The Drinking Age Should Be Lowered -- Fast
There's a piece I very much agree with at Newsweek.com by Jeffrey A. Tucker. Robert Cialdini has a whole chapter on how "scarcity" ramps up desire in his book Influence (a fantastic book on the science of persuasion).
Not being able to access alcohol and having being forbidden gives alcohol a cachet in college that it wouldn't have otherwise and leads to college students drinking high-powered concoctions -- much as people did with homemade hooch during Prohibition:
Most of these kids have never been socialized in what it means to drink responsibly. They are living for the thrill that comes with defiance. The combination of new freedom, liquor and sexual opportunity leads to potentially damaged lives.How do these kids get away with this? In fraternities and sororities, it all happens on private property, not public and commercial spaces, and so campus police can look the other way. Most everyone does.
Indeed, being able to drink with friends, and unhampered by authority, is a major appeal of the Greek system on campus. It's a way to get around the preposterously high drinking age. Getting around this law will consume a major part of the energy and creativity of these kids for the next three years.
As for everyone else who cannot afford to join, it's all about a life of sneaking around, getting to know older friends, lying and hiding, pregaming before parties just in case there is no liquor there, and generally adopting a life of bingeing and purging, blackouts and hangovers, rising and repeating. And so on it goes for years until finally the dawn of what the state considers adulthood.
For an entire class of people, it's the Roaring Twenties all over again.
It's all part of Prohibition's legacy and a reflection of this country's strange attitudes toward drinking in general. The drinking age in the United States (21), adopted in 1984, is one of the highest in the world. Countries that compare in severity are only a few, including Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Cameroon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan.
Most of the rest of the world has settled on 18 for liquor and 16 for beer and wine. In practice, most European countries have very low enforcement of even that. Somehow it works just fine for them.
...What we need is a normal environment of parental and community supervision so that such drinking can occur in a responsible way. Yes, kids will probably drink more often, and yes, more kids will probably try alcohol, but they can do so in an environment of safety and responsibility.
Bringing it into the light, rather than driving it underground, is the best way to solve bingeing and abuse.
I've described here before how my dad would offer us a sip of what he was drinking and how I tried drinking for the first time at my cousin's wedding because my parents were there, and I knew nothing bad would happen to me. I ended up throwing up at the side of the road. My dad laughed at me for overdoing it.
This attitude did not breed a desire to get trashed at college. Quite the contrary. When drinking hasn't been forbidden -- as it is not in France, for example -- it becomes just part of life and not part of life that you're determined to do to defy authority.
Sure, some kids will become drunks under these circumstances. But drinking itself doesn't cause alcoholism, and kids taught to drink in moderation are going to be less likely to be alcohol abusers.
It turns out that a bunch of college administrators agree with me. Tucker writes about the Amethyst Initiative:
There is an organization of college administrators who are fed up. It is called the Amethyst Initiative. Currently, 135 colleges have signed support for a lower drinking age. Their goal is not to encourage more drinking but to recognize the unreality of the current law, and how it has led to perverse consequences on campus.You know the situation has to be extremely serious to get this risk-averse crowd on board. Their statement reads:
A culture of dangerous, clandestine "binge-drinking"--often conducted off-campus--has developed. Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer. By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.
t's not just about campus. It's about teens and drinking in general. The law requires them to hide in private places. Such clandestine meetings can lead to compromising and dangerous situations without reliable public oversight.
It's also about business. Convenience stores and bars, in particular, have been put in a strange position. They have been enlisted to become the enforcement arm of an unenforceable policy, which has meant haranguing customers, inventing new systems for ferreting out violators, turning the servers into cops, confiscating IDs and creating an environment of snooping and threats in a place that should be about service and fun.
Why isn't something done to change this? Those who are most affected have the least political power. By the time they figure out the ropes in American political life, they are turning 21 and so no longer have to deal with the problem.
You are an adult, or not. If you can vote, sign a contract, join the military and drive, you ought to have all the privileges and responsibilities that go with being an adult.
MarkD at July 28, 2015 6:30 AM
Our toxic political discourse relies on divide and conquer. So we're always kept busy slugging it out over abortion, healthcare and education, issues chosen for their ability to generate anger and entrenched political dogma. Any time our leaders make changes in these areas, they only serve to stir up more anger, dogma and low-information discourse. Not much incentive for politicians to try to change things. We don't notice un politicized issues, so this one will never make most peoples' radar.
Allison at July 28, 2015 6:50 AM
MarkD is right, but it's ironic, but IMHO indisputable, that enabling what can be called childish behavior (defiance expressed by drinking) by bringing it into the light of day dissolves its allure and creates more responsible large-scale behavior.
Institutions understand that they derive their power in part by creating monsters (strawmen) to battle to keep us safe, and under control.
DaveG at July 28, 2015 8:09 AM
Not sure how this stops "defiant" behavior or the binge drinking since those doing so are acting out against "You will not do ________."
No problem w/raising the age limit just don't think that's the problem (irresponsible behavior does not respond to reasonable requests).
