TheAgitator.com
Repeal the Federal Drinking Age
Wednesday, August 31st, 2005The state of Vermont is considering lowering the drinking age back to 18. The governor has said he supports the idea, as do most of the state’s university presidents, who say the higher minimum drinking age has led to the massive binge drinking problem on campus. The one problem: The state would forfeit millions of dollars in federal highway funding.
The Republican Congress ought to repeal the federal drinking age-by-blackmail. The 21 minimum is bad enough on its face — that is to say, a soldier coming back from a tour in Iraq could well be arrested for a bear-soaked celebration of his return. But what’s worse is that it was forced upon the states under threat of pulling funding the federal government habit the feds have hooked them on. This would seem to be precisely the kind of issue that calls out for a federalist approach. Let each state set its own minimum age, reflective of its own values, tradition, and culture. It’s disappointing — but not surprising — that Liddy Dole and the Reagan administration pushed the federal drinking age into law.
What’s more, it really hasn’t worked. Despite what you may have read, it’s far from clear that the higher minimum drinking age has saved many lives on the highways, and it’s even less likely that it prevents much underage drinking. It merely pushes the practice out of sight, which encourages binge drinking, and is probably responsible for the extra couple hundred deaths from alcohol poisoning we’ve seen each year since the early 1990s. The United States, incidentally, is the only country on earth with a 21 year-old minimum drinking age. Most are at 18, 16, or have no minimum age at all. We’re also the only deeloped country with a substantial youth alcohol problem. It’s unlikely that the two aren’t related.
Barrett Seaman is a former editor and reporter for Time magazine. He just wrote book called Binge: What Your College Student Won’t Tell You. Seaman’s hardly a lawless libertine. He favors, for example, drastically harsher punishments for first time DWI offenders. But in last week’s issue of Time, he too argues for lowering the drinking age to 18. Excerpts:
But tighter enforcement of the drinking age is not the solution. It’s part of the problem.[...]
Veteran college administrators cite a sea change in campus culture that began, not without coincidence, in the 1990s. It was marked by a shift from beer to hard liquor, consumed not in large social settings, since that was now illegal, but furtively and dangerously in students’ residences.
In my reporting at colleges around the country, I did not meet any presidents or deans who felt the 21-year age minimum helps their efforts to curb the abuse of alcohol on their campuses. Quite the opposite. They thought the law impeded their efforts since it takes away the ability to monitor and supervise drinking activity.
Another fine MADD legacy.
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