Please Lower the Drinking Age

Aug 21, 2008 at 12:27am

Go back to 1984- Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) pushed to have the National Minimum Drinking Age Act passed. The meat of the act simply states that the national minimum drinking age should be 21, and any state that doesn't pass legislation corresponding to this national policy will lose 10% of its state and highway budget.

You heard that right- that means the drinking age of 21 is individually enforced by each of the 50 states because of a threat to withold funding. (The constitutionality of such a thing is questionable at best; I personally agreed with Justice O'Connor in South Dakota v. Dole.) As a consequence, drinking laws in each state vary. For instance, consumption of alcohol in Massachusetts is not prohibited at any age, whereas Vermont specifically prohibits consumption of alcohol by underage persons. In fact, in Massachusetts, parents or guardians can legally give alcohol to their underage children, and an of age spouse can legally give alcohol to an underage spouse. There are small caveats to each though, for instance, parents can't purchase alcohol for their young ones and send them off to a party- their children must drink with supervision.

Anyway, the core reasoning behind raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 was the increase in drunk driving accidents. Of course, MADD was the one pushing this logic- the supposition that people from age 18 to 21 are causing most of the drunk driving accidents. A quick visit to MADD's web site displays a nice graph that shows alcohol related deaths are down since 1982, and non-alcohol related deaths are up. That must be because of the drinking age!

Wrong. Their nice graph shows a correlation between the drinking age and alcohol related deaths. Correlations show nothing but a relationship- even an uncaused relationship. For example, murder rates go up during the summer but so do ice cream sales- would anyone really suggest the two are directly linked together? That's a correlation. Sure, my example is a bit extreme, but it shows one very important thing: a correlation is proof of nothing. One very common correlation is the price of gas compared to President Bush's term in office- but one could look at the price of gas compared to when the Democratic majority was obtained in 2006 and the price of gas now and be just as shocked. The fact is, a correlation exists, but it doesn't mean any complete cause and effect relationship can be justified by it. Correlations are a very nice way to fallaciously support a cause- it is trickery at its best. Don't get me wrong though, correlations are a great way to observe relationships between two related things, but one must be careful in deriving cause and effect relationships from correlations.

For instance, drunk driving laws have become increasingly less tolerant. Could this not also be the cause for a reduction in alcohol related deaths? Or perhaps the better education given to students at college campuses? My point is that there are a plethora of reasons why alcohol related deaths may have gone down- MADD is trying to take all the credit with the drinking age being set at 21. What MADD is doing is great though- they are raising awareness about a dangerous drug, and trying to save lives. I think that can be accomplished better if the age were reduced.

Until recently, the drinking age debate has been dominated by claims that lowering it again will increase drunk driving. It wasn't until 2004 that the just retired President of Middlebury College in Vermont, John McCardell Jr. wrote a letter to the New York Times proclaiming "the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law". He lated continued to say, and I agree with him, that "this has nothing to do with drunken driving. If it did, we'd raise the driving age to 21."

John McCardell Jr. is now at the forefront of the Amethyst Initiative where 119 colleges and universities from around the United States haved signed on with the pronouncement that "21 is not working". If you're in school, check out the list to see if your president has signed on.

One must wonder- if all of these presidents of colleges and universities are coming out and dissenting from the 21 drinking age policy, then there must be something to it. Keeping the drinking age at 21 encourages irresponsible drinking; since drinking is illegal for underage persons, they will be far more apt to keep their drinking habits in hiding. Instead of drinking alcohol just being another one of those "coming of age" deals, it becomes a rebellious social vice that's nearly impossible to resist- specifically on college campuses.

In fact, the United States has one of the highest drinking age requirements in the entire world. Only a handful of countries share this with us, while the vast majority have the drinking age set at 18, or even 16. With such a low drinking age, a beer or a glass of wine is casual at the dinner table- the rebellious and illegal allure is immediately taken away at this juncture, and removes a lot of the irresponsible drinking going on at college campuses. If we are introduced to alcohol at a younger age, we have time to process the practice instead of going head-over-heels crazy as soon as we enter a college campus. This, I believe, is precisely one of the biggest reasons why there are so many alcohol related incidents going on at college and university campuses nationwide.

I for one applaud the presidents who have signed the Amethyst Initiative- they are advocating an informed and dispassionate debate. By no means does anyone want drunken driving to increase (actually, I think drunk driving laws should be far less tolerant than they are today), nor are we "throwing in the towel"- but one must look at historical precedent: the Prohibition. The Prohibition caused far more problems than it solved, and was nearly single-handedly responsible for a dramatic increase in organized crime. Quite simply, it was an unenforceable law- similar to the drinking age set today. It is a law that is evaded countless times over and over again, and detracts from a more open discussion with young people about alcohol and how to use it responsibly.

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