Bob in Texas at July 28, 2015 8:17 AM
Yeah, I don't have an issue with lowering the drinking age. But it doesn't answer the problem that a lot, A LOT, of people actually start drinking alcohol when they're 13, 12 and younger. By they time they get to college, they're already accustomed to it. They just have less fear about it because they're no longer at home sneaking sips out of the whiskey bottle.
This never would have affected me because I don't drink, but if I had just turned 21 and they suddenly lowered the drinking age, I would be very angry that they didn't do that three years earlier.
Fayd at July 28, 2015 8:31 AM
I don't remember how old I was when I had my first drink, it was never forbidden to me. I won't say I have never been drunk, but I can count the number of times on one hand I've been drunk enough to puke. (Twice) I come from a culture of a bit of wine with dinner, but not one of binge drinking.
I'm with you, teach the kids to drink at home.
The problem is some of the teachers are crazy binge drinkers.
NicoleK at July 28, 2015 8:33 AM
While I agree with you, I don't know that 18 will work in this country. Perhaps 19.
Or even 14. Learn to drink before you learn to drive. Except for that whole not-yet-fully-developed-brain thing, this could work.
Steve Chapman at Reason raises some valid points in an argument against an 18-year-old being able to legally purchase alcohol.
Conan the Grammarian at July 28, 2015 8:35 AM
The Chapman article:
http://reason.com/archives/2008/08/21/the-perils-of-a-lower-drinking
Conan the Grammarian at July 28, 2015 8:36 AM
As with a number of other things; drugs and guns as examples, passing a law means you care, it means you can fool some of the people some of the time that, 1, it works, and, 2, it has no inadvertent negative consequences.
To oppose such a law means you want the terrible things to happen--that weren't actually happening--prior to the passage of the law.
That said, my experience in college was guys drank because they wanted to. A couple did it for the novelty and having a drink at hand while studying lost its thrill pretty quickly.
To the extent college kids feel under pressure, a possibility that adults think hilarious, the drinking might be a relief. So you'd load up on weekends.
Richard Aubrey at July 28, 2015 8:48 AM
Prohibition is about money, power and control not safety. Safety is the excuse for all kinds of behavior modification but the reality is that those in power seek to expand it. I think it would be interesting to find out how much money is flowing through the courts and the bureaucracies to say nothing of the private groups like M.A.D.D. and S.A.D.D. or how many politicians see office to to the endorsements of such nanny-state groups, all over drinking.
Warhawke223 at July 28, 2015 9:00 AM
Making bad decisions with alcohol can kill you. Making bad decisions with cars can kill you and a bunch of unlucky bystanders. But it takes bad decisions about politics to kill people in job-lot, world-historical numbers.
Yet we can drive at 16 and vote at 18, while alcohol, which by itself isn't going to kill anybody except maybe the idiot drinking too much of it, is banned below 21.
Somebody's clearly not thinking this through.
lelnet at July 28, 2015 9:17 AM
From the comments at the Wendy Kaminer op-ed, from the last thread:
Ronin55507/27/15 10:30 AM
"I don't believe I'm that old, but it's as if I grew up in another world. When I went to college the women rarely drank enough to become drunk and, therefore, kept their wits about them. And their friends watched out for them. Today? It appears that both the college men and women get soddenly drunk."
(end)
Being in my 40s, I can empathize.
I have to wonder just how much binge-drinking college teens do in Europe. I'm guessing less. If so, we need to figure out why the drinking problem seems to be getting worse here, whether it has to do with lower legal drinking ages or not.
In the meantime, though, given how many deaths are caused simply by teens' DRIVING, whether they were drinking at the time or not, why DO we think it's OK for teens to be driving at 16? It's ludicrous. As Dr. John Rosemond has pointed out, when the driving laws were written, maybe more than 100 years ago, neither cars or roads allowed for high speeds; parents didn't let kids waste gas money on just driving around for fun (as opposed to going on errands), as a rule; and one could easily argue that on average, teens were far more mature and responsible in those days than they are now.
In the same vein, it used to be "normal" for girls to marry and start families in their teens, even as recently as the 1950s, but there are plenty of reasons why that's firmly discouraged these days, even if anyone can get married at 18. (Whether this should still be legal, I couldn't say - how often DO you hear of teens marrying at that age against their parents' will? Maybe it's a moot point - even if parentally-forced marriages at 15 are, sadly, NOT a moot issue.)
And, as Ellen Goodman said in 1984, in a column on underage drinking, that back when young men started arguing "if we're old enough to fight, we're old enough to vote," we should have raised the draft age to 21 instead of lowering the voting age. At the end, she said: "What then of the voter who says that anyone old enough to die for his country is old enough to drink in it? Tell him 18 is much, much too young to die for his country."
lenona at July 28, 2015 9:40 AM
As I recall, the drinking age was raised to decrease instances of drinking and driving. And to an extent, it was successful. In my home state, Vermont, Governor Richard Snelling, despite the pressure from outside groups, refused to sign a law to raise the drinking age to 21, because he felt as most of us feel: that if a person is old enough to vote, die for his country, drive, enter contracts and be responsible for his own decisions, then he ought to be allowed to drink.
Just be prepared for the arguments that it will increase the number of deaths due to drinking and driving.
