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Should We Lower the Drinking Age? — Troy Senik
Camille Paglia thinks so. Writing at Time:
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, passed by Congress 30 years ago this July, is a gross violation of civil liberties and must be repealed. It is absurd and unjust that young Americans can vote, marry, enter contracts, and serve in the military at 18 but cannot buy an alcoholic drink in a bar or restaurant. The age 21 rule sets the United States apart from all advanced Western nations and lumps it with small or repressive countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.
… What this cruel 1984 law did is deprive young people of safe spaces where they could happily drink cheap beer, socialize, chat, and flirt in a free but controlled public environment. Hence in the 1980s we immediately got the scourge of crude binge drinking at campus fraternity keg parties, cut off from the adult world. Women in that boorish free-for-all were suddenly fighting off date rape. Club drugs — Ecstasy, methamphetamine, ketamine (a veterinary tranquilizer) — surged at raves for teenagers and on the gay male circuit scene.
Alcohol relaxes, facilitates interaction, inspires ideas, and promotes humor and hilarity. Used in moderation, it is quickly flushed from the system, with excess punished by a hangover. But deadening pills, such as today’s massively overprescribed anti-depressants, linger in body and brain and may have unrecognized long-term side effects. Those toxic chemicals, often manufactured by shadowy firms abroad, have been worrisomely present in a recent uptick of unexplained suicides and massacres. Half of the urban professional class in the U.S. seems doped on meds these days.
I’m actually open to Paglia’s point on the principles level. It is pretty hard to articulate the logic for the 18/21 divide.
That said, I find several of the lines of argument here unpersuasive. Appeals to which nations our legal code aligns with leave me cold, as do vague warnings about “unrecognized long-term side effects” and “shadowy firms abroad,” the kind of weasel words usually employed by someone who doesn’t have any evidence. (I’m not confidently stating that the pills that Paglia decries are necessarily harmless, by the way — that’s well beyond my area of expertise —but you have to either make specific claims or keep quiet). I’m also having a hard time picturing this fictional 19-year-old who, because he can’t get a Sam Adams at an Applebee’s, decides it’s open season for ketamine.
My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that the drinking age law doesn’t have much effect outside of the margins. If you want to get it, you can. It’s nearly impossible to keep a product that’s legal for one segment of the population out of the hands of other segments unless you control distribution on a much tighter basis than we’re generally willing to do with booze (this is the same reason why medical marijuana has always struck me as an untenable compromise position).
As with most prohibitions, the group most affected is likely the ones you least have to worry about — those who take the sanction of law seriously enough that illegality, regardless of the merits, is sufficient to deter them. As a result, I’d have to conclude that changing the law wouldn’t be a huge deal — but also that letting it stand falls far short of the cosmic injustice that Paglia imagines.
What do you think?
Published in General
This sounds like one of those government statistics, like if a child misses one meal a year he suffers hunger, or if a person is without insurance for a day while between jobs they are counted as having no insurance that year.
Change it, and let the states determine their own laws. I have no problem with strictly enforcing drunk driving laws, but if a 16 year-old wants a glass of wine with dinner in a restaurant and his parents agree, I don’t see why the government has to stick its oar in.
As an aside, the law here in Italy has changed. During my first years here, I never saw anyone turned down for either alcohol or cigarettes, as long as they could see over the counter. Technically, the legal age was 16, but it was never enforced. Now, the legal age is 18, and I just saw a young man get turned away in the grocery store the other day. I have been carded myself, which I find hilarious and delightful. However, I think that, as in almost all aspects, Italy is moving in the wrong direction.
This obviously is an insane law that should be changed. Since I was one when it passed, does anyone remember the driving force behind this obnoxious and arbitrary law?
According to Wikipedia, there was an increase in traffic accidents that correlated with many states lowering their drinking ages in the 1970s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Drinking_Age
Paglia is buying into the myth that Europe doesn’t have problems with binge drinking. From the BBC:
It could also simply be that Paglia doesn’t think there is necessarily a strong link between “binge drinking” and harm. That chart doesn’t make any connection between “binge drinking” and harm.
A chart which compared different countries’ statistics of alcohol-related deaths and/or injuries among students might be more useful.
Also, that chart doesn’t provide the definition the researchers used for “binge drinking”.
It could also be that American students are less likely to report binge drinking, due to school policies or a taboo against intoxication.
I also find it interesting that France, with its ages-old culture of drinking wine at an early age, has the same reported numbers as the USA.
If anything, however, that graph might imply that drinking problems are more likely cultural than they are a matter of political policy.
I find it interesting that the countries with the highest reports of “binge drinking” are generally known for their beer, while the countries with the lowest reports of “binge drinking” are known for their wine.
The US, of course, is known for it’s yellow water with bubbles in it. ;-)
If I hadn’t partaken in a bottle or two of Utah beer, I would take umbrage with you, sir.
