Should the drinking age be lowered?

[Linzyhop]

Debate on lower drinking age bubbling up, Proponents say current restriction drives teen alcohol use underground

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC

Updated: 12:14 p.m. ET Aug 14, 2007

Over the strong objection of federal safety officials, a quiet movement to lower the legal drinking age to 18 is taking root as advocates argue that teenagers who are allowed to vote and fight for their country should also be able to enjoy a beer or two.

The proposal, which is the subject of a national petition drive by the National Youth Rights Association, has been studied in a handful of states in recent years, including Florida, Wisconsin, Vermont and Missouri, where supporters are pushing a ballot initiative.

Opponents of the idea point to a reported rise in binge drinking as teenagers increasingly turn to hard liquor as proof that minors should not be allowed to drink, but proponents look at the same data and draw the opposite conclusion.

“Raising the drinking age to 21 was passed with the very best of intentions, but it’s had the very worst of outcomes,” said David J. Hanson, an alcohol policy expert at the State University of New York-Potsdam. “Just like during national Prohibition, the law has pushed and forced underage drinking and youthful drinking underground, where we have no control over it.”
But Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, countered: “Why would we repeal or weaken laws that save lives? It doesn’t make sense.”

Different laws in different states
As it happens, there is no such thing as a “federal legal drinking age.” Many states allow minors to drink alcohol — some of them without restriction, others under certain circumstances, such as the presence of a parent or other guardian.

The phrase refers instead to a patchwork of state laws adopted in the mid-1980s under pressure from Congress, which threatened in 1984 to withhold 10 percent of federal highway funds from states that did not prohibit selling alcohol to those under the age of 21. By 1988, all 50 states had complied.

Libertarian groups and some conservative economic foundations, seeing the age limits as having been extorted by Washington, have long championed lowering the drinking age. But in recent years, many academics and non-partisan policy groups have joined their cause for a different reason: The age restriction does not work, they say. Drinking has gone on behind closed doors and underground, where responsible adults cannot keep an eye on it.

“It does not reduce drinking. It has simply put young adults at greater risk,” said John M. McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who this year set up a non-profit organization called Choose Responsibility to push for a lower drinking age.

McCardell offers what he calls a simple challenge:
“The law was changed in 1984, and the law had a very specific purpose, and that was to prohibit drinking among those under the age of 21,” he said. “The only way to measure the success of that law is to ask ourselves whether, 23 years later, those under 21 are not drinking.”
So are they?

The federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that in 2005, the most recent year for which complete figures are available, 85 percent of 20-year-old Americans reported that they had used alcohol. Two out of five said they had binged — that is, consumed five or more drinks at one time — within the previous month.

“The evidence is very clear,” McCardell said. “It has had no effect.”
James C. Fell, a former federal highway safety administrator who is a senior researcher on alcohol policy with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, acknowledged that “it’s not a perfect law. It doesn’t totally prevent underage drinking.”

But Fell said the age restriction “does save lives. We have the evidence.”

Lower deaths rates disputed
The evidence, widely touted by Rosenker of the NTSB, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other activist groups, rests in a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, which estimated that from 1975 to 2003, higher drinking ages saved 22,798 lives on America’s roadways.

“Twenty-five thousand lives is a lot of people to set aside when you’re looking at a current problem,” said Brian Demers, a 20-year-old student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is a member of MADD’s board of directors.

That figure is disputed by proponents of lowering the drinking age. They have questioned the NHTSA study, which did not explain how it arrived at its estimate. Moreover, it counted any accident as “alcohol-related” if any participant was legally drunk — including victims who may not have been responsible for the accident.

“The methodology used has been widely criticized by scholars,” said Hanson, of SUNY-Potsdam, who called the report “really more of a guesstimate” that showed only a correlation of numbers, not a causal relationship. In fact, he said, alcohol-related traffic fatalities among minor drivers were already declining before 1984, when the drinking-age measure was passed.

