Posted on 04/11/2007 1:23:09 PM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
To combat underage binge drinking, the national legal drinking age should be lowered to 18, a former college president is saying.
Since releasing a 250-page study on the societal effects of modern drinking laws, Middlebury College President emeritus John McCardell has campaigned across the country calling for states to lower the legal drinking age to 18 because he observed fewer alcohol-related problems 30 years ago, when 18-year-olds could legally drink.
"Before the law changed, it wasn't perfect," McCardell said. "But what you had then was out-in-the-open, intergenerational [drinking]."
Since then, McCardell, who is launching the nonprofit group Choose Responsibility this spring to support his cause, said the law has forced minors to drink excessively in uncontrolled settings.
"That simply transplants the problem to some darker corner where it can't be managed," he said. "Underage drinking is worse than it's ever been, and binge drinking is worse than it's ever been."
Already earning interviews with the Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report, Fox News, syndicated columnist George Will and many college newspapers, McCardell said his proposal has gained support.
"Considering how new we are, I'm very heartened by it," he said. "I think it's timing - people are ready for a debate."
McCardell said several college presidents and deans of students are responding favorably to the idea, but he said the high-profile positions in some institutions prevents them from openly supporting him. Now that he no longer heads Middlebury, McCardell said he is in a unique position to voice the concerns he says many administrators share.
Despite the attention his proposal is gaining, youth drinking experts have attacked it as irresponsible. Boston University School of Public Health professor William DeJong, who specializes in youth drinking habits, slammed McCardell's report as inaccurate.
"It's one of the most badly done reports that I've seen in a long time," DeJong said. "We can have a debate about the law, but he's not entitled to his own facts."
DeJong said he found the report's assertions irresponsible because it has not been peer-reviewed and relies on the work of two Middlebury undergraduate students who did not specialize in either epidemiology -- the study of factors affecting a population's health -- or public health.
Though McCardell said his study collected no original data but compiled secondary sources that were all peer-edited, and he challenged critics to point out specific corrections to the report, DeJong said the study relies on opinion rather than science.
"He will observe an increase in extreme drinking, and he'll talk to students who say, 'You should lower the drinking age' and takes that at face value, but that's talking - not research," DeJong said.
The decline in drunk-driving incidents since the drinking age was raised to 21 shows the law's effectiveness in saving lives, DeJong said."
"The age-21 law is the most defensible public policy that we have in reducing alcohol-related traffic fatalities," he said. "Virtually every single study shows the positive effect of the law."
Choose Responsibility faces an uphill battle in persuading states to change their laws as long as the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 forces them to maintain a minimum drinking age of 21 or lose federal highway funding. President Ronald Reagan signed the act in 1984 after groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving pushed for the law.
For now, the campaign consists of McCardell and the two research assistants who helped him compile the report last year.
When the Middlebury's student affairs department first tapped now-graduate Scott Guenther as a potential aide, he said the opportunity to conduct research in a field related to both his political science and psychology majors piqued his interest.
"My interest in alcohol policy wasn't profound," Guenther said.
The more he studied the issue, the more he thought the current drinking age "doesn't make sense," he said. Now, he actively advocates lowering the drinking age as a potential solution to a binge culture that pervades campuses nationwide.
"It's a gamble," he said. "I really think, having looked at the evidence of studies and peer-reviewed journals, that there's a good chance it will succeed."
“Binge” drinking is just a modern term for “drinking”. Making the age 18 for beer would reduce the number of teens going straight to liquor.
I don’t know about all kinds of studies, but I have to say that when I threw a goodbye party for hubby and the other guys in his unit, it made me feel really bad that these guys were about to head to war, where they could die for their country, but I couldn’t even offer them a beer.
I would have anyway.
They lowered the drinking age just in time for me to turn 18. It was probably not a good idea. Now that my daughter is 16, I like the idea even less.
18? Yes, if you’re in the military.
Quite simple.
