Should states lower the legal drinking age?

The debate goes something like this: If men and women are old enough to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan at age 18, shouldn't they be allowed to drink alcohol legally?

Several states are considering lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. According to a report in USA Today, legislation has been introduced in three states (Kentucky, Wisconsin and South Carolina) to lower the drinking age for military personnel only. In Missouri, a planned ballot initiative would lower the age to 18 for everyone. South Dakota is debating allowing 19- and 20-year-olds to buy low-alcohol beer. Minnesota is considering allowing people ages 18 to 20 to buy alcohol in restaurants and bars not in stores until they are 21.

These proposals have drug dependency treatment and traffic officials more than a little worried. Congress voted in 1984 to reduce federal highway funds to any state that sets the drinking age below 21 (causing most states that had lowered the legal drinking age to 18 in the 1970s to return to the age-21 law). That led to a decrease in traffic fatalities involving drivers ages 18 to 20 by 13%, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Meanwhile, some pretty solid evidence is accumulating that waiting until age 21 to drink dramatically cuts the risk of developing alcoholism. A study released this week online from the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research shows that women born after 1944 began drinking, on average, at age 17 and had a 50% to 80% greater chance of developing alcohol dependence than women born before 1944, who began drinking at age 20 on average. Says study author Richard A. Grucza of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis:

"About one in three individuals who start drinking at age 17 or younger become alcohol dependent. For those who wait until age 21 or older, that number is one in 10."

- Shari Roan

Photo: Gino Domenico / Bloomberg News

Comments

[Nathan]

I love beer and wine, but it is foolish to reduce the drinking age. The statistics cited speak for themselves. And unfortunately, many adults can barely handle drinking responsibly.

What a trifecta it would be if we have kids fresh out of high school driving around inexperienced, text messaging AND drunk behind the wheel.

[David in Los Angeles]

numbers don't lie: keep the legal age at 21

[lauren]

If the drinking age IS lowered, high schoolers would drink even MORE freely than they already do. Many kids turn 18 early in their senior year. Partying is already a big problem among teens. This would add to the health and safety concerns and have dangerous consequences for all of us.

For the record. I do like beer and wine and, yes, I am the parent of a high schooler.

[Nedly Mandingo]

If you lower it then even younger people will consume it. Everyone that wanted beer or other alcohol at 16 could get when I was a kid nothing has changed now except that now you can get weed just as easy.

[Amy]

So, prohibition and the way alcohol was viewed in my grandmother's age group and beyond has NOTHING to do with the study. Of course it's going to prove that younger women drink more because it society mores had influenced the older generation that it was the "drink of the devil"

My issue with the higher drinking age is that the parents have less influence on their childrens drinking habits when they turn 21, than when they are 18. I think parental influence is at the heart of the binge drinking and being responsible issue.

[Charles Choomngern]

That's pretty sad, you can serve and die for your country, but can't drink. Only in our over zelous country.

[JP]

how about the fact that the legal drinking age does very little to prohibit minors from consuming alcohol. in my generation the 21st birthday is almost a joke. Everyone i knew had already been consuming alcohol long before turning 21. The only difference is now you could go out to bars easier and not worry about a fake ID. The whole debate is a joke. And as for the statistics...anyone who has studied statistics knows that you can pretty much get a statistic to "prove" any point in a debate. Only by looking closely at the data used can one determine whether or not the results are valid. Therefore I am dubious of all stats unless one can actually see the data used. How can they be sure that other factors were not to blame for the rise in alcoholism in women after 1944? Was it age or could it be cultural or something else that would be hard to measure with stats?

[Michael]

People should be able to drink legally at age 18, as is the case in most countries.
The reason earlier drinking is a problem is early driving. Encouraging dependency on cars so early in Americans' lives has been horribly destructive on our social fabric. Drinking alcohol responsibly encourages healthy socialization - the opposite of the alienization that results from our car culture.

[Caitlin]

I believe whole heartedly that waiting until 21 to legally drink saves young adults from so much trauma (accidents) and depression (alcoholism). But why not raise the limit to 25? Do you have any idea how many fewer accidents we'd have then?! And AA might actually have to beg for members after that!

Okay, you caught me. I'm being facetious. But really now. Those kinds of arguments, while valid, only prove that people at any age are reckless. The fact of the matter is...you're telling a kid fresh out of high school that they are now an adult. They can smoke cigarettes til their lungs are black. They can spend all of their money on lotto tickets. They can do anything they want. They just can't drink. Because research proves that it lessens road fatalities.

If we really are going to allow them to function as adults in society, they should be able enjoy the few benefits.

[PNW Trojan]

What? We don't have enough drunks and druggies killing/maiming people now? This benefits society, how??????

[John Bard]

As a Brit who's native country allows drinking at 17, I have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of drunken exhibitionist young people on the streets of L.A.
A far cry from London - and almost everywhere else in the UK - where hordes of hammered teenagers lay waste to city centers every weekend. Keep the limit as it is - otherwise, you're gonna regret it!

[Leeor Maciborski]

Why is it that the United States has more alcoholics than other nations with lower drinking ages? Perhaps our over-indulgent culture is to blame? Then again, the mere taboo imposed by our puritan background about drinking makes alcohol all the more appealing to a naturally rebellious youth. Lowering the drinking age is a step to remove the over-arching conservative hand that instigates minors to abuse any forbidden substance. Other nations with no such restriction or taboo expose their youth to alcohol at a younger age and often in the controlled environment of family's household don't see the extent of abuse we have in America.
Either way, to think that minors cannot get their hands on alcohol is naive. Teenagers drink. That is the reality that the law must acknowledge and catch up to.

