Taking notice of the fact that slogans like "Just say No" are not that effective, scientists decided to turn to teenagers' curiosity towards themselves and their bodies, in an attempt to stop surging alcohol usage in the United States. Currently, drinking is the most widespread vice in the country, with a reported 80 percent of children still in high school having tried alcohol at least once.
 

The new tactic involves explaining the effects that alcohol has on the brain directly to the kids, during special classes, meant to raise their levels of awareness on the dangerous substance. Health experts say that wine can indeed benefit some people in the long-run, if a single glass is consumed after meals rich in fats, but that, other than that, excessive consumption is neither justified, nor desirable.

 
"Parents need every tool they can find to convince their teens not to drink alcohol, particularly during the holiday season. Science is such a tool, and it is providing new insights on alcohol's effects on the maturing brain," argues the head of the Education & Human Resources Directorate at American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Shirley Malcom.
 

The researchers say that they will try to explain to children that they have well over 100 billion neurons inside their brains, each with the capacity to create thousands of lifetime connections. Even small or moderate amounts of alcohol before the early and mid twenties can affect either the prefrontal cortex, associated with decision making, the ventral striatum, or the hippocampus. Damages in these regions cannot be undone.
 

The US National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reports that, on a prom night, when teenagers usually get to drinking, an average of 48 of them are killed in car crashes, with the driver being under the influence, and a further 5,202 are injured at the same time. On the grander scheme of things, 16,885 alcohol-related deaths were recorded in 2005, which means an average of one fatality every 18 minutes.