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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

Underage Drinking: Underage Purchase of Alcohol

About this resource:

HHS Non-systematic Review

Source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Last Reviewed: January 2019

Workgroups: Substance Use Workgroup

This webpage includes tools about laws that ban minors from buying or attempting to buy alcoholic beverages. These tools also cover laws allowing persons under age 21 to buy alcoholic beverages for law enforcement purposes. The webpage features tables that include:

  • Policies listed by state as of specific dates
  • Policy changes over time 
  • Specific circumstances that apply to each policy
  • Citations to legal sources

Users can sort and filter the tables by a variety of criteria. This page also provides resources like:

  • Timeline of policy changes
  • Useful maps and charts
  • List of variables and other definitions to help understand the language use in the webpage
  • Detailed information about the policy these laws are based on
Read more about this resource

Objectives related to this resource (1)

Reduce the proportion of adolescents who drank alcohol in the past month — SU‑04
Little or no detectable change

Suggested Citation

1.

Alcohol Policy Information System. (n.d.). Underage drinking: Underage purchase of alcohol. Retrieved from https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/apis-policy-topics/underage-purchase-of-alcohol/43