Binge Drinking by Teenagers Causing Death

Binge drinking in teenagers has become a serious issue, moving into the eye of the media over the last decade more than ever before.  There have recently been many issues where not only do teenagers get very sick as a result of binge drinking, but many have actually died due to binge drinking and mixing alcohol with drugs as well.  Teenagers have many ways of obtaining alcohol, not only can they pay an adult to get it for them, some teenagers carry false identification, and some parents will actually supply the alcohol for their children.  The question here is, who should be held accountable for these deaths that have been caused due to binge drinking, the people that served the teens the alcohol, or should it be the teens themselves?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1290292/Binge-drinking-teenager-fell-100ft-death-celebrated-end-GSCEs.html

This is the story of Paddy Higgins, a popular teenager in the United Kingdom died on a night that he was out binge drinking.  Not only and he and his friends enjoyed approximately 6 cans each of a strong lager at a campsite before they went into town, but the 16 and 17 year old children were served alcohol in a restaurant, they were served shots of Sambuca to be exact.  Paddy decided to take a shortcut across a beach later that night, when he attempted to climb a cliff, he became distracted by his cell phone and fell to his death.  Many could try to state that a boy could become distracted by his cell phone while climbing a cliff, even while not being under the influence of alcohol.  The fact that Paddy Higgins had over three times the legal driving limit of alcohol in his system when he fell would assist in a loss of coordination, causing him to fall.  The alcohol played its part in this story.  Who is to be blamed though?  Should it be the waitress at the restaurant that served the underage minors alcohol?  Should it be the bus driver that took the underage students to a campsite and left them without adult supervision?  Should it be whoever got them the lager in the first place?  That is the question.

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/binge/a/teen_death.htm

Now this is the story of Julia Gonzalez, a teenager in California that died a death associated with acute alcohol poisoning.  Her problem was not just that she had been drinking too much, her problem was that nobody was there to help her in her time of need.  Julia had over 6 times the legal adult intoxication limit in her system, and she was only 16 years old weighing only 100 pounds.  To reach the alcohol limit she was at, she would have had to drink the equivalent of 16 drinks in under 1 hour.  She was then abandoned by her friends and died a death associated with alcohol poisoning.  She died because nobody helped her when the symptoms began to show, she was left all alone, to battle whatever came at her on her own.  Who should be blamed here?  The host of the party?  The friends that abandoned her?  Or her parents for allowing her to go to the party in the first place?

Teenagers binge drinking is a serious problem in the eye of the media today.  No matter who is to blame for any incident involving teenage binge drinking, the issue here is that people are dying, and something must be done to stop this.