A recent alcohol party at a private home that led to 42 Westminster High students being ruled ineligible for extracurricular activities worries authorities and professionals striving to curb underage drinking in Carroll County.

Heroin abuse has grabbed much attention in the past year, but underage drinking is Carroll's most widespread problem, affecting more than half of the county's high school seniors, said Olivia Myers, executive director of Junction Inc., a substance-abuse treatment and prevention facility in Westminster.

"With everyone so focused on heroin, the tendency is to forget how significant underage drinking is," she said. "The numbers we are seeing have been level and consistent, and they are high."

Myers said that in each of the past five fiscal years, counselors at Junction have treated more than 100 juveniles whose primary addiction is to alcohol.

"That is about 30 percent of our caseload, which is high," she said. "And the age of first use seems to be going down. We have seen a couple that began using alcohol at age 11."

The most reliable statistics are generated by the Maryland Adolescent Survey report, a biennial survey of sixth-, eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders. It was used recently as a gauge for awarding $400,000 in federal grants aimed at curbing underage drinking in Allegany, Baltimore, Frederick, Howard and Talbot counties.

Statistical data on underage drinking worries Myers and Joanne Hayes, coordinator for substance abuse prevention in the Carroll County schools.

More than half of Carroll County's high school seniors have consumed alcohol in the past 30 days, an "indicator of regular use," Myers said. More than 60 percent have had five or more alcoholic drinks on at least one occasion, a widely accepted sign of binge drinking, Hayes said.

The 30-day figure -- 55.3 percent -- is 5 percentage points above the national average and 3 percentage points higher than the state average, Myers said.

The 1999 Maryland Adolescent Survey report is not expected until September, but the perception of Myers, Hayes and David J. Tucker, the county's supervisor of juvenile services, is clear.

The quantity consumed during binges is dangerous for younger drinkers, and the level of tolerance that some have developed at an early age is alarming, Hayes said.

Underage drinking "appears to be rising, based on the referrals we are seeing," said Tucker, who had not seen the 1998 figures.

Tucker noted statistics since 1991 showing the number of juveniles referred by police to juvenile services in Carroll County, where the primary complaint involved alcohol. The numbers from 1991 to 1995 were relatively constant, averaging 60.4 alcohol referrals each year.

Such referrals jumped to 98 in 1996 and 119 the next year, Tucker said.

Preliminary numbers for last year, provided by Bob Kannenberg, spokesman for the state Department of Juvenile Justice, were less alarming. Alcohol referrals last year in Carroll County dipped to 94, he said.

Statistics for the other metropolitan counties show an upward trend from 1997 to 1998, Kannenberg said.

The number of referrals in Howard County dropped last year, from 331 to 273, but soared in Anne Arundel County, to 352 from 158. Baltimore County referrals increased to 276 last year from 217, and Harford County's jumped to 138 from 22 last year.

At Western Maryland College, where 75 percent of students are under age 21, overall violations are decreasing, said Don Schumaker, a spokesman for the college.

Pub Date: 3/03/99