Increasing alcohol abuse in youth

has on the human body. Since the beginning of time, human have consumed beverages made by fermenting grains or the juices of vine-ripened fruits. The ¡§healthy,¡¨ portly appearance of Western Europeans, often associated with engraving from the time of Charles Dickens¡¦s England and before, can be attributed to the heavy consumption of beer and wine by the populace. Beer, in particular, found its way into nearly every meals as either beverage or ingredient added liberally to soups and porridge (Schivelbusch, 1992). It should be understood that this pattern of consumption not only provided food in the form carbonhydrates and calories to an often-impoverished diet but also afforded a much safer beverage to consume than the septic water of the day. Indeed, at the time of the U.S Civil War, beer was often referred to as ¡§ liquid bread¡¨ (Bumham, 1993). Until recently, attitudes toward alcohol have relatively benign. For the thousands of years, alcohol has been regarded by society...