maxlength on cftextarea

I am trying to limit the number of characters input into a cftextarea:

<cfform action="textareaAction.cfm" method="post">

<table>
<tr>
<td width="33">
</td>
<td>

<cftextarea name="NEED_COMMENT" wrap="virtual" rows="5" cols="25"
validate="maxlength" validateAt="onBlur" maxlength="200" onKeyDown="limitText('comments','countdown_comments',200)">
</cftextarea>

<input type="Submit" value="Submit"> <input type="Reset"
value="Clear Form">

</td>
</table>

</cfform>>

It takes more than 200 characters.  If I enter more than 200 characters, upon submit I get an error from the remote DB2 database that the insert did not occur because the string was too long for the column.

Thank you,

Jeanne