Waiting to drink decreases risk of addiction, study finds

The National Institutes of Health reported yesterday that 40 percent of people studied who took their first drink before age 15 developed symptoms of alcoholism later in their lives.

The study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a component of the NIH, was compiled from interviews with 27,616 drinkers.

"This study adds new evidence about the need to regard underage drinking as the serious problem it is," Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said in the NIH report. "Parents, schools and communities need to say to our young people with one voice that underage drinking can jeopardize health and lifetime prospects."

The results, published in the January issue of the Journal of Substance Abuse, determined the risk for alcohol dependence declines the longer a person waits to start regular drinking habits.

According to the report, 24.5 percent of the study participants who started drinking at age 17 became dependent on alcohol. Ten percent of people who waited until the legal drinking age developed alcoholism.

Cmdr. Brian Seastone, a University of Arizona Police Department spokesman, said a large number of alcohol-related arrests on campus involve people under the age of 21.

"The vast majority of violations are by underage drinkers," he said. "Most of those are minor in possession or minor consuming."

Seastone said there were 284 alcohol-related arrests in 1996 and about 320 in both 1995 and 1994.

In the report, Dr. Enoch Gordis, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said it still needs to be determined whether the relationship between age and alcoholism can be attributed to other factors.

"It remains to be seen whether it is the delay in alcohol use or, possibly, other associated factors that explain the inverse relationship between age at drinking onset and lifetime risk for alcohol abuse and alcoholism," Gordis said.