Youth Drinking in Micronesia

by Francis X. Hexel, SJ

Alcohol in Micronesia

Alcoholic beverages are clearly a Western contribution to Micronesia. Prior to European contact, the peoples of Micronesia possessed no alcoholic beverages at all, not even tuba, although the drug substances of betelnut and kava were used on some islands. The earliest European visitors to the islands carried on shipboard wine and liquor, which they occasionally offered to islanders as a sign of good will. More often than not, local people simply spat out the strange beverages that burned their throats and refused to drink any more of the foul-tasting stuff. As their contact with Europeans became more intense during the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century, however, islanders had ample opportunity to observe the strange changes in mood and behavior that alcohol produced. When local people finally began to purchase gin and rum from foreign traders, and even to ferment and distill their own beverages, it was in order to place ourselves under the odd but enchanting spell of "the water that takes away one's wits." They were quick to learn that the purpose of imbibing alcohol was to become intoxicated (Marshall and Marshall 1975).

The brawling and boisterous conduct that frequently followed upon local drinking led the colonial powers that ruled Micronesia from 1885 on to ban alcohol among the islanders. Although the Spanish in the Carolines were rather lax in the enforcement of this ban, the Germans and later the Japanese imposed a strict prohibition on all alcoholic beverages for local people, a policy that was continued through the early years of American administration after World War II. By the late 1950s, however, there was a growing reaction among Micronesians against the discriminatory liquor policy of former years and an insistence that the laws be changed to allow the consumption of alcoholic beverages by local people. In early 1959 the public sale of beer was permitted in Palau, and in subsequent months in the other districts of Micronesia as well. By the summer of 1960 further changes in the legislation were made to allow for the sale of distilled beverages as well (Mahoney 1974:12).

The legalization of alcohol for Micronesians, in the politically charged atmosphere of 1960, represented a decisive triumph over a colonialist mentality that had long denied local people the same right to drink that foreigners enjoyed. This liberalization of liquor laws, however, happened to coincide with the increase of US funding for the Trust Territory, a move that led to the availability of more jobs and gradual pay raises for Micronesian government employees, as well as the growth of the work force in district centers. In a word, there was more money around with which to purchase beer and liquor, and more people in town to enjoy these pleasures. The consequence of all of this was, quite predictably, a good amount of drunkenness and mayhem, as anyone who has lived through these years can attest. In 1965, in Truk alone, there were five killings, all of which were occasioned by drunken quarrels, and other districts showed similar signs of stress and strain.

In the two decades since the repeal of prohibition, alcohol has become a mainstay in a social life of virtually all the towns and many of the villages in Micronesia. Between 1969 and 1977, the only years for which dollar figures of imported alcoholic beverages are recorded, consumption of beer and liquor increased steadily. Expenditures on alcohol rose from $638,000, or 4.6% of the total value of imports, in 1969 to about $2,392,000, or 8% of the dollar value of imports, in 1977 (See Table on p. 18). Even with allowances made for inflation and population growth, the yearly per capita expenditure on alcohol during this period rose from about $13.50 to over $34. According to the most recent data available, the per capita expenditure on alcohol in Yap and Palau has been considerably higher than that in other island groups. It is estimated that well over $3 million, a year is now spent on alcoholic beverages in the FSM, Palau and the Marshalls, and there is every expectation that this figure will increase in the future.

The Drinking Problem Among Youth

Drinking among youth has become rampant during the past twenty years and, in the judgment of most observers, has given rise to a host of community problems. The impromptu parties at which bleary-eyed young men pass around the vodka bottle seem to end all too often in fighting or worse. One report from Pohnpei a few years ago begins with several graphic illustrations of the damage caused by young drinkers: jeeps are vandalized while their owners attend a farewell party; drunken marauders slash screens in private homes an classroom buildings; a young drunk terrorizes his family while smashing a glass and pounding it again and again on the cement porch of his home; a drunken brawl during a variety shown ends in the hospitalization of one young man in Hawaii for serious neurological damage (Rothgery et al, n.d.). In Weekend Warriors, Mac Marshall's study of alcohol use among young Trukese, the author recounts one instance after another of the mischief that followed upon drinking sprees by young men of the village in which he was living. These range from humorous demonstrations of kung fu kicks, to shattering louvres and showering rocks on nearby houses, all the way to inflicting serious personal injuries like fractured skulls or several arteries (Marshall 1979:70-81). What has been recorded on Pohnpei and Truk is true of the other island groups in Micronesia as well.