Drinking: 18.
Driving: 18
Voting: 21
Marijuana: 21
As I recall there is no National Drinking Age, but states had to up the drinking age to 21 years to get federal highway funds. Someone please check my work.
Actually, the legislation you are referring to is called the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Drinking_Age
We spoke with the brewpub manager at our 2nd stop on the NR Cruise last Summer. Our large beers were about $15. He said about $8 of that was tax and the result of high taxes on alcohol was more binge drinking by Norwegians when they visit countries will lower alcohol taxes. I think this is a growing trend in Europe. 25 years ago, this graphic would look much different than today.
I agree with that. Mormans don’t need a law to keep them from becoming drunks. The Russian government has put a lot of effort into fighting against drunkeness and I don’t think it’s made much difference.
As one raised a strict Methodist (we had grape juice for communion!), I stand with the French. A little panache with food is a good treat and one not to be denied to a child.
My two oldest daughters are 21 and 22, and neither of them drinks because they were brought up to make their own decisions, not because the law prevented them from drinking under 21. Overall, I’m in favor of lowering the age for alcoholic beverages and cigarettes to 18, using the same logic that lowered the voting age to 18: if you’re old eneough to die for your country (and get married, sign contracts, join the military, etc.) you should be able to have a cold one in the Rathskeller after a day of college classes – or a hard day at work.
Let’s remove the mystique of drinking. Are we going to treat these 18 to 20 year-olds as minors, or adults?
I had my first glass of wine at age 3. It was in a tiny cup, and mixed with a lot of water. It’s one of my earliest memories. Small sips of wine from our parents’ glasses were encouraged throughout our childhood. Not enough to feel the effects, but enough to take the mystery away.
Alcoholism runs in our family, and I had a fairly miserable adolescence that included a fair amount of physical pain. I knew kids who drank, etc, in high school to “cope” with the misery of being a teenager, but for some reason I wasn’t one of them. Possibly I was just a masochist, but it’s also possible that my parents’ decision to demystify alcohol for us really worked.
The federal gov should butt out. Let each state decide for itself. If I was a Republican I’d be pushing to get the party to work toward getting the federal law repealed.
Funny thing. In Ontario, it’s sorta become a tradition that whenever a new government comes in to power the first thing they do it liberalize the liquor laws in some symbolic way.
When Mike Harris became Premier, he made it legal to drink booze on a golf course (the golf industry has since boomed, as country clubs now have hot babes driving mobile bars around the course).
When Dalton McGuinty became Premier, he made it legal to bring your own wine to a restaurant.
Methinks that next election, we might finally be allowed to buy beer in convenience stores!
My point? Liquor law liberalization is a big vote-winner.
My first memory of alcohol was getting a sip of my dad’s beer and crying out, “blech!!!!!”
I’m Ok with my state raising the drinking age to fifty.
I’ll be damned if it’s any business at all of Washington mandating drinking ages.
I really don’t want my state raising the drinking age to fifty for at least fourteen years.
Mom for some reason thought apple juice was healthy, so I was fed a lot of it. Turns out a glass apple juice with ice and Dad’s glass of Scotch on the rocks looked awfully similar. I’m not sure my reaction was “blech” so much as it was guilt at accidentally swiping some of Daddy’s Scotch. He was very touchy about having his stuff “rearranged” by family members and always suspected someone or other of “swiping” his things.
I like Scotch well enough now. But not cold.
Just want to give a “hell yeah!” to this. The 21-year-minimum is the stupidest law currently on the books today. Thanks a lot, Elizabeth Dole.
I’m with Bill Murray:
http://youtu.be/_7v1h4mgHeE
Sometimes known as sex in a canoe beer.
The one benefit of the 21 drinking age is that it proves to the 18-20 year old folks that government power is arbitrary, capricious and stupid. Plus, it gives young folks a great chance to break the law and not feel bad about, thus recognizing the important difference between law and justice.
I was a page in the Iowa General Assembly when the age was raised from 18 to 19 – way back in 1978. I don’t remember the reason for the change but remember that many amendments were offered which mirrored the arguments here; exemption due to military service, full-time employment, marriage, etc. The Speaker ruled all amendments “not germane.”
I do know that at 19 it was marginally harder for high school students to get booze. My best friend turned 18 four days before the new age limit went into effect the summer before our senior year. Being able to buy legally caused her all kinds of trouble.
If you’re old enough to wear a uniform, be sent to foreign countries to kill other people, and maybe get killed, you’re old enough to have a drink when you get back to base. We’d probably have fewer problems with PTSD if soldiers could unwind over a couple of beers after a bad day.
Also, given the quality of the current generation of political candidates, voters need something to get the bad taste out of their mouths. A glass of wine (or even a shot of mezcal) is a necessity after (and sometimes before) voting.