Attorney General gravely concerned about underage drinking

Attorney General Steve Rowe spoke recently of his grave concern on the subject of underage drinking. “Alcohol can permanently damage the adolescent brain and I think that this is something that young kids don’t think a lot about,” said Rowe. “It can permanently damage your brain. I know somebody very close to me whose brain was permanently damaged because of alcohol use as a young person."

“The brain goes through dynamic change during the early years and alcohol can have both short term and long term negative impacts on the growth process of the neural connections in the brain. So it’s not just that you get drunk and you go out and you do something stupid. It’s if you drink alcohol on a regular basis, it can have a life long negative impact on your brain. And I think kids don’t realize that.”

Rowe also gave staggering statistics on the negative consequences that alcohol abuse has on the economy. In the year 2000, the Office of Substance Abuse published a report that revealed the estimated cost of substance abuse in Maine was about 618 million dollars. About 70 percent of those costs were attributed to alcohol abuse. Some of those costs included such things as lost productivity due to premature death and illness, medical care, corrections and law enforcement, child welfare, motor vehicle accidents and substance abuse treatments.