State Profiles of Underage Drinking Laws
This section of the APIS Web site provides State-by-State summaries of laws and regulations related
to underage drinking and access to alcohol. For each State, summaries are provided for eleven 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.
The
APIS Policy Topics section
of this Web site presents additional detailed information on these and other policy topics.
Each policy topic provides a description, a summary of relevant Federal law, interactive comparison tables showing policies in effect
on a user-specified date or changes over time, explanatory notes and limitations, and definitions and selected references as appropriate.
The
APIS Highlight on Underage Drinking provides an overview of underage drinking policy in the United States and other material that may be helpful
in understanding the policy topics presented in the these State profiles. In addition,
maps and charts for all of these policy topics are collected on a single
page to provide a more comprehensive graphical overview of underage policies.
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. For
example, although all States prohibit minors (a term widely used in this
context to refer to persons under the age of 21) from possessing and,
in most cases, purchasing
and consuming
alcoholic beverages, and prohibit adults from furnishing
alcoholic beverages to minors, these prohibitions are subject to a number of
exceptions that vary from State to State. This is particularly the case
regarding the Underage
Consumption of Alcohol and Underage
Possession of Alcohol policy topics when addressing questions related to
the circumstances when underage drinkers may legally possess or consume alcohol.
Select a jurisdiction by choosing from the drop-down list or clicking on the map.
| 
