I saw a headline to the effect that a bunch of Ball State students got arrested for underage drinking. Just wondering if we should dial down the drinking age or if we think that making kids sneak their drinking for awhile builds character somehow.
In my house, growing up, drinking in high school was a hanging offense (unless you asked Mom or Dad and drank with them – a glass of wine at age 16 or 17 was o.k. under direct supervision.) Once you hit college, drinking was pretty well taken for granted. Part of this might have been that we lived right next to the Ohio state line where, when my older brothers and sister turned 18, it was legal.
So, put me in the lower the drinking age to 18 camp.
This one really conflicts me. I’ve always been of the school that says if you are old enough to vote and go fight and die for your country, you ought to be able to drink legally. But another part of me says “not so fast”. It’s probably unworkable and unenforceable (but what really is, here?) but legalizing drinking in the home under responsible adult supervision might play a role in coming close to reality.
18 works in all the other parts of the world…if they are old enough to vote and sign a contract they can have a drink. We spend a silly amount of money enforcing the 21 drinking age.
-daron
European countries seem to take a much more sensible approach with better results. Perhaps it ought not to be about age (though I agree it should be 18) but about conduct. And as for high schoolers drinking, I’d much rather they drink “legally” (i.e., under parental supervision) than having to engage in worse behavior to sneak a drink. And I think college binge drinking would be less of an issue if alcohol hadn’t been made into such a big deal to high school kids before they leave home.
I’m also in lower the drinking age to 18 camp, but I also think we need to start stripping licenses for DUI & DWI.
I’m not talking “get tough” jailtime stuff for it, but I feel one offense of drinking & driving costs you your license for 1 year. Two times, you get 5 years. Three, you’re going to be a big customer of public transportation the rest of your life.
There’s a group called The Amethyst Initiative that promotes responsible discussion of the 18 vs. 21 issue, and there are a ton of college presidents who are signatories to it.
Because of the no-tolerance policy rather than parents teaching the responsible use of alcohol, we have kids whose method of drinking involves “pre-gaming” (you never know when an authority figure will show up, so let’s get as wasted as possible as quickly as possible). The imposed scarcity of alcohol leads to hoarding.
There are valid medical reasons behind the 21 age. It’s not just some arbitrary age set by old curmudgeons.
The medical facts should at least be part of the broader discussion.
Would any of those medical considerations also tend to weigh in favor of raising the voting, contracting, and draft age to 21?
I am also in the lower the drinking age to 18 camp, but I think that we are few and far between.
I generally agree that the drinking age should be modified. The problem is in the politicians and bureaucrats. I see two specific issues that would need to be overcome:
(1) The federal Dept. of Transportation has threatened to withdraw highway funds from any state that does does not have a 21 y/o drinking age. This would need to be overcome somehow.
(2) If a politician votes to approve the 18 y/o drinking age, as soon as a 19 y/o has a drunken driving accident when returning home from a bar, the politician’s opponent will use that story as exhibit 1 in having the politician defeated.
Proales, it doesn’t matter what “medical conditions” support an older drinking age if the 21 year old age is utterly uneforceable and in fact leads to binge drinking.
Doug,
Good timing on this story. You should see the story out of Bloomington where 40% of the prosecutor’s budget is paid from diversiion fees associated with underage drinking. Indiana Law Blog has a link.
Buzzcut, I don’t think you’re right…I think there is a sizable group of people who want to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18.
Paul K Ogden, I think you’re correct. However, I think Paul C’s point #2 overrules logic and is also the reason we won’t see point #1 changed anytime soon.
I think this whole thing goes into the “emotions trump logic” bin, along with post-9/11 security & real healthcare reform. I’m resigned to accept it, sadly.
This is going to sound strange but I think that the drinking age needs to be kept at 21 in order to keep those drinking illegally to 18 and older.
I think that no matter what age you set it at, people are going to start getting antsy a few years ahead of time and start breaking the rules. So, when it’s set at 21 then I think you’ll have a bunch of 18, 19, and 20 year olds trying it out, which I am fine with. However, if you set the legal age at 18 then I think you’ll have a bunch of 15, 16, and 17 year olds trying it, which I am not okay with.
I am from the legal at 18 era. Mothers Against Drunk Driving was starting to take over the national debate when I was in high school and hit pay dirt just before my brother turned 18 in 1983. MADD did a great job of raising awareness of the horrific loss of life and law enforcement was greatly improved and expanded. Also, parents have been successful in stressing the ill effects of smoking, drugs and alcohol to their kids. Smoking has all but disappeared in some places. But I think the top-down, nationwide drinking age law has had negative intended consequences, especially among young adults. I say boost and promote education, law enforcement, health and safety and let adults make adult choices.
You think that isn’t happening today? That’s so cute.