(I haven't actually checked the numbers, but if that's the case, increased number of traffic deaths due to alcohol consumption is going to be a hard argument to counter.)
Patrick at July 28, 2015 10:23 AM
Britain has been having huge problems with binge drinking, although the numbers are falling now among younger adults.
The rest of Europe seems less likely to binge drink.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/08/binge-drinking-drove-me-out-of-britain
Conan the Grammarian at July 28, 2015 11:53 AM
Patrick; you recall correctly - 21 was made the "national age to legally drink" (quote marks because it is still a state's law, not federal law that sets the legal drinking age) because congress threatened to withhold highway dollars if a state didn't do so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act
I do remember at the time politicians on both sides of the aisle coming out against the feds "blackmailing" the states in this fashion.
Unfortunately, there weren't enough of them to vote against it. And I blame voters for that! Many who were against the Federal government "punishing" states in this manner were afraid of losing the next election with cries by opponents that "he voted against saving teenage lives!" and so they ended up passing the law.
I suspect that voters will listen to such arguments again. Man, voters can be so stupid at times!?
charles at July 28, 2015 1:45 PM
Had to search "heaviest drinking countries". If the 2010 World Health Org is to be believed, Slavic countries are listed as biggest binge-drinkers -- and their legal age is 18. USA is down the list some.
Jason S. at July 28, 2015 7:42 PM
I never looked at the studies but one...the summaries all indicated the problem drinking was similar in Europe to the US. In the one I did look at - skimmed really - it indicated that local variance was much more than national differences.
My experience travelling indicates Europeans are similar to Americans or more so. I took a tour in Australia that was mainly college kids (I was told by the guide it happens every year and has to do with college schedules). The only ones under 21 who did not get sloppy drunk at least several times was 3 american girls who didn't drink at all. of the slightly older...only 1 English lady and 1 Canadian didn't get drunk. The English girl's boyfriend (also English) got drunk but not sloppy as well as the other Canadian girl. The older group (over 30) never got all that drunk.
The Former Banker at July 28, 2015 9:10 PM
I'll throw in that I was of college age during that period from about 1978 to 1983 when many states lowered their drinking age to 18 or 19. And I don't recall seeing these kinds of problems. Yes, there were beer blasts occasionally, but not many -- we were broke college students and we couldn't afford to buy a lot of alcohol. (Maybe that's one thing that has changed...) Yes, people occasionally drank too much and got sick. But on the campus there was really nothing bad that could hsppen to them. We kept an eye on them to make sure they continued to breathe and such, helped them back to their rooms as necessary, and otherwise left them alone. Someone who did it once learned their lesson and almost never did it again. And yes, occasionally women got drunk and engaged in hookups that they would be ashamed about later. But they put on their big girl panties and dealt with it.
(There were a few students on campus who were known to be alcoholics. Most other students avoided them, and they were unwelcome at parties because they'd drink everything in signt and not leave any for anyone else. Generally they flunked out after a few quarters and then we were rid of them.)
I think one thing that has changed is that, in our day, college was regarded as the final transition step to adulthood. We went to college determined to make ourselves be adults, and to deal with things -- including drinking -- in an adult way. Binge drinking was regarded as juvenile. We wanted to be more sophistcated than that. Today's students tend to look at college as essentially four years of unsupervised teenagehood, the permanant basement/van party without Mom and Dad around to harsh the buzz.
Cousin Dave at July 29, 2015 7:45 AM
I think one reason you see binge drinking among younger folks is because they can't get their hands on alcohol to simply have a drink. They must consume it rapidly once they get hold of it ... or lose it.
Allowing a 19-year-old college student enables him to buy a six pack and keep it in the fridge, having one or two whenever he wants, knowing if he wants more, he can simply go to the store and get more.
However, even a 19-year-old is likely to have a friend or two below the drinking age along with a willingness to let that underage friend have a beer or two when visiting or to purchase alcohol for him "as a friend."
Teenagers have higher car insurance rates because they make bad decisions while driving. Now add illicitly consumed alcohol to that mix.
Any drinking age that corresponds with the age at which one begins learning to drive is just asking for trouble.
========================================
Why should kids want to be adults when the adults don't even want to be adults?
Adult fashions today reflect the inner child - men are now wearing shorts and flip-flops to work (and not for a job as a lifeguard). Look at how the media derides "mom jeans" - as if dressing like an adult should be greeted with derision and ridicule.
________________________________________
"Hello, inner child, I'm the inner babysitter!" ~ Terry Pratchett
Conan the Grammarian at July 29, 2015 8:59 AM
You know, when I was in college (Class of '99) I didn't see a lot of binge drinking. Sure, the occasional person got totally puke-drunk, but it was not everywhere all the time.
I DO remember, however, lots of articles about the scourge of binge drinking that my mom would send me. I believe there was some kid at MIT who died of it so it was in the Boston Globe...
How much are kids really binge drinking, and how much is it the media hyping it up?
NicoleK at July 29, 2015 3:11 PM
NicoleK asks a good question... this may very well be another example of "stranger danger" media hype.
Cousin Dave at July 30, 2015 7:40 AM
Leave a comment