities for kids to prevent them from drinking.

We are definitely coming up with good ways to prevent teens from getting their hands on alcohol. The electronic device that can tell the difference between a fake I.D. and a state issued identification is definitely a good idea if the retailers actually use it. Also, if they would card everyone, instead of just carding the people that they think are too young to buy the alcohol, then there would be less teens buying alcohol. Funding activities for teens should help with the matter as well. Hopefully the numbers of teen deaths and the money funding the deaths will decrease over time.