Intermountain Medical Center joins Parents Empowered and Other Community Organizations to Fight the Dangers of Underage Drinking

The organization’s campaign includes statewide radio and TV ads and partnerships with the Murray School District and Police Department, as well as Intermountain Medical Center.

The campaign kicked off at the beginning of the month with a press conference at Intermountain Medical Center where Utah's lieutenant governor and Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission chairman, Murray's mayor, police chief, and school district superintendent, and Intermountain Medical Center's administrator spoke about each organization’s initiatives to combat teen drinking.

"What we hope to do is educate parents and kids in the community to see the impact of underage drinking and do something about it — to have critical conversations between parents and children," said David Grauer, administrator at Intermountain Medical Center.

All around the hospital, interactive displays share facts about underage drinking and the drastic effects it has on teen’s growing brains. The hallway outside of the hospital’s cafeteria offers an inside look at a teen’s brain and the neurological functions that alcohol disrupts.

Some of the more startling realities of underage drinking are that teens who drink heavily are three to four times more likely to attempt suicide and 39 percent more likely to exhibit serious behavioral problems.

Teen drinkers can also have hippocampi — the part of the brain that stores memories — that are up to 10 percent smaller than normal, and it's possible that deficit can remain through adulthood.

Allison Campbell, a member of Murray High School's Peer Leadership team, says school programs hit the need for kids to be drug-free hard, but they don't focus on underage drinking as much as she thinks they should.

“It's pretty easy for some young people to drink because alcohol is just in the house and I don't think parents realize their children are just going to take it if they want it," said Campbell. "And I know some kids will get it on the weekends or sometimes during the week."

Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox says the messages shared by Parents Empowered are critically important.

"We're working with our law enforcement community and we're getting reports back that they're seeing fewer incidents," he said. "Our DUIs are down among teenage drivers, so all of that is good news, but we still have more to do." 

Parents Empowered is a media and education campaign funded by the Utah Legislature that’s designed to prevent and reduce underage drinking in Utah by providing parents and guardians with information about the harmful effects of alcohol on the developing teen brain, along with proven tools for preventing underage alcohol use.