From the New York Times:

CODY, Wyo. — Barely five people per square mile live on the high, wind-raked ground of Wyoming; the entire state is a small town with long streets, as they say. The open space means room to roam and a sense of frontier freedom.

It also means that on any given night, an unusually high percentage of young people here are drinking alcohol until they vomit, pass out or do something that lands them in jail or nearly gets them killed.

“Had a kid, drunk, flipped his car going 80 miles an hour, and that killed him; and another kid, drunk, smashed his boat up against the rock just a couple months ago, killing two; and then there was this beating after a kegger — they clubbed this kid to death,” said Scott Steward, the sheriff here in Park County, recounting casualties that followed long nights of hard drinking by high school students.

A federal government survey recently confirmed what residents of Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas already knew: people there drink to excess, at very early ages, well above the national average.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/us/02binge.html?ex=1314849600&en=02f5557307b1545a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Two questions for you?

1.  Where do you live?

2.  If you live in one of these areas or an area where this happens, what can you do about it?