A pair of new government reports covering teen and college student drinking rates has hit the streets. There’s good news and not-so-good news.

Here’s the good news: The proportion of youth ages 12-17 who consume alcohol dropped over six percent (6.25%) between 2004 and 2005. That was the finding of the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

On the other hand, despite the fact that a great deal of attention has been devoted to underage college student drinking, the drinking rate for full time college students aged 18-20 remained essentially flat from 2002-2005. This is according to a just-released NSDUH short report. This report also notes that almost 60% of full-time 18-20 year old college students live in a household with a parent or grandparent.

It has been pretty well established that parents of teens have a significant impact on teenage decision-making about whether to drink or not. Perhaps it is time to devote renewed attention to the parents of 18-20 year olds, and especially those with kids still at home, to give them more tools like this one from the Century Council to help their kids make the right choice.