I think this is one of the few things that Europe got right and we didn’t. They don’t seem to have problems with binge drinking.
I’d be willing to make a compromise here:
Lower the teenage drinking age to 18 if need be.
But........Raise the voting age to 21.
2000’s = Old enough to die for your country and vote, old enough to drink. OR If we can not trust them to drink, how can we trust them to vote?
Thank God I was in the right age group to drink at 18.
He's right. If you're old enough to put on a uniform and kill, fight and maybe die for your country, you are more than old enough to drink.
Most people think stupid laws deserve to be broken, and a drinking age of 21 is a stupid law, so it is widely broken.
Also, this:
“The decline in drunk-driving incidents since the drinking age was raised to 21 shows the law’s effectiveness in saving lives, DeJong said”
Really? Correlation does not imply causation. In the same period since drinking ages were raised to 21 laws against drunk driving have been toughened considerably, and societal disapproval of drinking and driving has increased greatly. Personally, I believe that if the age of majority is 18, meaning you’re old enough to sign contracts, vote, join the military on your own, etc, then it’s good enough for an age to allow drinking. Any other approach is asinine.
Nanny state / federal extortion laws are stupid to being with, regardless who signs them.
Whether it's 18, 21, or some other number concerns me less than simply being consistent about it.
I’m all for it.
I think gaining a “license to drink” might be a good idea however. Maybe.
If you trust 18 year olds with electing Presidents and defending the country from enemies foreign and domestic, why can’t you trust them with a glass of wine?
The justification for raising the drinking age was the prevelance of drunk driving deaths. When I was in HS, every year, graduation had a tribute to some kids who died this way.
But at my son’s graduation last year, the pricipal remarked how “nobody’s missing from this celebration”. I had to explain to my kid what the principal meant by that.
Actually per capita they drink a LOT more than we do.
I understand what you are saying, my oldest daughter is 17, but honestly, if she is going to drink, whether or not the age is 18, she is going to do it. At some point, I have to accept that she is going to have to accept responsibilty and also to hope that I taught her well enough. But I won’t lie, I drank underage. Was it stupid? Probably. Did I turn in to an alcoholic as a result? No. I barely drink at all now.
True, but alcohol-related car crashes occur more frequently and alcoholism rates are higher. It's a trade-off.
OLD ENOUGH TO FIGHT & DIE FOR THE COUNTRY , OLD ENOUGH TO DRINK.
Don’t forget it was Elizabeth Dole who helped create this nanny-state nonsense by forcing states to change their laws to 21 so they could continue to get Federal highway dollars. I have no use for that woman whatsoever.
Which was largely brought about via lies and misleading statistics.
If someone can go into the armed forces @ 18 and die for this country, then damn right they deserve a drink.
Or own a rifle/shotgun?
This cannot be repeated enough.
That may be true.
But this article rubs me the wrong way for the following staement:
“the law has forced minors to drink excessively”
Whatever happened to the idea of free will and personal responsibility? The law itself does not force kids to drink, they CHOOSE to drink. If a kid is inclined to drink excessively, they will do it regardless whether or not it’s legal.
This is the same logic that the left tries to use to hand out condoms to minors in school and advocating for minors to have abortions without parental notification. Over in England, they are proposing enabling school nurses to administer emergency contraception (morning after injections). Thankfully, schools over here can’t administer any medication unless pre-approved by physician and parents.
Excuse me, why should there be a "national drinking age"? It should be up to the states to decide.
- Old enough to vote (#1 reason period)
- old enough to join the military
- Old enough to enter into contracts (see above)
- Old enough to have status in trials as both defendant and plaintiff
- old enough to enter into marriage without permission
- old enough to have date of emancipation from parents
What else do you need to know?
Texas upped the drinking age to 19 about a month before I turned 20. What was really funny was that almost all the college freshmen in my class were old enough to drink at the beginning of my freshman year. The next year most of the incoming freshmen couldn't drink.
ditto.
