Albert Shang and Jacob Mansfield, Y12
Alcohol is unique in that it’s one of the most socially acceptable and legal drugs. Therefore, it comes as little surprise that it is consumed copiously during weekends.
Most of us have all taken at least a sip or two of alcohol in our lives. Some of us may even have gone a good deal further, probably at some social occasion. Many will have experienced some of the symptoms, namely, a loss of balance, questionable judgment, and a tendency to overshare feelings and information with one’s peers, and even perhaps more unpleasant effects. Although this might make for a night of fun, alcohol is a double-edged sword. In the long term, it can cause shorter attention spans, memory loss, and all sorts of other conditions with names too complicated for a school newspaper.
Let’s look at some facts (this is, after all, a science article). One in seven teenagers in Switzerland engage in binge drinking once a week. That represents over four glasses for girls, and five for guys in one sitting. That’s a lot of alcohol for students who are effectively children; the human brain doesn’t finish maturing until twenty-five, so at sixteen, the legal drinking age for beer and wine in Geneva, alcohol can cause serious damage to your body. Some studies have found ample evidence to suggest that 15-year olds who consume alcohol for the first time are over five times more likely to be alcoholics than those who only start drinking at 21. Alcohol abuse has all sorts of side effects ranging from liver damage to growth and reproductive stunting.
This isn’t meant to be a scare tactic. Alcohol consumption has been rising in the past decades, with the average age of first drinking dropping from 17 to 14 from 1965 to 2003. With social media allowing the effects of alcohol to enter the digital sphere, it is more important than ever you know what you’re dealing with.
Most people are probably aware of all the risks listed above. However, alcohol is still, at least to most students, a way to spend time with friends.
Therefore, what really matters, is that everyone understands what they’re doing, before making a potentially rash decision.
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