Alcohol Awareness has flourished during the month of April. Senior Mintare Cesiunaite, has teamed up with our Philosophy club to use as a platform to spread the dangers of underage drinking.

“The goal is to raise awareness, so the goal is to spread the message,” Cesiunaite said. “The tag #sud_fhs stands for Stop Underage Drinking. The way to spread the message is to encourage students to take a picture on the Stop Underage Drinking photo wall by promising a pizza for the picture that gets the most likes. Then it  motivates students to try to get as many people as possible to see their picture,the background of the picture says ‘stop underage drinking.’ That is  the goal to get the message spread.”

According to a study by Columbia University, underage drinkers account for 11.4 percent of all of the alcohol consumed in the U.S. Nearly 10 million young people, ages 12 to 20, reported that they have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days.

According to the 2015 NSDUH, about 7.7 million people ages 12–2019reported drinking alcohol in the past month. About 5.1 million people ages 12–20 reported binge drinking in the past month. Approximately 1.3 million people ages 12–20 reported heavy alcohol use in the past month.

“The earlier a person starts using alcohol, the more risk is to get the negative effects,” said Cesiunaite. “It is sad that some young and bright minds damage themselves with harmful habits like alcohol. Also, the rate of current alcohol consumption increases with age so the fight against underage drinking needs to start now especially when it’s well known that in other countries the legal age to buy and use alcohol is 18. So temptation increases especially at that age when teens are in high school. Usually, underage drinking is not too big of a problem in high school, or at least in FHS because it depends on the school. Usually, it escalates more in college when students under age of 21 are around older students, so they get exposed to alcohol usage more.”

Students can take selfies all through April 25 to May 1 and post it on Instagram through a public account.The reward, as noted on stop-sign-shaped posters, is free pizza for the student who has the most likes before May 1.