I agree with him. 21 is foolish. You can vote and you can fight and die for your country but you can’t buy a beer? Europe has it right on this issue and has far fewer binge drinking teens. Booze just lacks the mystique it has in the US for European teens because it isn’t some forbidden fruit that they haven’t had easy access to their whole lives. They don’t go crazy at college age because drinking a glass of wine with the fam or getting a beer at the pub while watching a soccer game with dad is normal.
The bottom line on all sorts of addictive substances are most capable of becoming a problem before the brain has physically matured. But after the age of 20-25, neurological addictions are harder to start, and easier to stop.
“To combat underage binge drinking, the national legal drinking age should be lowered to 18, a former college president is saying.”
Riiigggghhht! As Herbert Hoover once said, “that’s like reducing a yard to 22 1/2 inches in the hope that there’d be more cloth on the bolt.”
LOL
I don’t think many 18 year olds are mature enough to vote! Perhaps what we really need is some sort of test to see when someone hits *maturity*. Of course that means alot of people will never be allowed to vote or drink. Since we don’t have a draft anymore, I don’t think pulling out the old “if they can go to war they can drink” thing works anymore. But I suspect I’m in the minority on that one.
susie
Unfortunately the difference between an 18 year old and a 21 year old are usually very big when it comes to making stupid decisions. An interesting study I read a few years back indicated that sometime in the mid to early 20s people’s risk taking behavior generally dimishes substantially.
If we’re gong to change the age to 18, why not 16?
BTW one of the big reasons they changed the age back to 21 was to keep high schoolers from drinking as many are still in high school at 18. And you know darned good and well that if an 18 year old can buy booze, they are going to buy for and share with their 16 and 17 year old friends.
It’s not something I really have an answer to, but I hope we all think long and hard before we change the age.
susie
Um, we do, in fact, have a draft.
It is just not active.
Male US residents who fail to register for the draft by age 26 are instant felons.
No, we have registration. No one is being drafted. When they are, we can talk.
susie
Well, actually, I have a letter on my desk right now from the Selective Service - “Please report for duty at...”
LOL. Believe me, the system exists.
“If you’re old and mature enough to vote, if you’re old and mature enough to make the choice to join the military, then you’re old enough to drink a beer.”
Yep. That’s why the young people who join the military are (in general) more mature, because what they are called to do is not for kids.
We have gotten to the point where people are called “kids” and “children” all through their teen years. That’s absurd. People used to have to be responsible for themselves at a much younger age, now we are just teaching them to be immature for longer.
You have been drafted? You are telling me that against your will the govt is requiring you to report for duty? I need a little more proof, however if they really are drafting folks right now, I want to know!
susie
I do agree with your post. Even many adults don’t grow up these days.
susie
Have I been drafted? Well, sort of. After I volunteered for the Army, my term of service was involuntarily extended for the benefit of the Army. They kept me an extra 11 months, because they had no replacement.
That was in 1986, what we now call a “stop-loss.”
My notice from the Selective Service today, however, was to report for my annual Selective Service Board training. It is sort of funny - it looks just like a draft notice.
18 for liquor is dead right. It always pissed me off that a man can die on a foreign battlefield (or in a base accident here at home) and not be able to order a damn beer whenever he wants.
It’s not what most people mean when they talk about a draft. They mean compulsory enlistment (check out dictionary.com if you have time, look up draft, conscription, enroll, enlist).
I’ve known folks who had their time extended, but that’s not what I was talking about (and you know it, lol). BTW, when you enlist, do you sign something saying they can do that?
And, thank you for your service. Both my FIL and father, brother and uncles were in various branches of our military.
susie
An enlistment contract is for 8 years, even if a recruiter tells you it is only for two, or whatever.
So the service can extend anyone up to the entire 8 years.
If you are released after 3, or 4, or whatever, you are subject to recall, until the 8 is up.
I agree with that.
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