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Underage Drinking

APIS provides convenient access to policy topics that pertain to underage drinking, in order to encourage research, evaluation, and outreach efforts in this important area.

State Profiles of Underage Drinking Laws

This section of the APIS Web site provides State-by-State summaries of statutes and regulations related to underage drinking and access to alcohol. For each State, summaries are provided for twelve policy topics that are particularly relevant to underage drinking. To view the summary for a given jurisdiction, click on the appropriate part of the map or select a jurisdiction from the drop-down menu.

Map of the United States with each State selectable Washington Oregon Idaho Montana Wyoming North Dakota South Dakota Nebraska Colorado Utah Nevada California Arizona New Mexico Alaska Kansas Oklahoma Texas Minnesota Iowa Missouri Arkansas Louisiana Mississippi Alabama Tennessee Kentucky Illinois Wisconsin Michigan Indiana Ohio Florida Georgia South Carolina North Carolina Virginia West Virginia Pennsylvania Maryland District of Columbia Delaware New Jersey New York Vermont New Hampshire Maine Connecticut Rhode Island Massachusetts Hawaii

A Note on Interpretation of APIS data: It is frequently helpful to consider APIS Underage Drinking policy topics in connection with one another rather than in isolation, in order to avoid misinterpretation of the data. For example, all States prohibit minors (a term widely used in this context to refer to persons under the age of 21) from possessing alcoholic beverages, but not all States prohibit minors from purchasing alcoholic beverages. The fact that a State does not prohibit underage purchasing should not be interpreted as meaning that the State permits such activity, since the minor would have to violate the possession prohibition in order to complete the purchase. States may create separate offenses because they consider illegal purchase to be a more serious violation. These types of overlapping provisions are most common regarding the Underage Possession/Consumption/Internal Possession of Alcohol policy topic. Note also that various exceptions may apply that may not be identical across the policies. For example, a parent may allow his/her underage child to possess alcohol in any private location but may be prohibited from furnishing the alcohol without exception.