I wrote a pretty good essay about this my freshman year in college. You guys can read this if you want. It is pretty informative.
Lower the Drinking Age-
Today in the United States, an 18 year old can legally drive a car, pilot an aircraft, buy firearms, serve on juries, and vote in local, state, and national elections. Eighteen year-old males are required to register with the Selective Service and all persons of this age are required to pay taxes. Eighteen year olds can enlist in the military and 18 year olds are tried as adults in all criminal cases. Eighteen year olds share the same responsibilities all other citizens that are above the age of 17, but they do not have the same rights as everyone else. Why is it then, that these tax paying, voting citizens do not posses the right to drink alcohol? The fact is the citizens between the ages of 18 and 20 have unbalanced responsibilities and rights compared to the rest of citizens who are 21 and older. Contrary to what others may say, my right to vote is not reason enough for me to be able drink. However, the fact that I have adult responsibilities is reason enough for me to be able to drink. Responsibilities should yield equal rights for all who share them. Besides the fact that citizens between the age of 18 and 20 have disproportionate responsibilities and rights, there is statistical evidence that proves that early introduction of alcohol is the safest way to prevent juvenile alcohol abuse and promote responsible drinking.
As a responsible taxpayer, I believe that I should be entitled to the same rights as all other taxpayers. It makes absolutely no sense that I as an 18 year old am considered mature enough to go vote at city hall and then buy an automatic assault rifle at a gun show on my way back home (Yes, this is perfectly legal now that the ban on assault weapons has been lifted), but not mature enough to drink in a responsible manner. There is a fundamental flaw in the laws of the United States. Citizens who are between the ages of 18 and 20 are considered adults by their responsibilities and are also considered adults in the criminal justice system, but are considered minors when it comes to their rights. Shouldn’t scores of people be flocking to the Supreme Court to protest the execution of all criminals who were sentenced to death for crimes that they committed when they were between the ages of 18 and 20? Surely these “minors”, were incapable of controlling themselves. Certainly they shouldn’t be held responsible. After all, they weren’t even mature enough to consume a beer.
Law enforcement agencies across the country see adults between the age of 18 and 20 as minors only when it comes to alcohol violations. In a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission article about stings to arrest people with fake IDs entitled “Operation Fake Out” the TABC refers to college age adults as “youngsters.” I find humor in the fact that the TABC refers to me like this. I pay taxes just like TABC agents do. I can vote like they can, drive like they can, serve on a jury like they can, buy a fire arm like they can, and if I were to be arrested for being a minor in possession of a fake ID, I would be tried as an adult. The same government that forces me as an adult male to register for the Selective Service and allows women of my same age to get abortions calls me a youngster and enforces a law that treats me as a second class citizen. As long as 18 year old adults pay taxes, we should be able to drink responsibly. Either the U.S. government is depriving me of a right that I am entitled to as an adult, or the U.S. government is sending children to war, allowing children to get abortions, and among many other things, allowing children to buy firearms.
The organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving is famous for their devotion to saving lives through their continuing efforts to prevent drunk driving accidents. MADD claims that the laws of the 1980’s that brought about the universal 21 year old drinking age in the U.S. have saved over 20,000 live (21,887 to be more exact) in people who are 18-20. (Minimum Drinking Age Laws). This statistic is rather questionable. MADD quotes this statistic from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who isn’t clear on what methods were used to come to this conclusion. I think that population should hold MADD and the NHTSA to a higher standard. I believe that it is important to disclose what methods were used to discover this statistic. It is obviously impossible for MADD to produce person number 21,877 who was saved by the 21 year old drinking age. It is also important to point out that it is in the best interest of MADD and the NHTSA to go along with a statistic that is possibly inflated, exaggerated, or downright false. After all, in is the best interest of bureaucratic organizations such as the NHTSA and special interests groups such as MADD to at least appear as if the help the public. Other organizations, like the National Youth Rights Association are quick to shoot down MADD’s estimation. The NYRA sates that the estimation that 20,000 lives were saved “is one of the most misguided and over used statistics circulated by the Youth Prohibitionist movement” (Lower the Drinking Age). The problem with the study is that it only focused on deaths in the 18-20 year old bracket. The raised drinking age actually “transferred lost lives from the 18-20 bracket to the 21-24 age group” (Lower the Drinking Age) What is evident is that the age group within a few years of the drinking age is likely to suffer from drunk driving accidents. The answer should not have been to increase the drinking age, but rather to increase educational programs that help teach people about the dangers of drunk driving. If the drinking age were raised to 25, the 25-28 year old bracket would likely see an increase in drunk driving deaths after a few years.
