The law, which police will begin enforcing today, increases the maximum penalty for furnishing alcohol to minors or allowing underage drinking from $1,000 to $2,500 for a first offense. The penalty for a second or subsequent violation increases from $1,500 to $5,000.

Though existing state laws are geared toward proprietors, like bars and liquor stores, this new law is meant to send a message to adults - even the parents of teens - that enabling children to consume alcohol is a serious crime.

The bill was sponsored by Del. Tanya Thornton Shewell, R-Carroll County, and Sen. Larry E. Haines, R-Carroll County.

Ms. Shewell said the legislation was necessary to impose penalties that were no longer deemed civil infractions but criminal ones.

Though she and co-sponsors of the bill attempted to give a district court judge the ability to sentence a convicted person to a maximum of 60 days in jail for the crime, that wording in the bill was shot down at the last minute in the Senate, Ms. Shewell said.

As the laws stand today, no jail time is attached to the crime.

"This legislation is trying to get at the adults who knowingly and willingly provide alcohol to people under 21," Ms. Shewell said. "If a person decides to pull out a keg at their house, they're going to be in big trouble if they give it to someone under the age of 21."

The impetus for the bill began a couple of years ago when the Carroll County superintendent of public schools, the state Attorney General's Office and several parents who had lost children in drunken-driving accidents contacted their legislators, asking them to hold adults more accountable and "narrow the pipeline of alcohol flowing to teens in Maryland," Ms. Shewell said.

"We had a number of people come to us and say, 'Please stop the flow of alcohol to minors, tell the adults to stop making it available. They're acting like it's A-OK,' " she said.

In the most recent State Adolescent Survey, 63 percent of high school seniors in Maryland said they drank alcoholic beverages in the past year, and 44 percent of high school seniors said they had at least one drink within the month, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.

In addition, the same survey concluded that more than 27 percent of high-school seniors had "driven at least once after consuming one to four drinks."

Annapolis Police Dept. Sgt. David Garcia, who oversees the department's alcohol-enforcement program, said city police rarely receive complaints about individuals providing alcohol to minors because those types of cases usually take place behind closed doors.

He said time will tell whether the new law will have any impact on underage drinking.

"Like any law, you have to be able to use it first for it to be effective," Sgt. Garcia said. "If anything, it will be more of a deterrent to people. I think they're trying to show it as a serious problem."

Some teens at the Boys and Girls Club of Annapolis spoke with The Capital this week about the new law.

Though many of them agreed adults usually are to blame for making alcohol accessible to young people, they said they have little confidence such a law will make an impact on the number of underage drinking occurrences.

Joshua Taylor, 13, said he believes it will be difficult to enforce.

"You can be sitting in the house with a person and they say, 'Hey, go ahead and take a sip,' " Joshua said, "and then, 'Go ahead and drink it.' It ain't like the police can just bust on in there."

Monique Davis, 15, said the law won't deter the types of people who buy liquor for teens because she said, from her observation, many of them - older friends, cousins and neighbors - are already involved in other high-risk, illegal activities, such as buying, using or selling drugs. It won't pose much of a threat to them, she said.

"They're usually friends (with the teens), and maybe they'll get a couple of dollars from it," Monique said.

One of the six teens with whom The Capital spoke admitted he had driven a car after drinking on a few different occasions, with one incident almost resulting in an accident when he had to swerve to avoid hitting two deer in the road, he said. He was just 14 years old when he averted the crash, he said.

And all of the teens said they had ridden in a car at least once when the driver was intoxicated.

Among their peers, gin, vodka and a punch mixed with different hard liquors and Kool-Aid, are favorites, the teens said.

Aaron Dennis, 20, said he doesn't think any law will prevent underage drinking from happening, but he said he thinks this new legislation is "fair."

"If they're the ones who provided it, and they're the adults, they're really the ones to blame for that," he said.