Lower drinking age to 18

The Lantern (Ohio State U.) ^ | 11/27/02 | Joe Pirone

[NorCoGOP]

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The recent riots near the Ohio State University campus were, as all similar riots have been, an inexcusable abomination. Students arrested for their involvement should be expelled. Students and non-students who were involved should spend time in jail.

City officials in the future would be justified in instituting a curfew to keep people off the streets after football games to prevent similar occurrences. University officials should seriously consider suspending the Buckeyes' participation in postseason play as a result of fans' actions.

That being said, President Holbrook has asked what can be done about the nationwide problem of college student riots. One answer, paradoxically, is to lower the drinking age to 18.

The current law that sets the drinking age at 21 does not prevent a single college student from getting alcohol if one wants it. What the law does do is label something "illegal" that virtually every college student between the ages of 18 and 20 does at least occasionally. When this unreasonable law turns students into lawbreakers when they drink, it causes respect for the law to decline. (For another, well-known example of this phenomenon, recall the Prohibition Era in the 1920s United States.)

When one is already engaging in "illegal behavior" simply by drinking, a relevant line has already been crossed, and it becomes easier to engage in other forms of illegal behavior, particularly when one's judgment is impaired by alcohol. Obviously it doesn't work this way for everyone, but the student riots that our president has described as "national and ongoing" seem to provide ample evidence that it works this way for a significant number of people.

Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow larger numbers of college students to drink socially in more supervised settings such as bars, and even on campus. Not as many would turn to illicit off-campus parties where sexual assaults, exploitation and other forms of injury are all too common. I'm sure that Columbus law enforcement would agree riots would be much easier to control and prevent if the masses of students who currently fuel them were not present on the streets.

Lowering the drinking age to 18 would also allow our university residence life and student affairs professionals to treat drinking realistically and constructively as an issue of student health and welfare, rather than as a discipline issue. For students with serious, life-impairing drinking problems, this would be a life-saving shift.

Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow younger students to socialize more with older students, allowing older students to model responsible, more mature social drinking behavior. Over time, this would help to change the culture surrounding drinking among our young people.

Many argue that lowering the drinking age would cause the number of drinking-and-driving-related injuries and deaths to skyrocket. However, if this is the problem about which we are concerned, then this is the issue our law should address. We should not discriminate against an entire age cohort of citizens because of the harmful actions of a minority, particularly when there are serious negative consequences to doing so. If we are serious about preventing drinking-and-driving, then we need to do the following things:

A first offense must be a felony, regardless of whether any injury or property damage resulted, and must result in both jail time and a multi-year drivers license suspension. A second offense must result in permanent license revocation, and a long jail term.

We must make a national effort to make driving after drinking absolutely unacceptable and to make alternative forms of transportation and accommodation readily available.

When 18-year-olds can vote, can marry, defend our country in the military, and are considered adults in our society in every other way, not allowing them to drink is an absurd legal and social incongruity. As the riots and the other negative consequences discussed above demonstrate, the effects of this law are not trivial.

While the law has reduced the numbers of young people who kill and are killed in drinking related car accidents, it has spawned and exacerbated a host of other social ills. There are other ways to keep people from drinking and driving if we are serious about it.

Young people should organize and demand the law be changed. Older people should support them, and our leaders should hear them and act in our collective best interest by reducing the drinking age to 18.

[taxcontrol]

The University rioting is entirely preventable.

Shooting rioters is also an effective response. The police could start by shooting something less than deadly like paint balls with blue tandy leather dye. Makes it easy to id them the next day.

From there, you could go to a mix of blue dye and frozen blue dye

To a mix of blue dye and CS powder

Oh to heck with it - just start with blue dye, essence of skunk and CS powder. The tell them over the bull horn that the rubber bullets will come next.

I witnessed the German Police use paint balls loaded with something that caused much iching - to great effect.

[FreeTally]

By the end of the 1970s, the statistics on traffic fatalities involving drunk drivers ages 18 to 21 were up so alarmingly that the states took another look at the trend.