[Anna Lathen]

Yes, they should change these laws. In Europe, the laws are a lot more Liberal. Plus alcoholism is a lot less common.

[Robert]

I support lowering the drinking age to 16 or 18. It is ridiculous to have a legal drinking age of 21. I am 21 now, but I have been drinking since i was 13. Never addicted... never a binge drinker. People in this damn country need to loosen up a little.

[john noonan]

we are still a country too influenced by our puriton past. In Europe they have much lower numbers of alcoholics and kids are taught to drink responsibly. Get over it, our government manipulates us with misrepresented statistics all of the time and most of us know it. Live and let live is my policy.

[Revgen]

16 year olds can be charged as adults for violent crimes, but 18 year olds are too young to drink?

Oh the hypocracy!

[Bean]

I believe that part of the problem of underage drinking is the culture of rebellion in teens.

If you look at european countries, who have very low drinking ages (often 16, hardly ever enforced) and a culture of acceptance toward alcohol consumption (esp. wine) during meals from a young age, you see a lower rate of binge drinking.

I've lived both sides of the coin - when I got out of high school, away from my parent's rule, off to college, still underaged, the ease of getting alcohol illicitly made binging really The Thing to do. "Let's do it because it's illicit! because we can! Because before, we couldn't!" It's a sudden release of oppression going into a new world.

I lived and studied in paris, france for a while also. There, many parents were accepting of their children partaking in the wine at the dinner table, rather than treating it as the illegal substance to be distanced from the tender youth at all costs! This moderated, continual exposure fostered more of a *respect* for it, rather than stoking the illicit fascination with it as a tool of rebellion that comes with the repression of any urge or curiosity, really.

As a result, all of my french friends in school in paris had a VASTLY different, less abusive attitude toward booze than my American friends in general.

It's a cultural problem, I hesistate to trust the study quoted because I'm sure the attitude toward alcohol changed drastically between pre-1944 and post-1944 women. Maybe the numbers do lie. I trust my experience.

So lowering the drinking age might not HELP the problem, in general it just takes respect of a dangerous thing to temper its danger. Cultural change is much much harder than a law change, however. And one might follow from the other.

[Red]

Hey! This sounds GREAT! Up the drinking age for the military personnel only so we can be sure that after they've been severely traumatized by this atrocious war, they can come home and get drunk to drown out their problems.

If you have such a problem with 18 year olds being allowed to go to war but not be allowed to drink - how about this....how about we RAISE THE AGE FOR MILITARY SERVICE instead of lowering the age for drinking??? But it's SO much easier to convince a bunch of drunk 18 year olds to go fight for George and Dick's oil stock portfolio...oh, I mean, *freedom*.

I'm sure this goes along perfectly with the military commanders advice to the troops after they've returned home from this war to shut up and go have a drink to deal with it, therefore saving millions in military medical benefits.

This country is so screwed up, I don't even know where to begin.

[Tony]

How about this - let 18 year olds drink but take away there driver's license until they are 21. Everyone wins.

[Teresa]

This is very simple: If young men and women aren't considered "old enough" to drink until they are 21, then they shouldn't be considered "old enough" to join the military, learn how to use sophisticated deadly weapons, and be sent off to fight and die in war.

Either raise the age to join the military, or lower the drinking age.

You cannot have this both ways.

[Matt]

Just raise the age to join the military to 21. Then both sides are happy.

[Paul]

If the legal drinking age were lowered, kids would be drinking in bars instead of at house parties, which means better supervision. They would also still be living with their parents, which means someone would be keeping tabs on them, unlike in college where they get trashed and don't have to come home to consequences.

Give kids some controlled experience with drinking is much better than just letting them run free without supervision once they turn 21. It would make them more responsible drinkers. And Nathan, drinking and driving are not mutually exclusive. Very few drinkers drive while intoxicated. You're just pushing a false stereotype.

[al]

talk about playing russian roulette with all the innocent teens who will either die or become parapelegic for life no way lower the age from 21 please we all know they will get behind the wheel teens cant drive sober much less impaired

[Michael]

Please reduce the drinking age to 18. This is not a debate about alcohol consumption, this is a debate about when someone is old enough to be responsible for his or her own actions. If someone is old enough to serve their country overseas and make life-and-death decision, they should be able to determine when it is appropriate to drink alcohol.

Will people drink inappropriately? Yes, but they already do. Anyone who is willing to break one law by driving intoxicated, is probably not bothered by another law that proclaims the legal drinking age as 21. Hold THEM responsible for their actions.

Are we truly a country that cherishes freedom (and with that, personal responsibility) or do we pay lip service to it and pass laws based on statistics and polls? Choose wisely.

[Paul]

The study references in the article is faulty. Women born before 1944 were born into a completely different world than those born after 1944. Before Animal House was released in the late-1970s, there wasn't a single film that glorified college-age drinking. Now there's tons of them. Before the 1980s, alcohol advertisers targeted middle-aged men. Now they heavily target women and 21-year-olds. The world and society in general have changed so much for women born after 1944 that the entire study is without merit. It proves how pop culture changes alcoholism, but it doesn't provide any reliable information about the effect of the age when people start.

If you do a study on France or other countries where drinking is legal for younger people, that would also debunk the study quoted in the article.