I’m English and I had no idea until I read this column by Camille Paglia in Time that the law in the US dealing with the drinking age was nationally mandated.
Here’s Ms Paglia
OK, I’m not an American citizen but I have to say I agree with her. Does this law still have widespread support in the US? I find it absolutely astonishing that you’d have young men and women sent abroad to fight for their country and yet when they return if below the age of 21 they wouldn’t be considered responsible enough to buy a beer.
When I was in the Navy, we were allowed to drink on base at the age of 18. They have since changed that because of some mothers who complained about it.
In line with OP’s question: as I understand it, young Americans generally start university aged 18-19, which means that they’re not allowed to drink until their 3rd year at university? Is that true, or am I mistaken? And if so, how many university students actually follow the rules?
Frankly, my university experience wouldn’t have been quite the same without all that beer and tequila
It’s a State level law but they were all pressured to raise it to 21 under threat of losing federal highway funding, iirc. So it would still require 50 individual state changes to lower the drinking age nationally.
Normally, I’m in favour of an 18 liquor buying age (and a “it’s OK to have some wine as soon as you can drink from a proper glass not a sippy cup” home policy)
But then I found out Paglia was for it, so now I want the drinking age set at 42.
To be honest, I’d almost rather raise everything else until 21. Alcohol can really fuck a developing brain up and brains don’t really stop developing until around 25.
Of course, if you had polled me at 18, I might have felt differently about it.
Of course if you were allowed to drink legally at 18, you probably wouldn’t go as bat shit crazy about binge drinking at every opportunity you got either.
Legally, nobody’s supposed to drink until they’re 21. In practice, that isn’t how it works out- in my experience, it wasn’t easy to drink your first few weeks because you didn’t have the contacts to buy you beer/tequila/rum/whiskey since you were underaged.
Once you had those sorted, it was game on for the next year or two until you and most of your friends were 21, at which point the drinking shifted from homes and parties and into bars and clubs.
The actual science on this subject shows that keeping the drinking age at 21 reduces binge drinking and drunk driving accidents (saving about 900 lives per year).
Per the linked article, a comprehensive view of research on the subject found that even given the level of disobedience, the law works for its intended purpose, which is to reduce drunk driving. There is also evidence that when New Zealand dropped the age from 20 to 18, drunk driving accidents increased.
I say the reverse (especially now I see Camille Paglia is for it). Let’s raise the selective service age to 21. If we ever do need to draft 18 year olds again, we can revisit the topic of the drinking age. Even in the military, they prefer slightly older than 18. The ones who join up right out of high school are less likely to stick around.
There’s no reason that laws have to bless or hamper someone in full at a particular age. At 18, someone is physically fit, has a basic education, can follow orders, and hasn’t yet started making babies. That makes them good pickings for military service. And none of that has anything to do with how liable a person is to get drunk and swerve up onto a sidewalk.
Really, the limit should either be set at 12 or 25, based on either the theory that people should be taught to drink wisely, before entering the greater world, or the actual insurance statistics that tell us that humans+alcohol is a bad idea until the 25th birthday.
I am 63. When cycling in the UK in the early sixties, there was no problem getting cider from most pubs; I doubt they would have served us in the evenings though!