Jackson, hate to break it to ya, but high school aged kids already drink. They don’t have the access to alcohol that their counterparts at college (since they still live with parents and have limited areas and times where they can discreetly drink), but they do it.
Yeah, come on, Jackson. Didn’t you see “Superbad”?
I’m not sure which way a lower drinking age would break for high school kids. They do it now, of course, but I guess I don’t know how the frequency and prevalence compares to when the age was younger. The incentive now is that, when you score some booze, you go out to a cornfield somewhere and get bombed.
Is
“they do it now anyhow”
a valid defense for anything?
For the reason Don cited at the top of the comments, I’m in the 18 camp. If you can give your life in battle, you should be able to have a beer.
Will kids break the rules? Sure they will. Tobacco is 18, and kids 14 & 15 smoke. Alcohol is 21, and kids 14 & 15 drink. Laws don’t prevent anything unless there is consistent and rigorous enforcement, and even then it doesn’t really. Haven’t we had enough evidence of that yet with the drug war?
It isn’t a valid defense. It’s reality, though.
If we expect an 18yo to die for his country, then he can have a GD beer.
Period.
Indianapolis,
“They do it now” is a response to the reasoning that we need to keep the age higher to prevent high school drinking.
My point is that if you’re going to deny a legal adult from being able to do an activity based on their age, you better have a darn good reason to do it.
Frankly, I’ve heard more information that tells me if we’re restricting anything based on age, it should be taking driving away from 80 year old plus drivers, not taking alcohol away from 19-year olds.
I’ve also heard that out brains are not developed until our early 20’s, so if we want to run with the idea that 20 year olds are still kids, let’s start the draft & legal accountability at 21.
So, popping out babies (starting) at 14-15 is OK, but drinking isn’t? Hmmm.
Like most everything else, it’s how it’s treated (or ignored) by the caregivers at home. There’s always going to abusers (of drinking, etc), but do we have to punish all the rest? I suppose the problem lies with the complexities of government treating people like individuals, rather than like cattle.
I generally am in the 18 camp, but the one complication I see is an increase in high school availability. I turned 18 in November of my senior year. If I went to lunch and had a beer what are the impacts of that? If I have 3? Generally, it would create headaches for high schools, but I don’t think those headaches justify the 21 year old age.
I vaguely remember when this debate was raging on going from 18 to 21 (I think in Ohio the grandfather birth year was like 1967 (I was born n 1970). The method used was that the federal government threatened to withhold highway funds if the 21 year old age was not adopted. Essentially Congress used a 1982 panel sponsored by MADD to enact this provision in Title 23:
158. National minimum drinking age
(a) WITHHOLDING OF FUNDS FOR NONCOMPLIANCE.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall withhold 10 per cen- tum of the amount required to be apportioned to any State under each of sections 104(b)(1), 104(b)(3), and 104(b)(4) of this title on the first day of each fiscal year after the second fiscal year beginning after September 30, 1985, in which the pur- chase or public possession in such State of any alcoholic bev- erage by a person who is less than twenty-one years of age is
lawful.
(2) STATE GRANDFATHER LAW AS COMPLYING.—If, before the
later of (A) October 1, 1986, or (B) the tenth day following the last day of the first session the legislature of a State convenes after the date of the enactment of this paragraph, such State has in effect a law which makes unlawful the purchase and public possession in such State of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than 21 years of age (other than any person who is 18 years of age or older on the day preceding the effec- tive date of such law and at such time could lawfully purchase or publicly possess any alcoholic beverage in such State), such State shall be deemed to be in compliance with paragraph (1) of this subsection in each fiscal year in which such law is in effect.
(b) EFFECT OF WITHHOLDING OF FUNDS.—No funds withheld under this section from apportionment to any State after Septem- ber 30, 1988, shall be available for apportionment to that State.
(c) ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE DEFINED.—As used in this section, the term ‘‘alcoholic beverage’’ means—
(1) beer as defined in section 5052(a) of the Internal Reve- nue Code of 1954,
(2) wine of not less than one-half of 1 per centum of alco- hol by volume, or
(3) distilled spirits as defined in section 5002(a)(8) of such Code.
I’m with those who have argued that the 21 age limit has driven a lot of under-age drinking underground and led to a culture of binge drinking. It’s easy to pinpoint college campuses (large concentration of underage drinkers, after all) but I’d argue that this is a wider problem than just “spoiled college students.”
I spent time this summer with a thirty-year old widow whose husband burned out his liver with alcohol; by the time someone explained to him about how much alcohol was technically healthy, it was too late. Perception of how much it is safe to drink is in direct variance with how alcohol is marketed and sold.
MarcD,
The lunch question is silly. What keeps you from going out to lunch, having a drink, and returning to work? It is against the company’s policy.
Same thing works at school.
School policy already prohibits students from having alcohol in their system on campus at anytime, so there is no need to tweak it.
i think that under 21 sould not drink bc of the car c and heath of the teen