Youth drinking has, over the past several years, been strongly associated with criminal offenses. In his report on youth in Micronesia that was published some years ago, Michael Kenney states that interviews with police officers throughout the Trust Territory revealed that 90% of all arrests of juveniles under the age of 18 were for "illegal possession and consumption of alcohol; disturbing the peace while under the influence of alcohol, assault and battery while under the influence of alcohol; vandalism while under the influence of alcohol; and burglary and larceny to get alcohol or money to purchase alcoholic beverages" (Kenney 1976:54). That trend appears to continue through later youth, a period of life that is culturally defined as extending through the late 20's and early 30's in most Micronesian societies. Although police and court records are not always reliable, Mahoney (1974:25) suggests that upwards of 70 percent of all those who were sent to jail in the Trust Territory during the early 1970s were 25 years old or younger. Most of them were imprisoned for crimes committed under the influence of alcohol.

By way of summary, then, it would appear that at least in the last two decades it is the youth who are responsible for most of the crime, and it is alcohol that furnishes the impetus or the occasion for most of their criminal acts.

The Aims and Methodology of the Seminar

To explore the problem of youth drinking in greater depth, the Micronesian Seminar, the research-pastoral institute of the Catholic Diocese of the Caroline and Marshall Islands, conducted a three-day working seminar in Kolonia, Pohnpei. This seminar was made possible by a grant from the U.S. Government under the title of the White House Conference on Children and Youth. It was attended by over twenty participants representing Palau, the Marshalls, the Northern Marianas, and each of the states in the FSM, as well as the outer islands of Yap.

Alcohol use and abuse has been the subject of numerous past conferences in the Trust Territory, but more often than not these have treated the problem of youth drinking from the perspective of the clinical psychologist or social case worker, as a symptom of personal maladjustment or social malaise among the young in Micronesia. This recent seminar took a different approach altogether, more that of the cultural anthropologist than of the social case worker. The major aim of the conference was to examine as thoroughly as possible in the limited time available the cultural meaning and context of alcohol use in the different Micronesian societies. Instead of isolating youth drinking from the cultures in which it has become so deeply embedded, as has been done so often in the past, we proposed to examine how and why alcohol is utilized in our island societies. The scope of the seminar, therefore, was necessarily broader than simply youth drinking, even though its focus remained specifically on youth.

At bottom, the aim of this seminar was every bit as practical as those of the conferences that preceded it. With a better and more explicit understanding of how alcohol really works in a society, concerned community members are in a better position to identify and utilize those controls, traditional and modern, that might effectively check heavy drinking among youth and the excesses to which it often leads. Sound public policy, on drinking as on other issues, always proceeds from an accurate grasp of the nature of the problem and a knowledge of the various means at the disposal of the community to deal with the problem. So it is that this seminar might be seen as a preliminary step, albeit a small one, in the eventual formulation of sound public policy on alcohol.

The methodology used at the seminar was a simple type of social analysis. The main instrument was a set of questions designed to shed light on the cultural norms that currently determine how and under what conditions alcohol is used. (This set of questions is appended to this report.) Participants were broken down into cultural groups and asked to reflect on one set of questions at a time. Each group then had an opportunity to share its responses with all the other participants, and a general discussion almost always followed. The fact that all the major island groups in Micronesia were represented guaranteed intellectually stimulating cross-cultural comparisons.

Continued youth2