But obviously decided to do nothing about it so....

Congress acted, and forced the age back up.

Yep. Just what we all keep saying. The States had no problem with 18 as the age, but "Congress acted".....

[Jakarta ex-pat]

"By the end of the 1970s, the statistics on traffic fatalities involving drunk drivers ages 18 to 21 were up so alarmingly that the states took another look at the trend."

Maybe the reason was due to bigger and faster cars.

Poor eyesight.

More cars on the road.

Laws which favoured the driver.

The "alcohol lobby".

" People got tired of the bloodbath, as I mentioned."

Diversity has brought on a far greater bloodbath than drunk driving.

I don't see any law outlawing that.

[Hacksaw]

It isn't "statist", btw, to recognize that the Constitution gives the states the right to regulate what goes on in their borders.

I completely agree, but the fact is that the FedGov will punish states who do not fall in line - most likely through road funding.

My take is that if you are old enough to get your head blown off in military combat, you are old enough to drink a beer.

And no, I no longer drink. I am a recovering addict myself. I would never promote it to anyone - it is trash.

[TheCPA]

The law that allowed an extra exemption deduction for taxpayers over age 65 was repealed many years ago. Now, taxpayer age 65 and older are allowed an extra amount for the standard deduction. It is relatively small additional amount, and it does not cause the standard deduction to double. Taxpayers who itemize their deductions on Schedule A receive no benefit from this additional standard deduction.

[Political Junkie Too]

Exactly (sort of).

In Europe (I've been told), children learn to drink at a young age, but because of the costs of insurance they don't learn to drive until they are in their twenties. This has the result of allowing the children to go through the binge drinking stage, and then learn how to drink before getting behind the wheel of a car.

In the USA, children learn to drive at 15, but can't drink until they are 21. Therefore, they are going through the binge stages behind the wheel of a car.

-PJ

[Jonathon Spectre]

If marijuana were made legal the drinking age would be a moot point for many, many, many college-age students.

[brewcrew]

And no, I no longer drink. I am a recovering addict myself. I would never promote it to anyone - it is trash.

Sorry you had problems with it, but alcohol is just another foodstuff for people who don't overimbibe.

Saying alcohol is trash is like holding the alphabet responsible for bad journalism.

[logic101.net]

Your example proves the opposite point. Even after the age was lowered, two of your friends were killed on the highways while drunk. In WI, I was just before the lowered age, and I only had one friend killed this way.

Also, you are quite incorrect in it being a state decision; the feds mandated it by holding highway funds over the states. Funds that were taken from the states, to be turned back to them if they do what the feds want. This is the same tactic being used to lower DWI levels to .08.

Neither tactic addresses the problem of drunks on the highways. Is the guy who has 2 beers every Friday after work, then drives home running people off the roads? Nope!
Nor is the couple who go out to dinner and share a bottle of wine. Yet, if either of these cars are pulled over, with a .08 level, they are DWI. The guy at .20 and can barely walk will get the same penalty if pulled over as someone at .081.

One is a risk, the other isn't.

How about a national drunk driver registry (with a .01 level)? Anyone who sells a car to a registered drunk is liable for ciminal penalties. Before selling a car, a seller would have to call a national hotline. Also, how about a graded level of DWI? Graded by both level of intoxication and number of offences? Hey, how about this; getting tough on the drunk drivers instead of the guy who has 2 beers after work?

MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/

[SoDak]

SD fought the raising of the drinking age all the way to the Supreme Court when I was 21. Obviously, we lost, and raised the drinking age in order to keep our highway funds from congressional extortion. I thought then, and I continue to think now that 18 should be the age for liquor. 18 year olds vote, fight wars, and are responsible parties to contracts. I believe the higher drinking age contributes to higher illicit drug use. And, I think the decision belongs to the state, not federal.

