Marin County is one of the most densely populated teen drinking counties in the U.S. In Marin County, parents and teachers have thoroughly devised ways in order to decrease alcohol consumption by teens. An article by Marincounty.org stated, “The well-documented binge–drinking epidemic in Marin County has long-lasting consequences for teens.” 90 percent of teen drinking is in the form of binge drinking. Though at Redwood High School, teachers and faculty designed a course, freshman Social Issues, intended to address the issue of teen drinking. In Marin County, Redwood High School is one of the many schools that continues to educate students on the effects of teen drinking. Though schools are making bigger steps towards binge drinking education, peer pressure is still a main cause of why students binge drink. 

Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) schools have been attempting to mitigate the issue. The main reason for students’ behavior towards drinking is based on the commercial and cultural environment students are immersed in.

Students are continually exposed to alcohol. Teens have the ability to manipulate others when it comes to alcohol consumption; this is called peer pressure. 

An article by ABC News, explains how in June 2009 two college freshmen, Jessica Rasdall and Laura Gorman, went out for a night of drinking and resulted in a fatal accident killing Laura Gorman. The beginning of the night, inside the nightclub, a man who worked there told the girls he could get them drinks even if they weren’t 21 years of age. “He asked, ‘Are you girls 21? Because it doesn’t matter,'” Rasdall said. “He got the bartender’s attention, told her to order us a drink, and then he said, ‘let’s switch to shots — they’re quick, they’re fast, no one will even see the cup in your hand, it’s in and out.’” While the act of giving underage students a drink is already a crime in itself, it was the peer pressure that the two girls were surrounded by that convened them to do it, there was so much pressure to drink that they didn’t realize the consequences of driving home drunk. Rasdall made a statement saying, “My name is Jessica Rasdall, and on Feb. 25, 2006, I killed my best friend.” 

The Social Issues class provided at Redwood High School specifically targets students’ understanding of the effects of alcohol and how to consume it in a safe way. After this education, students were given the choice to consume alcohol themselves. The students choose to engage in these activities, and when the amount of alcohol consumption is as immense as it is in this age group, students have difficulty staying away from these situations. There is no one way to diminish the act of peer pressure, but by using the social issues classes, it will help students learn the consequence of forcing other students to drink. By having the students during the course read articles or watch interviews about moments where peer pressure leads to a degree of fatality, students can soon learn that when deciding to make a decision like peer pressure, it can result in multiple disasters. 

The deputy county health director, Sparkie Spaeth, stated in an article from the Marin Independent Journal that alcohol abuse rates have been decreasing over the past decade tremendously. Schools have continued to increase the amount of education that addresses the issue in hopes that awareness will mitigate this predicament. With these drinking education courses, schools have helped students in Marin County have access to multiple resources they can use to learn about safe alcohol consumption and understand peer pressure.

A survey conducted by Marin County supervisees on July 19, 2018, indicated that “59 percent of 11th-graders and 80 percent of ninth-graders said they did not use alcohol within the past month, and reflected varying age-group dips in youth drinking [and] binge drinking.” The Social Issues course was implemented in December of 2001 and has continued to decrease the rates of alcohol. Over the course of 20 years, Redwood High School has continued helping students understand the issue.

Though Marin County has continued to be seen as an alcohol dependent community, schools are constantly finding new ways to educate students on safe alcohol consumption. With peer pressure constantly in students’ lives, education on understanding the consequences is the most important way to get students to be educated on the topic. Without understanding teen drinking and peer pressure, students will never learn what could happen when a student is peer pressured into drinking and could lead to a fatal accident. Teen alcohol abuse is based on the students’ environment, especially when being a teenager in an area with such high percentages of teen alcohol abuse. Overall, teachers have continued to have a positive effect on the teen binge drinking issue and from this, the abuse of alcohol in teens will decrease immensely.