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Pros and cons of reducing the drinking age
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 07/12/2007 - 07:58.
By BILL SCHACKNER
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Sarah Rafson and her college friends picked an off-campus bar on her 19th birthday -- and did what in America requires a fake ID or a bartender willing to look the other way.
Legal drinking in Canada starts at 18 or 19, depending on the province. That's why many U.S. college students, including Rafson, a University of Toronto junior from Pittsburgh, automatically become legal drinking adults when they head north of the border to study, only to become minors again when they return home.
"It feels like walking backward in time."
Sure, Rafson says, there are drunken college parties in this city. But she swears she sees fewer instances of her peers slamming down drink after drink than she does in the United States. Her own birthday celebration in November, the day she sipped her first legal drop of alcohol, stopped at a couple of drinks, and she says she's been a light drinker since.
"It's legal," she said. "It's no big deal."
Conventional wisdom in the United States says making people wait to imbibe legally keeps them safer from alcohol abuse. But John McCardell, 58, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont, has caused a stir of late, claiming that an epidemic of underage and binge drinking is proof the current approach doesn't work. McCardell says it's time the United States brings back the 18-year-old drinking age.
Specifically, he proposes a system under which "drinking licenses" would permit consumption at an earlier age after mandatory education about alcohol and its risks. He said the 21-year-old drinking age, the standard across America for almost two decades, hasn't stopped young people from drinking themselves into the hospital or the grave.
"All you're doing is driving it off campus or underground. You're not ending it," McCardell said. "You're sending it to much less safe environments."
There are plenty of people who say what he's proposing is nothing short of insanity.
Those lining up to object include academic researchers, government officials and advocacy groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, all of whom say the preponderance of scientific evidence shows that raising the drinking age reduces problems.
Federal highway crash data indicates the 21-year-old drinking age has saved nearly 25,000 lives over the past three decades, said Ralph Hingson, a division director with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
He also said the law has helped curb alcohol consumption among high school students.
Hingson said he shares McCardell's concern about alcohol's toll. But the solution is not to start young people drinking sooner.
Just look at Europe, he says, where lower minimum ages are common, yet adolescent alcohol abuse is generally worse than in the United States.
"There is no evidence that lowering the age here would help, and I would be concerned that it would make things worse," he said.
McCardell, though, said he's not without research that supports his position.
A study published in 2002 by the journal Addiction found that while alcohol use was more pervasive among Canadian students ages 15 to 24, heavy drinking was significantly less prevalent than among their U.S. counterparts.
"It's hard to look at the Canadian example and say things would be much worse here if we lowered the drinking age," McCardell said.
In the United States, there is no national drinking age per se, though all 50 states set theirs at 21. About half had lower limits but reconsidered after the Reagan administration in 1984 said any state unwilling to adopt 21 as its drinking age would lose 10 percent of its federal highway funds.
The experience has been different in Canada.
Ontario, the province that includes Toronto, raised its drinking age in 1979 from 18 to 19, and it's stayed there since, meaning the bars are open to thousands who are a year out of high school.
Both sides of the minimum age debate agree on this: The latest data on student drinking is cause for alarm.
In March, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported that alcohol misuse in college had worsened, and nearly one in four full-time students nationwide met the medical threshold for substance abuse or dependence.
The percentage of students on campus who abuse alcohol is no greater than in 1993, but the frequency of binge drinking has increased. Binge drinking is generally defined as five or more drinks per sitting for a male, four for a female.
Each year, more than 1,700 alcohol-related deaths occur among those 18 to 24 years old, including motor vehicle crashes and other unintended injuries. Drunkenness is seen as a major contributor to sexual assault and other campus crime as well as academic problems.
(Bill Schackner can be reached at bschackner(at)post-gazette.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)
lowering the drinking age
I believe that lowering the drinking age to 18 again is a good idea. I also think that requiring a mandatory alcohol class before anyone is allowed to legal consume alcohol. This article proved very helpful and informative to me. Thanks for posting it.
lowering the drinking age
im for the lowering of the drinking age because as the law states we began an adult. we can vote, live on our own and buy Cigarettes (also we start to pay taxes) but the one thing that we can not do is drink. We can say we are an adult but we can not go to a club and buy a drink. If the drinking age does get lowered when the United States needs to get the knowledge about aclohol and the affects it can have on you at a younger age.... It needs to be tought at the schools at a young age because as the years go by the people that start drinking gets lower and lower. If we tought aclohol 101 then maybe kids wouldn't want to drink because of the affects aclohol can have on you
I'm all for it, Stick It Too
I'm all for it, Stick It Too The Man.