[Long Cut]

In the military today, underage drinking is punishable by Non-Judicial Punishment (Captain's Mast in the Navy). At the Navy school at which I Instruct, we typically send two or three students PER MONTH to mast for this infraction.

That number does not change, regardless of how severe the Captain tries to be. Thus, the issue is not one of punishment.

We DO, however, lose some very good Sailors because of it.

Some ask me why they are prevented from enjoying a beer now and then, even as they are charged with the defense of their country.

All I can tell them is that, when the issue was being decided, those most affected by it (their age group) failed to exercise another right: the right to vote, and to be heard. That age group was conspicuously silent when these opressive, foolish laws were being passed, as they are on most issues affecting them, to their regret.

While not taking a position pro-or-con, I encourage them to vote their conscience.

As for the "bloodbath" on the roads, the stats of highway deaths are virtually unchanged, so the removing of the rights of 18 -year olds was ineffective on that score, as predicted at the time by cooler, unemotional heads.

Let us remember, the ACT of drunken driving is a separete act than simply drinking, and is a crime regardless of age(and, BTW, the WORST offenders of which are in the 35-45 year old group).

The 21 year old drinking age makes NO sense, based upon the evidence and facts, which is why its proponents in the Nanny Busybody organizations use emotionalism and anecdotes to support the removal of citizen's rights that they support.

One crime, drunken driving, is NOT an excuse to criminalize a SEPARATE act, drinking with the wrong birthday. Either someone is at majority age, ALL THE WAY, or they are not. Anything else, IMHO, is unconstitutional denial of rights.

[SoDak]

The states were powerless in this matter. Congress made them change their laws or lose highway funding.

[Hacksaw]

Sorry you had problems with it, but alcohol is just another foodstuff for people who don't overimbibe.

What I meant was that I would never promote the abuse of it. Their is a difference between having a beer and abusing it.

Myself, I could not handle it and other drugs. I am much better off without them.

My magnetic personality and my studliness should be evidence of that :)

[itzmygun]

1. Drinking has nothing to do with it. I speak from experience since I went through this when I went off to college. It was the first time I was on my own. My parents were 75 miles away, and I knew all too well that they could no longer tell me what to do. Everyone else was in the same boat and we fed off of each other. Like someone who has never had much to eat, we gorged ourselves on our newly-found freedom.

2. The guy is right about crossing a line. This I also know from experience. When I first tried pot in college, I crossed that line. Suddenly, it was no big deal to try cocaine, acid, etc. I was already doing something illegal, so what was one more illegal act? I'm not saying it would have been right, but if pot had been legal, I would have just smoked pot and never tried the illegal things (and saved myself a lot of headaches both literally and figuratively).

[Dan from Michigan]

EVERYTHING SHOULD BE 18 or 21

If you are old enough to die for your country, vote, and sign contracts, you are old enough to drink a beer.

[Teacher317]

NHTSA statistics:

All states and the District of Columbia now have 21-year-old minimum drinking age laws. NHTSA estimates that these laws have reduced traffic fatalities involving drivers 18 to 20 years old by 13% and have saved an estimated 20,043 lives since 1975. (here)

"bathed in blood"? The CDC's website says that the category of "Pneumonia/Influenza" claimed more than 20,000 lives of those under-20 from 1981-1998 (ten fewer years than 1975-2002), yet few would say that pneumonia has bathed the streets in the blood of children. Also interesting that the 87% who are still dying don't qualify for your magic "bathed in blood" label.

[brewcrew]

What I meant was that I would never promote the abuse of it. Their is a difference between having a beer and abusing it.

10-4. I got it now. This is a subject very close to my heart, as I have several alcohol abusers in my family, and I am currently trying to model responsible alcohol use (i.e., as food, part of a meal) to my 11-year-old son in our home. Thanks for the clarification.

[Jim Noble]

I couldn't agree more, for many reasons. Two of the more important ones are

1) Responsible introduction to alcohol in mixed age and gender company.

2) Equalization of rights and responsibilities. Too young to drink is too young to vote and too young to be in combat, IMO.