The San Diego County Underage Drinking Initiative is a multi-system, multi-agency effort to reduce the impact of underage drinking. Youth access to alcohol is a public health problem commanding attention throughout our society. Alcohol-related traffic crashes are the number one cause of death for young people. Youngsters are experimenting with alcohol at progressively earlier ages. Drinking is a factor in academic failure and school dropouts, unwanted pregnancies and contracting sexually transmitted disease. Parents, educators and health and welfare workers see the consequences of underage drinking on a daily basis.

The Underage Drinking Initiative attacks this problem by developing and implementing community-driven, research-based strategies that reflect the ethnic and cultural diversity of the population in urban and rural areas of San Diego County. This report recounts how the goals of the Initiative were identified, how countywide and local community efforts to realize these goals are being coordinated, and the results of a recent analysis and evaluation of the Initiative that will help define its future direction.

The Goals of the Underage Drinking Initiative are to:

1. Reduce commercial availability of alcohol to underage youth through Responsible Beverage Services and Sales and establishing local control of the density and placement of alcohol outlets.

2. Reduce alcohol access to underage youth during house parties.

3. Reduce alcohol availability and promotion on college campuses.

4. Reduce glamorization and encouragement of minors drinking through advertisements, promotions and other marketing strategies.

5. Reduce inappropriate normalization of alcohol use through commercial influence on cultural celebrations.

6. Advance"family-friendly" parks and recreation areas on public and private lands that restrict alcohol sales and consumption.

Background

The Underage Drinking Initiative emerged from the work of the San Diego County Policy Panel on Youth Access to Alcohol, which published a report in 1994 recommending policy initiatives aimed at reducing rates of underage drinking throughout the county. The Policy Panel based its recommendations on the principle that personal and social problems resulting from underage drinking must be addressed by adults who determine the circumstances in which alcoholic beverages are made available in our society. The 18-member Panel, representing a cross-section of leadership in the region, made 15 recommendations calling for action by both the public and private sectors in the areas of law enforcement, marketing, education, and land use and zoning.