“Iowans to Reduce Underage Drinking, a group of young people and adults from across the state, is lobbying Iowa’s senators and representatives to pass a statewide beer keg law in this session of the Legislature.” So read the opening lines of the January 29th press release announcing that Iowa students would lobby for keg registration before statewide legislation was passed to adopt this measure and cut down on underage drinking in the state.
“It was a long process – we were working on the project for four or five years,” says Carol Brown, project assistant for the Mason City Youth Task Force in Mason City. The project had originally started out with a very small group that wanted to draw attention to the importance of keg registration. Keg registration, something required by Missouri, Indiana, and numerous other states, requires that liquor stores selling beer kegs keep track of individuals who purchase the kegs by doing such things as taking down their license plate number or recording the number from a state-issued ID. This helps to hold people accountable for their actions.
Students discuss keg registration on a radio talk show
“If there’s a kegger going on somewhere and kids see law enforcement coming, they can just scatter and no one will know who was involved. If the keg is registered, you can sort of track who bought the keg and figure things out that way. It’s about access and keeping adults accountable for safe purchase.” With young people from various towns and counties across the state as the main force behind this effort, Iowa finally managed to pass the keg registration bill in March of 2007.
The remainder of the press release from January, 2007, reads as follows:
“Keg registration will hold adults responsible who illegally provide keg beer to underage drinkers. It will also help to reduce problems related to underage drinking such as:
- Forcing adults to think twice before providing keg beer or other alcohol to underage drinkers,
- Drinking and driving accidents resulting in highway deaths,
- Violent (assault) crime resulting in injuries and deaths,
- Date rape, sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies,
- Keg registration will encourage retailers to comply with the law of obtaining proper identification when selling keg beer.
- Keg registration will NOT place responsibility on the retailer if the keg is found, for instance, at an underage drinking party. The purchaser of the keg will take all responsibility for keeping the alcohol out of the reach of underage persons.”
According to Iowans to Reduce Underage Drinking, binge drinking* has become a problem in high schools and on college campuses in recent years. Kegs of beer are a cheap way to get lmany people drunk at the same time. Each keg holds approximately 165 12-ounce cups, making a glass of beer cost approximately 30 cents. This is much cheaper than buying cases of beer and bottles of liquor. A study from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a branch of the National Institute of Health, released in October of 2002, reports:
- 1,400 college students die from alcohol-related incidents each year.
- 500,000 students are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol.
- More than 600,000 students are assaulted by another student who has been drinking.
- More than 70,000 students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.
- 400,000 students had unprotected sex and more than 100,000 students report having been too drunk to know if they consented to having sex.
- Approximately 25 percent of students report academic consequences of their drinking.
- 2,100,000 students drove under the influence of alcohol.
- Approximately 11 percent of student drinkers report having damaged property while under the influence of alcohol.
*Binge drinking: five or more drinks in a row (for men) or four drinks in a row (for women)
Carol Brown, Youth Coordinator at Mason City Youth Task Force, can be reached by phone at (641) 421-2708 and by email at cbrown@masoncity.net.
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