The worst consequence of drinking underage is death. “1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes (Hingson et al., 2009),” reports this alcohol awareness web site.
If you are a parent of a college student (or soon to be college student), you may want to check out this site, CollegeDrinkingPrevention.gov, “your one-stop resource for comprehensive research-based information on issues related to alcohol abuse and binge drinking among college students.” Additionally, you should read the article entitled, Virginia Rules and Exceptions on Underage Alcohol Consumption, provided by your local Virginia Beach Criminal Defense Attorney.
Second on our list of “worst consequences” is unsafe sex. According to the aforementioned study (Hingson et al., 2009), “400,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 had unprotected sex and more than 100,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 report having been too intoxicated to know if they consented to having sex.” If you want to receive regular news updates relating to binge drinking and college alcohol consumption statistics, you can sign up for a free email list here.
The third worst consequence of underage drinking is a DWI charge. Studies suggest that over 3 million 18 to 24 year-olds drive drunk every year. It may be tempting to dismiss a child’s DWI charge as a hard bit of reality, and you may be tempted to avoid spending money on an attorney. But the truth is, college students today are living an entirely different environment than the environment that their parents grew up in. According to Annual Review of Public Health, cited in this bulletin, “[t]he number of students who reported [a] DWI increased from 2.3 million students to 2.8 million” between the years of 1998 and 2003 alone! Therefore, instead of automatically assuming your child is guilty or deserving of some sort of punishment based on his or her behavior, consider that alcohol-related charges can stay on a person’s record and influence their ability to obtain employment later in life. Plus, they may be going through difficult times. If you or your child is facing an alcohol-related charge, the first step is to get informed. To understand your case and how the laws in Virginia apply, call your Norfolk and Virginia Beach Alcohol Defense Lawyer. He’s there to help.