Barrett Seaman, author of “Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You,” echoed Hanson’s assessment, saying, “Those statistics are a little suspicious.”

Even so, Rosenker said Tuesday, alcohol is still the leading cause of death among teenagers in highway crashes.

“The data show that when teens drink and drive they are highly unlikely to use seat belts,” he said. “These are the facts, and it would be a serious mistake and a national tragedy to weaken existing drinking age laws.”

Adults ‘written out of the equation’
To McCardell, however, the real problem is that we are not teaching teenagers how to drink responsibly.

Choose Responsibility proposes lowering the drinking age to 18, but only in conjunction with “drinking licenses,” similar to driver’s licenses, mandating alcohol education for those ages 18 to 21.

“Education works,” McCardell said, but “it’s never been tried. Now it’s mandatory only after you’ve been convicted of DUI. That is not an act of genius.”

Choose Responsibility and its allies face a tough task convincing the public. In a Gallup poll released last week, 77 percent of Americans opposed lowering the drinking age to 18. But Seaman argued that it was the wisdom of the drinker that mattered, not his or her age.

“The problem we have is that since the 21-year-old age limit has been in effect, we have effectively written adults out of the equation, so that they really have nothing to do with young people who are drinking alcohol furtively, viewing alcohol as a forbidden fruit and drinking to excesses that I don’t think were evident back in the years before the law was passed,” said Seaman, who lived on the campuses of 12 U.S. and Canadian colleges while researching his book.

“If you lower that drinking age — make drinking no longer a forbidden fruit but rather something that younger adults do with older adults who have learned how to handle alcohol responsibly — then you reduce those behaviors rather than increase them,” he said.

Ron Allen of NBC News and Tamron Hall and Monica Novotny of MSNBC contributed to this report.

URL: Debate on lower drinking age bubbling up - Addictions - MSNBC.com

should the age be lowered? vote on msnbc.com.

do you have a drinking problem?

state-by-state DRINKING LAWS
All states ban selling alcohol to minors, but many do not bar them from consuming it. Click on a state to see its restrictions.
Alabama
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Alaska
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.
Arizona
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol
Arkansas
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
California
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Colorado
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.
Connecticut
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
D.C.
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Delaware
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.
Florida
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Georgia
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Hawaii
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Idaho
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Indiana
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Illinois
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.
Iowa
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Kansas
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Kentucky
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Louisiana
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married OR if spouse or guardian is present.
Maine
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Maryland
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Massachusetts
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Michigan
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Minnesota
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.
Mississippi
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Missouri
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Montana
Under 21 may consume alcohol if parent or guardian is present.
Nebraska
Under 21 may consume alcohol in parents’ or guardian’s residence if parent or guardian is home.
Nevada
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
New Jersey
Under 21 may consume alcohol in parents’ or guardian’s residence if parent or guardian is home.
New Hampshire
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
New Mexico
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
New York
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
North Carolina
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
North Dakota
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Ohio
Under 21 may consume alcohol if parent or guardian is present.
Oklahoma
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
Oregon
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.
Pennsylvania
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Rhode Island
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
South Carolina
Under 21 may consume alcohol.
South Dakota
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Tennessee
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Texas
Under 21 may consume alcohol if parent or guardian is present.
Utah
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Vermont
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Virginia
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Washington
Under 21 may consume alcohol if parent or guardian is present.
West Virginia
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.
Wisconsin
Under 21 may consume alcohol if parent or guardian is present.
Wyoming
Under 21 may consume alcohol.

wow. how many times was i given alcohol and simply having it I was told it was illegal????? and now i come to find out it wasn't at all???

wow. how can they say it's not illegal to consume if you're under 21 when all the police and big brother say it is? or is this article completely off base?

i think lowering it back to 18 would cause a surge of drinking for a little while, then after a couple years it would teeter off and be normal. we've got the highest drinking age in the world I'm pretty sure and raising the age didn't change a damned thing as far as i'm concerned.....

