MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“21 Losing Its Buzz,” Ellis Henican Column, am/New York, July 24, 2009
Somewhere in America, there may be a college student who is dissuaded from drinking by Legal Age 21.
It’s a big country, you know.
But exactly 25 years after Washington turned 18-, 19- and 20-year-old drinkers into criminals, the evidence is piling up like a mountain of crushed Budweiser cans: Despite fine intentions by the Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other anti-alcohol groups, the 21-year-old drinking age actually has caused more harm than good.
It’s promoted dangerous binge drinking on American campuses.
It’s pushed underage drinkers into dorm rooms, frat houses and moving automobiles.
It’s led to a wave of alcohol-fueled assaults and other destructive behavior.
With fake IDs, straw purchasers and cooperative convenience-store clerks, enforcement of 21 has proven almost impossible, undermining respect for the law.
And here’s the worst part: The higher age has failed miserably on its own terms. It simply doesn’t stop those young people who want to drink.
These otherwise-legal adults can vote, marry, sign contracts and die in Iraq, but still can’t buy a legal beer? They almost never have trouble finding an illegal one.
No wonder John McCardell heads a group called Choose Responsibility, which is campaigning for a return to 18. As president of Middlebury College in Vermont, McCardell dealt
firsthand with rapes, assaults, car wrecks and emergency-room visits fueled by illegal campus drinking.
“We need to consider new, fresh approaches to a serious problem,” said the former college
president.
He got an important new ally on Thursday. Dr. Morris Chafetz, who founded the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse and served on the commission that urged former President Ronald Reagan to raise the drinking age, announced a dramatic change of heart. He called his previous support for 21 “the single most regrettable decision” of his career.
“Legal Age 21 has not worked,” Chafetz said flatly.
Some things have worked. Designated-driver programs actually have reduced drunkendriving deaths since the early 1980s. And honest alcohol-education programs have shown some promise.
But a quarter-century in, some fresh – sober! – thinking is clearly called for. “Twenty-five more years of this ‘success’ is simply unacceptable,” McCardell said.
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While I was living in Germany during a stint in the army, I noticed that binge drinking didn’t really happen so much there. I think this is because instead of being told “No, you can absolutely not have this”, people are taught to be responsible with their alcohol.
If chocolate was made illegal until the age of 21, instead of beer, I imagine that our country would be stricken with a diabetes epidemic among teens.
I was so happy to read this article on the train this morning. I think it’s a very important debate that should get more attention across the country. Henican touches on many good points, particularly the idea that obtaining alcohol illegally is *not difficult* and therefore this law does not protect the youth of America, rather it puts them at more risk of harming themselves and others.
Learning to drink is, I think, an important part of becoming an adult and if young people are going to be considered “adults” at 18- I fail to see how arbitrarily deciding to make them wait 3 more years for drinking helps them in any way. In a way, I think the debate should be likened to that of Sex Education vs Abstinence Education. Teaching people *how* to drink- and how to drink in social situations & with moderation- is much more beneficial than outright forbidding it (especially considering people 18+ are undoubtedly going to find themselves surrounded by alcohol and other people drinking well before they turn 21).
Please let the debate continue and help to drive awareness. If the law was changed once, it can be changed again.