Among all the alcohol related accidents across the United States, underage drinkers cause the vast majority. By knowing this and understanding the dangers of underage drinking, you’ll be able to give your high school or college student the best chance possible not to fall victim to binge drinking, alcohol poisoning, or even simple drinking and driving. Many parents would agree that alcohol awareness classes should be required for high school and college students to be able to graduate.
There are those that believe making all high school students pass alcohol awareness classes for high school could reduce underage drinking by as much as 50%. Other Constitutionalists believe that it isn’t up to the parents to teach alcohol awareness and provide these classes outside school if necessary. It is kind of a marvel that the Unites States has made Health Education required learning but have still neglected to make alcohol awareness classes mandatory for all high school students.
Like all types of educations, there can be advanced levels of that education that can continue into college. It is true, stopping alcohol abuse starts with prevention, but it can’t be denied that drinking for most begins in college. College for many can start as early as 19 and as late as 21, and those are inherently the most dangerous years for anyone’s drinking 'career'.
The peer pressure to go and party after classes and getting completely wasted is quite high in college, even if you’re not of age. Many college level partiers just drink in the name of knowing how much they can drink. This can ruin college careers, not to mention lives. By making all high school and College students take alcohol awareness classes they can have the tools they need to fight peer pressure and make sure they don’t make a decision that they will end up regretting for the rest of their life.
The cost of adding alcohol awareness classes to the curriculum every year for every student would cost no more than $95 a year for each student. It would help raise awareness and lower alcohol related accidents as a whole. The classes could even simply be done outside school supervision allowing the student to complete the courses online. They would be able to complete it on their own time and present the completion certificates to their school counselors as proof of taking the necessary classes.
While there is no conclusive proof right now that making high school and college students take alcohol awareness classes will improve death statistics, you do have to admit that the odds of an accident happening with foreknowledge of the consequences and having the confidence that education brings. There may be years of losses to come before the public as well as the school districts officially adopt these classes across the country. If you agree in enacting this as a law and requirement of high school and college, then speak up to your school board and Congressmen about implementing minor in possession classes schoolwide.