What statistics? You haven't posted any. What have you have posted sounds anecdotal, at best. I posted a number of articles that discuss how binge drinking is seriously increasing in many European countries.
Here's another article discussing the "healthy" drinking habits of European youths.
Hmmm, you have posted stats to say the problems are getting worse in EUrope than they have been in Europe before. This does not mean they are worse in Europe than in the United States.
A quick google search pulled up this article:
http://www.youthfacts.org/student1.html
The section that would seem to relate here is:
"The United States has one of the highest drinking ages in the world. In most of Europe the drinking age is 16 and for the majority of the world the drinking age is 18. Drinking rates among European teens tend to be higher, but fewer teens reported being drunk in the past 30 days. 21% of American teens versus 13% of European teens reported being drunk according to Alcohol: Problems and Solutions, a website dedicated to alcohol awareness and laws. "
and this:
http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/controversies/20060830115118.html
Here is what I found interesting/pretinent in the above link:
"Critics counter that a lower drinking age in some European social democracies has produced an epidemic of alcohol abuse. World Health Organization data, however, indicate huge differences among European states with similar drinking ages.
The legal drinking age seems to be less important than the culture and practices surrounding alcohol.
Even one prominently featured article in the recent New York Times critique of underage drinking, from the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, comments: "Italy, France, Portugal and Greece had similar or smaller percentages [of teen binge drinkers] than the United States. Whether young people in those countries are more likely to drink with family and in meal settings and whether such practices moderate risks posed by early drinking warrant study."
Such study is under way. Brown University anthropologist Dwight Heath has identified characteristics of several Southern European subcultures where teens legally drink as early as 16 but binging and the violence that often accompanies excess are much less common. These cultures teach their teens something many American politicians can't grasp - the difference between moderation and abuse. Teenagers have two equally acceptable options: (a) to abstain or (b) to drink in moderation. Parents do more than remove car keys. They teach and model in their lives the lesson that abuse of alcohol at any age is totally unacceptable."
Honestly I have seen data to support both sides of the argument presented many times over. Many (most I think) studies on teen drinking rely on teens to self report their behavoiur. This is going to skew statistics and beyond that we all know what spin can do.
