According to statistics over 50-percent of high school students drank in 1995. In 2011 the number had dropped to 34-percent.
For binge drinking, in the mid-90’s nearly 40-percent of high school students participated. Last year under 25-percent reported taking part in binge drinking.
Rodney Wambean is a research scientist with the University of Wyoming. He says based on figures from the mid 90’s had there been no prevention efforts, use among teenagers today would be around 53-percent.
"But when you draw a line at 2001, when we started doing prevention and you look at what actually happened,” says Wambeam. You see areal perceptive decrease in underage drinking and while the drinking was to stay it was through h the 90’s we would have 53% today but in Wyoming we more like 36% of kids reporting alcohol use.”
The information is included in a report by the Wyoming Childrens Action Alliance, which also shows underage smoking is down, which Wambeam says is partly to blame on smoking ordinances around the state.
