Hmmm. Stanton Peele notes in the Wall Street Journal that while there’s this wave of states looking to hold parents responsible for their kids’ drinking, recent research suggests that maybe letting the kid have an occasional glass of wine at home might actually be a good thing:

Several studies have shown that the younger kids are when they start to drink, the more likely they are to develop severe drinking problems. But the kind of drinking these studies mean–drinking in the woods to get bombed or at unattended homes–is particularly high risk.

Research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2004 found that adolescents whose parents permitted them to attend unchaperoned parties where drinking occurred had twice the average binge-drinking rate. But the study also had another, more arresting conclusion: Children whose parents introduced drinking to the children at home were one-third as likely to binge.

“It appears that parents who model responsible drinking behaviors have the potential to teach their children the same,” noted Kristie Foley, the principal author of the study. While the phrasing was cautious, the implication of the study’s finding needs to be highlighted: Parents who do not introduce children to alcohol in a home setting might be setting them up to become binge drinkers later on. You will not likely hear this at your school’s parent drug- and alcohol-awareness nights.

Absolutely not, because as with the war on terra, hysteria must be maintained at the expense of fact at all times.