Hell we can do everything
Hell we can do everything else so why can't we drink.
CHANGE IT
CHANGE IT
Yall DA's
Yall all some big dummies-18 year olds cant handle all that... what do you want see more drunks than there is already?
or maybe you want to see more of your peers dieing... its just dumb.. yall get a life
YALL DO's
Man it doesn't even matter if ur 18 and can get into bars ur still going to drink yall mean 18's in bars is more civilized then them drinking at houses
Don't Lower
All its going to do is hurt more of us americans. 18 year old still live in the state of mind as 16 year olds. They can't handle alcohol responsibly at 18. Not very many 21 year olds can handle it either so why let the 18 year olds?? It will just hurt you in the end. More domestic violence: rape, sexual harassment, physical abuse.
lowering the drinking age.
I think that the drinking age should be lowered. If you are 18 years of age you should be allowed to go into a restaurant or bar and drink legally. I think the government should still but a ban on any under 21 going into a liquor store and buying booze. In high school you have to take a health class and in that class you learn about the effects of drugs and alcohol. If the government just extended the the length of that learning period every child would have a class under their belt on drinking. So after then learned everything they are qualified to make their own decisions. I think lowering the drinking age would help reduce the amount of offenses. Really what kid doesn't try alcohol just because they know they aren't supposed to and since they could it just wouldn't be as much fun. If they are brought up learning to monitor their drinking and limit their consumption. This has held true for many other countries. Why not the United States?
I disagree...
I disagree that 18 yr. olds have the same mentality of 16 yr. olds. I know teenagers of 16 who are more mature than some 21 yr. olds. Don't perpetuate the stereotype that all youth are 'good-for-nothing'. It's simply not true.
And btw, I know some 50 year olds that can't handle alcohol and have no business drinking!
I don't know what's the
I don't know what's the point of that drinking age law when everyone is breaking it!
military car sales
Yes, military car sales in the US and Canada this summer so don't miss it.
Its time to open your eyes, they're your eyes!
First off, if you're old enough to “serve” then you're certainly old enough to have a drink.
yes this is just another area of our screwed up system.....no I'm not saying that liqueur-stores should sell bottles to 18year-olds...they certainly shouldn't, however we know that there will always be underage drinking, ass we all did at some point, (don't bother denying this) & here we have the perfect opportunity to control, & monitor, alcohol consumption & not just of 18year-olds but of all ages, yes I'm talking about bars & clubs, now instead of having those meat-head security guards just take up space & harass partier's, we need to have them monitor & control alcohol consumption & this goes for bartenders as well, so when somebody's walking in circles & falls unto the bar, don't serve him another bloody shot of tequila!
All I'm saying is if you're going fix a problem, then actually fix the bloody problem....which is over-drinking, regardless of age....though this would be a huge loss to bar owners, & lets not forget hew ells takes a cut of the pie, so don't be fooled by this corruptness for a second they honestly don't give a damn. We as people have to make the necessary changes ourself!
So to all you partier's mingle & dance all night, nobody has the right to stop you, though drink safe. Cheers!
Nath wild,
DON'T LOWER IT!
lowering the drinking age would cause more high school drop outs, more alcohol abuse, and more drunk driving accidents. if americans start drinking earlier they will drink more by the time they get older and will die of alcohol poisoning or alcohol related accidents.
lowering the drinking age
well how can you honestly say that lowering the age is a good idea because i have family that has gotten hit by an underage drunk diver at a stop sign. how do we know that anyother teens will not get hurt in the act. some kids have not developed all the way so if they drink all this alcohol they could get alcohol poisoning so no if your are a teen or whatever you are than just think of how many lives are lost from underage drinking well that is all i have to say!
~bonnie
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