Fred Schwartz........."You’ve heard the statistic that 1 in 4 teenaged girls has a sexually transmitted disease. On the same day that story came out, newspapers reported another study showing that 17 percent of middle-school students had used alcohol within the past year, and 6 percent had been drunk within the past month. A previous study had shown that 47 percent of eighth graders have had alcohol, 20 percent had done so in the last month, and 12 percent had consumed “five or more drinks in a row in the previous 2 weeks.” The researchers suggest that these figures can be reduced with “alcohol prevention programs prior to the sixth grade” and “truly universal anti-alcohol messages.”

Makes sense, right? But compare that with what happened when the STD study came out: Planned Parenthood said the results showed that abstinence education doesn’t work, and teen-agers should instead be taught “safe sex.” Using the same logic, instead of unrealistically expecting tweens to abstain from alcohol, shouldn’t we be teaching them “safe drinking”? You know — it’s O.K. to knock back a brewski while playing Grand Theft Auto after school, but be sure to stop at one; eat something before you start chugging punch at the Halloween party; take a hair of the dog with your Froot Loops if you’ve had too many the night before; stuff like that. Education of this sort would kill two birds with one stone, since unsafe drinking often leads to unsafe sex; at least, that’s how it works with grown-ups."

NRO