Ever since her brother-in-law died in a crash caused by a 16-year-old drunken driver, Susanne Sanstra has sold a message of sobriety.

The words Focus. Stay Sober. are artfully arranged on T-shirts available on her Web site, Angelsgathering.com. It's a message that the Larkspur woman says teens truly need but never get.

"There's no support for the choice not to drink, and it's a perfectly logical choice," she said. "Everyone thinks drinking's such a rite of passage for teenagers, it's hard for them to choose not to."

Some parents who consider teenage drinking an inevitability say they would rather have their kids doing it under adult supervision to prevent risky behavior, like driving drunk. Other parents say that while they might give their own teenager an occasional glass of wine in their own home - which is legal in Colorado - they would never give a drink to someone else's child.

Underage guests who drank at a party outside Granby hosted by Mark Bujanovich, president of the East Grand School Board, apparently were there with their parents' permission and spent the night, according to East Grand School Superintendent Robb Rankin.

Bujanovich has been charged with providing alcohol to minors, specifically the classmates of his eldest son, who graduated last year from Middle Park High School.

"He created a very controlled environment out there," Rankin said.

But parents who think it's safe to give their own children or other kids alcohol at home are fooling themselves, says Traci Toomey, a University of Minnesota epidemiology professor who studies the impact of underage drinking.

"They're making a pretty big assumption that they can keep all those kids safe. And kids are more likely to drink in other settings that aren't safe because they've gotten the message that it's OK," Toomey said. "The message outside the home is, drink alcohol - and drink a lot of it."

Studies show that although teens drink less frequently than adults, they down more drinks at a time - an average of five drinks each time, six times a month, which puts them in the "binge" range. Drinkers over age 26 drink about nine times a month, but stick to an average of two to three drinks each time.

Part of the problem is society's mixed messages, Toomey says. Schools and parents might teach alcohol avoidance, but liquor is readily accessible. A 2006 University of Michigan study found that 34 percent of high school sophomores and 45 percent of seniors reported having a drink in the previous month; 19 percent of sophomores reported being drunk in the previous 30 days, and 30 percent of seniors reported the same. Among 10th-graders, 35 percent had been drunk in the previous year, as had 48 percent of seniors.

At the Latimer household in Boulder, drinking was limited to a few sips of wine at special occasions after the three children reached their late teens.

"I would never give alcohol to any other parent's children that are under 21," said Walter Latimer, whose youngest just graduated from high school. "And if my kids went to another kid's house where their parents were handing out alcohol, I would not appreciate that at all."

Leah Watson, 18, says she's never been to a party where parents offered liquor to underage guests, but she thinks that being allowed to have an occasional drink at home can help demystify alcohol.

"I've seen a lot of parties get out of control because kids don't know their limits," she said. "A lot of people have gotten in trouble because they had to sneak around to get it."

Her father, Denver firefighter David Watson, doesn't offer his daughter alcohol.

"Giving them alcohol is one thing, but controlling the car keys is another," he said. "I've cut too many kids out of car wrecks. If you'd seen some of the things I've seen, the last thing you would do is encourage kids to drink."

The January 2006 accident that killed Steven Mitchell, 36, a father of two, happened when Daniel Stephen's vehicle drifted across the center line and hit Mitchell's head-on. Stephen, who was seriously injured, apparently had been drinking for the first time at a barn party.

"Every single weekend, there are parties where parents are condoning drinking and are actually contributing by buying the alcohol," Sanstra said. "We have to try to do something. We can't just throw up our hands. What kind of answer is that?"

Under the influence

Facts about underage drinking from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University:

• About 10.8 million people 12 to 20 years old reported drinking alcohol in the past month.

• Between 1993 and 2001, 18- to 20-year-old drinkers showed a 56 percent increase in binge-drinking episodes.

• 94 percent of the alcohol consumed by all 15- to 17-year-olds and 96 percent of the alcohol consumed by all 18- to 20-year-olds is drunk when the drinker is having five or more drinks at a time.

• Underage drinking is estimated to account for 12 percent to 20 percent of the U.S. alcohol market.

• More U.S. youth drink alcohol than smoke tobacco or pot.

ryckmanl@RockyMountainNews.com

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