The Truth About Teen Alcohol Use 101

When the class weekend warriors come to school on Monday, talking up the huge party where everyone had a buzz on and the whole football team got so drunk…are the stories really accurate? Well, there's a tendency to “exploit the truth to fit with the in-crowd,” says Israel, a non-drinking football player and member of a student task force who met with Dr. David Craig, a director of the Alcohol Education Project. Instead of using scare tactics, or a “Just Say No” platform, The Truth About Teen Alcohol Use 101 advocates taking a "social norms" approach, using the peer environment for positive social conditioning. Here, an anonymous survey at Riverside High School reveals that while most students believe 75-95% of the student body drinks, the shocking truth is that 70% of the student body does NOT drink--a statistic that is initially met with incredulity, until students begin to admit to exaggerating their own alcohol use. “Doesn't it feel good to know you're in the majority?” asks another task force member. The bulk of the program is comprised of sound bites from the task force meeting (shot using very odd camera angles), intercut with interviews, while the final section on alcohol poisoning is presented by an adult talking head (and feels like an afterthought). Although accompanied by an extensive 50-plus page resource guide, the mediocre production values and presentation make this suitable only for more comprehensive collections looking to present an alternative strategy for educating young people about drinking. Aud: J, H. (E. Gieschen)