London, Oct 9 (IANS) Excessively low cost alcohol promotes harmful underage drinking, says a new study based on survey of 9,833 teens between the ages of 15 and 16 years.
Mark Bellis worked with a team from Liverpool John Moores University and Trading Standards to survey the teens’ alcohol consumption patterns, drink types consumed, drinking locations, methods of access and harms encountered.

“Regretted sex after drinking, having been involved in violence when drunk, consuming alcohol in public places and forgetting things after drinking had all been experienced by relatively large proportions of teen drinkers,” says Bellis.

“For children who drink alcohol we did not find any typical drinking patterns where children were at no risk of harms.

“Accessing alcohol through parents did not remove the risks of alcohol related harms but was associated with lower levels of risk.”

While 19.9 percent teen drinkers whose parents provide alcohol and who drink once a week had been involved in violence when drunk, this rose to 35.9 percent in those who only access alcohol through other means.

The researchers found a strong relationship between consumption of cheaper alcohol products and increased proportions of respondents reporting violence when drunk, alcohol related regretted sex and drinking in public places, says a Liverpool release.

Drinking large cider bottles was, in particular, associated with drinking in public areas such as streets, parks and outside shops. At the time of the study, alcopops were not associated with increased risk of harm, perhaps because their relatively high price per unit of alcohol limited their abuse potential.

These findings were published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.