Heavy drinking has become a dangerous tradition for individuals celebrating their 21st birthday and experts say that more needs to be done to prevent tragic alcohol overdoses, the Columbus Dispatch reported May 20.

Videos on YouTube and MySpace have helped promote the dubious tradition of downing 21 shots on your 21st birthday -- an exercise that has cost some young people their lives. Twenty-one shots would equal more than a fifth of liquor, and death from alcohol intoxication can occur when blood-alcohol content reaches .30 percent or higher -- a level that most drinkers would reach before they down their 21st shot.

"I've only seen one kid try it, and he didn't get very far before he got pretty sick," said bartender John Cordas of the Ugly Tuna Saloona near the Ohio State University campus. "After eight or nine shots, you're pretty drunk."

"It's probably the most dangerous drinking occasion for students," said Steven W. Clarke, director of the Campus Alcohol Abuse Prevention Center at Virginia Tech.

Clarke is critical of bars that give free shots to individuals celebrating their 21st birthday, and said that peer pressure also plays a role in celebratory overindulgence. "College students don't typically buy drinks for each other, so they feel it would be rude not to consume them," he said.

Inexperienced drinkers tend to consume their drinks too quickly, especially when celebrations begin at midnight and bars close at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. Minnesota and North Dakota have addressed the problem by banning bars from serving 21-year-olds until 8 a.m. on the morning after the day they turn 21.

Bars and bartenders also need to be more accountable for their actions, said Toben Nelson, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota. "There are laws about not serving someone who's obviously intoxicated, but they're rarely enforced," he said. "We've done studies by having people go into bars and act intoxicated, and three-fourths of the time they're served alcohol."