While annual Monitoring the Future surveys show remarkable long-term declines in drinking prevalence among junior and senior high school students, the same surveys show some slight increases in drinking among young adults age 19-28, at least over the last decade. At the same time, attitudes about moderate and heavy drinking show some modest changes among this segment of the population.

Just below 69% of 19-28 year olds drank monthly in 2008, according to MTF. That's up 2 points from 66.9% in 1998, though still 5 points below the 75% of 19-28 yr olds who drank monthly in the late 80s. Daily drinking among this age group increased from 4% to 5.3% over the last decade, though again that's down from 6.1% 20 years ago. Compare these trends to monthly drinking among 18 yr-olds, which dropped from 63.9% in 1988 to 52% in 98 then 43% in 2008. Similarly, daily drinking among 18 yr-olds declined from 4.2% to 3.9% to 2.8%. What about older adults? MTF data on those 30+ doesn't go as far back as the teen data, but monthly drinking among 35 yr-olds increased from 62.9% in 98 to 65% in 08; among 40 yr-olds the rate increased from 59.8% to 66.3% over the same period.

Not surprisingly, given American ambivalence about alcohol, trends in attitudes about moderate drinking are inconsistent. Perceptions of the "harmfulness" of moderate drinking - 1-2 drinks nearly every day - have barely budged among young adults. For example, the percentage of 23-26 yr olds who view that practice as posing a "great risk" was the same 21% in 1998 and 2008. A slightly higher percentage of 27-30 yr olds deemed moderate drinking a great risk in 2008 (21.5%) compared to 1988 (20.8%). Those figures had dropped fairly sharply from 1995 to 1998. But disapproval of moderate drinking declined during the same period, significantly among some groups. For example, while nearly 70% of 27-30 yr-olds in the late 90s disapproved of taking 1-2 drinks/day, that dropped to below 60% in 2008. That's good sign, but it remains somewhat remarkable, and perhaps a bit distressing, that a large majority of Americans still disapproves of the practice. Among 19-26 yr-olds, there was a more modest decline in disapproval rates of moderate drinking, slipping from slightly over 70% in 1998 to 65-66.4% a decade later. When it comes to heavier drinking, over 90% of young adults continue to disapprove of 4-5 drinks daily, though that drops to about 2/3 for drinking heavily on weekends. Ref 2