Although supporters of the 21 year old drinking age might say that 18-20 year olds might “assume invulnerability” before making decisions, the fact that deaths rose in the 21-24 age bracket suggests that it takes Americans a few years to understand how many drinks it takes before they are impaired. The only way to counteract this for all age brackets regardless of drinking age is to have in depth educational programs that explain how many drinks it takes to become impaired. Scare tactics that are currently used to prevent individuals from drinking only work for a short period of time. If the drinking age were lowered to 18 and public schools had programs that prepared high school students to be responsible drinkers, drunk driving deaths would probably decrease across the board and hopefully decrease among the age bracket when drinking is first legal for the first time in history.
In the late 1980’s binge drinking among 18-20 year olds did fall for a short time as a result of the no tolerance alcohol laws for adults under the age of 21. Becky Ham of the Center for the Advancement of Health explains that binge drinking rates among 18-20 year olds fell only by 7 percent in the years directly after the 21 year old drinking age was instated and that it rose steadily in the late 1990’s. (Ham) It is evident that the 21 year old drinking age, which was only slightly successful in preventing binge drinking, is now not working to prevent binge drinking. I believe that many problems associated with drinking have little to do with the drinking age but rather a lack of education about the responsible use of alcohol. Unlike our European counterparts who learn to consume alcohol as a complement to food, people in the U.S. generally have their first experiences with alcohol at high school parties where the sole use of alcohol is to get drunk. While teens in Europe might learn to drink responsibly at the dinner table, teens in the U.S. know only the motive to drink to get drunk. As Gene Ford of State University of New York Potsdam puts it, “Young people in France, Spain, and Argentina rarely abuse alcohol. They learn how to drink within the family, which sees drinking in moderation as natural and normal.” (Ford) If drinking before the age of 21 wasn’t forbidden, the U.S. would have much less underage binge drinking and less of a problem with adult alcoholism (Lower the Drinking Age).
One of the main praises of the raising of the drinking age to 21 that organizations such as MADD highlight are statistics that prove that drunk driving deaths have dropped since the drinking age was raised. While this may be true, the studies fail to take into account to lowering of speed limits and the seat belt laws that went into effect at the same time that the drinking age was increased. Airbags have also become more prevalent in cars since the mid 80s, a factor that no doubt saved countless people in auto accidents. The statistics don’t state that the number of drunk drivers has fallen or that the number of drunk driving accidents has fallen, but merely that the number of drunk driving accident deaths have fallen since the mid 1980s. In all actuality, the raise in drinking age to 21 might not have had much of an affect on drunk driving at all. The fact is that Twenty-one year olds might be just as likely to drive drunk as 18 year olds.
I believe that 18-20 year olds in the United States have a disproportionate number of responsibilities to rights. Equal responsibilities should yield equal rights. As long as 18 year olds are tried as adults in court, pay taxes, are allowed to vote, can by firearms, and do an infinite number of things that all other adults are expected or allowed to do, they should be legally permitted to drink in a responsible manner.
Works Cited
Ford, Gene. "Why We Should Lower the Drinking Age to 19." 1998. Sociology Department, State University of New York. 22 Oct. 2004 .
Ham, Becky . "Binge Drinking Declines in the Late "80s, Rises Again In the Late '90s ." Center for the Advancement of Health. 28 Oct. 2004 .
History of the Drinking Age. Realistic Alcohol Laws for Legal Youth. 18 Oct. 2004
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"History of the Legal Drinking Age." Law & Enforcement. Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. 18 Oct. 2004 .
"Lower the Drinking Age." National Youth Rights Association. 22 Oct. 2004 .
"MADD estimates 20,000 lives saved by raising of drinking age.." Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly 26 Jul 2004: 16. :5- . Academic Search Premier. Ebsco Host. 22 Oct 2004 .
"Minimum Drinking Age Laws." MADD Online: Minimum Drinking Age Laws. MADD. 23 Oct. 2004 .