[Linzyhop]

I think the alcohol license is a good idea for the first couple of years the new law would be in effect... after that, just turning of age should be good enough.

so I voted for the eventually of being old enough.

[Stylerod]

21 is fine. I do think anyone in the military should be able to drink with their ID though.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

wow. how many times was i given alcohol and simply having it I was told it was illegal????? and now i come to find out it wasn't at all???

wow. how can they say it's not illegal to consume if you're under 21 when all the police and big brother say it is? or is this article completely off base?

i think lowering it back to 18 would cause a surge of drinking for a little while, then after a couple years it would teeter off and be normal. we've got the highest drinking age in the world I'm pretty sure and raising the age didn't change a damned thing as far as i'm concerned.....

Where is the link to this chart?

state-by-state DRINKING LAWSAll states ban selling alcohol to minors, but many do not bar them from consuming it. Click on a state to see its restrictions.
Alabama
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.Alaska
Under 21 may consume alcohol only if married AND if spouse or guardian is present.Arizona
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcoholArkansas
Under 21 may consume alcohol.California
.
.
.
.

[motivez]

I think it should be lowered, if you're old enough to vote, serve in the military, etc, you're old enough to drink..

I don't think certain groups need special extra rights, better to be consistent with the policy IMO

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Where is the link to this chart?

um. at the bottom of the article, go to the link to the article and the chart is online on a map. when you try to print it, it listed them all. I just copied and pasted.

[Donkey®]

I would rather lower the drinking age and raise the driving age.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Linzyhop

um. at the bottom of the article, go to the link to the article and the chart is online on a map. when you try to print it, it listed them all. I just copied and pasted.

Your chart for NC says :

Under 21 may consume alcohol. North Carolina

But when I click NC on the map is says:

North Carolina
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.


Never mind. I was looking at wrong line.

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by Donkey®

I would rather lower the drinking age and raise the driving age.

i actually agree with that. both should be 18.

although I think that maybe kids should be allowed to drink beer at 16, hard stuff at 18, like in Germany.

letting kids drink and get accustomed to it before allowing them to drive let's them see how they can handle themselves before getting a license....
if they can be responsible.

[motivez]

She edited her post so the format was more clear

It's

State
Can/Can't drink

now

[Linzyhop]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Your chart for NC says :

Under 21 may consume alcohol. North Carolina

But when I click NC on the map is says:

North Carolina
Under 21 may not possess or consume alcohol.

I just edited it. the cutting and pasting messed up. it's supposed to go state, then the law for that state.

[Scrum]

I picked option #2, but I don't think there should be a drinking age at all.

[nbiggershaft]

I think 19 would be the best age personally. 21 is completely arbitrary and silly. At 19 everyone should be out of high school at least.

[DosEquis]

I'd say 18 is fine. If you are mature enough to buy cigarettes, buy porn, enlist in the military, vote, be put on trial as an adult, why shouldn't you be able to drink?

At first there would be an increase in DUI and alcohol related traffic accidents, but like anything else, the fad will fade. Just like in any other country where the drinking age is 14-18.

[Ardentfrost]

I think if you're old enough to have kids you should be allowed to drink... so, what's that, 12?

[DosEquis]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

I think if you're old enough to have kids you should be allowed to drink... so, what's that, 12?

If you take it literal, that age varies for some. It would be hard to regulate/legislate. Its like the girls would have to bring in an unsanitary napkin or the guys would have to spooge in a cup to get their drinking permits.

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

If you take it literal, that age varies for some. It would be hard to regulate/legislate. Its like the girls would have to bring in an unsanitary napkin or the guys would have to spooge in a cup to get their drinking permits.

We could just play it safe and floor an understood result while leaving out exceptions. Or how about this: kids get the sex talk in school in 5th grade, so as soon as they "graduate" from that class, they can drink

Srrly though, I think there should be no official legal age, it should be left to the parents and proprietors.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by Ardentfrost

Srrly though, I think there should be no official legal age, it should be left to the parents and proprietors.