I went to various stuff as a teenager (Science contests, etc.) and is was serious business; but had the opportunity been there for beer and women in addition I would have taken it.  Intent does not equal opportunity.  I think it's charming Enrico sees the best in students; in regular media we often get portrayals of the worst in students.

Dear Enrico, there may be geographic differences, too. I suppose you're talking about the ensemble in Italy. I am mostly talking about Czechia but I actually do believe that despite the young-prohibition, my claims apply to the U.S. as well.
I know folks like my nephew (17+) who surely doesn't avoid alcoholic beverages, and having been considered an exemplary obedient guy with a perfect regime (who still eats lots of vegetables, fruits, vitamins, and avoids fat...) etc., he has already smoked about 6,000 or 9,000 cigarettes (I forgot the number but was told it: it's a lot for a kid). It's not just him; through him, one has some access to the broader culture of his contemporaries.

It is hard for me to believe that you actually have access to "statistics" that is more reliable than my superficially anecdotal but otherwise actually very nontrivial evidence. 

I find it very likely that in a poll at school or any other official place, my nephew would write down he avoids these things. I may be the only adult relative who knows numbers about his smoking, for example. This systematic error of your official "statistics" is arguably more serious than the statistical error that my anecdotal sample suffers from.

Add the preconception that "boozing up is what adolescents do" can lead to an expectation and may elevate the percent of kids who do drink.

I am always primarily trying to find the truth but even if "giving examples" and the expected optimal distortions of the truth were the main issue, I don't think that Tommaso's blog is primarily read by teenagers who are just deciding about a bottle. Moreover, I don't really think that it's devastating if someone drinks. People drink for various reasons that are, at least at a certain time scale, rationally justifiable. 

The amount of devilish implications that is being attributed to it is sometimes crazy and the reasons why people drink or smoke - releasing stress etc. - ultimately do have a valid core. I have personally never tried marijuana (and I tried my first and last cigarette when I was 5) but I have had friends who did and I don't think that this was a decisive negative thing in the life of any of them (exceptions were rare if any).

It reminds me of a debate with Ron Paul somewhere. They were asking him why he wanted to legalize marijuana and even heroin and how he was planning to attract most voters in a socially conservative state by that. He said various things about freedom, states' right to decide etc. but finally he gave the cute punch line: how many people in this room need a government to save them from taking heroin? ;-)


You know, when I was a teenager, I avoided almost any alcohol and never smoked. But I have also been a relative individualist from the beginning and one of a few people at the high school who didn't join the Socialist Youth Union. I still had enough contact with most classmates to have an idea how much they were drinking etc., too. Not much has changed in those 20 years, as far as I can say.

It's great to offer a teenager a "better life" without those sins except that I know that they would be disappointed, most of them. Such decisions depend on personal priorities, what one can stand etc. Drinking or smoking together is a social activity that some people can't live without. Even if they're in a group, they're doing such things because they make the co-existence or friendship real (sex obviously plays a similar role with intimate partners). I am afraid that if you're being told something else, that's because you haven't gotten really close to any of these kids.