Teen drinking is something that’s usually seen as a terrible thing. It’s typically associated with excessive drinking, partying and blacking out which honestly, shouldn’t be the case.

What I just described is binge drinking, not teen drinking. Teen drinking is drinking while you’re a teenager, which is not necessarily binge drinking at parties.

I believe it should be perfectly fine to have a glass of wine with dinner, or a beer after a long day. In a controlled and safe environment, teen drinking should be allowed.

Binge drinking in an uncontrolled environment however, can be deadly. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,300 teens die each year in the United States from excessive drinking. These deaths are mainly caused by alcohol poisoning and other factors that aren’t accident related.

“Thankfully [binge drinking] can be kind of controlled [for] minors with the drinking age and what not, but the impact that it has on adults is horrible, and we really need to have more programs to combat [binge drinking] and the mental illness that ties in with [it,]” Seaburg added.

So with this in mind, it shows that binge drinking and drinking in an uncontrolled environment is what the issue is, not drinking in general.

Honestly, what is the point of drinking in high school? The way I see it, is that all it does for students is make them forget the bad decisions they made the night before at the party, as well as gives them a headache and put them on the path to becoming an alcoholic.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, people ages 12-20 drink 11 percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States.

To make things worse, teenagers tend to binge drink, rather than just drink. Meaning that when they do drink, they drink an excessive amount.

A Ventura High School student -who has asked to remain anonymous in case there are legal repercussions to admitting to drinking underage- said that “[I’ve had at least] three beers every Friday for the past couple weeks.”

I get that people want to have a good time with their friends, but do they realize they don’t need alcohol to have fun? I can name 10 things off the top of my head that are more fun when sober.

Not only is teenage drinking dumb because it serves no valid purpose, but -and here’s the elephant in the room- it’s also extremely dangerous.

In 2011, over 110,000 people under the age of 21 visited the hospital due to injuries acquired while under the influence. In addition, from 2006 to 2010, over 1,500 teens died in alcohol related car crashes, according to the NIAAA.

After growing up with so many examples of things that could go wrong from drinking, I’d assume that teens would think “Hey, maybe getting completely plastered is a bad idea,” but I guess not.

It seems like every weekend I see snapchats of people getting drunk with their friends and then the corresponding snapchats of them complaining about how hungover they are the next day.

Don’t complain about your own stupidity people!