I haven’t had a good drinking age debate in years. I have my opinions, and feel free to debate the drinking age, but my #1 question is one that keeps popping up throughout the article and that is “saving lives”.
Is there any possible way that anyone can isolate these lives saved down to the fact that the drinking age was raised? I mean, a hell of a lot of things have happened since 1985, only one of which is a higher drinking age. How can anyone say with full certainty that this law is what caused it? Hell, maybe double the lives would have been saved without the law. How would anyone know?
I had thought this debate was back there with Gibbons v. Ogden, but it is good to see it back in the front…
It takes another 10 years to work its way down to the low 40’s and 30’s.
If the reduction was due to the law, then the effect would happen when the law changed, it wouldn’t take 15 years to finally kick in. The reduction is due to education, and a shift in behavior away from drinking and driving being a wink and nod “take it easy next time” offense.
And, since we’re talking fatalities, not offenses, possibly also due to increased seat belt use, airbags, anti-lock brakes and other safety improvements in the last 23 years. Driving is a different experience now, and to compare driving now with driving then without controlling for other variables is ridiculous.
As someone who has been drinking legally since 18, I say it’s about smegging time some state considers dropping the age from 21. Start treating adults like adults.
If they can fight in a war why can’t they crack a beer? If it’s a responsibility debate, then if an 18 year old is responsible enough to pull the trigger and fight in a war, he should be responsible enough to crack a beer and suffer the consequences of any actions he or she commits whilst drunk.
I’m of mixed feelings about this issue. As somewhat of a libertarian, I feel that if they are adults, then they are entitled to all the rights of an adult, including the right to drink. OTOH, I teach high schools seniors, and there isn’t a one I would trust to know when enough is enough, drink-wise.
Sure. Not the end of the world – the state or territory failing to go to 21 (or in the past, to the 55mph speed limit) does NOT lose every penny, they just see a reduction. Here in PR we’re subject to the same Federal rule yet though we did adopt 55mph, we never went up to 21, and God knows these roads could use some extra federal $$.
When I lived there, there were a fair number of cases in VT of 18 year olds driving across the border to that land of Sin and Vice, Canada, taking advantage to the more lenient drinking laws there, and trying to drive back home in the same night. Obviously not everyone made it. My impression is that Canada has since made it harder for US folks to buy a drink, but I imagine that its still a significant source of drunk driving deaths amongst young Vermonters, and so that state would have more to gain from lowering the drinking age then other, non-Canada adjacent states.
Of course, by lowering their drinking age, they just cause the same temptation for young people in adjacent states.
I’d like to see it just to have a state give a finger to the feds with these types of back-handed tactics like forcing state laws through extortion. Louisiana actually maintained an 18 year old drinking age until after I graduated college in 1995. It was 100% legal for all intents and purposes in New Orleans. They did it through creative law writing which basically said that it was legal to sell to 18 - 20 year old but it was illegal for us to buy. There was no penalty for buying however. Vermont could do something like that.
Probably because their parents haven’t shared their wisdom on the subject. My mom, being European, had a rather less than Puritan attitude about it than other women in our church. I learned how to drink, and wasn’t a partier at all in high school. I drank a bit in college, but a lot of the kids were rookies, and paid the price. We should lower the drinking age and raise the driving age. I’d trust a couple 17 year olds with a 6-pack, instead of a behemoth SUV.
I don’t know a tonne of 21-80 year olds that are trustworthy about knowing their limits either (but then I live in Ireland).
As said above, if you trust kids to go out and shoot people you should also trust them to go out and get drunk and hit people with their cars.
IMHO, that fact at least partly stems from our societal decision to make it illegal for parents to teach their children how to drink responsibly - by the time they’re allowed to drink at all, they’re usually off on their own, or at college: out of the parents’ house, in any event. And giving your child anything alcoholic to drink when they’re under 21 is treated by the law as child abuse.
If I were the parent of a teenager, I’d like to have the legal right to serve my teen moderate amounts of beer or wine, to demystify the experience, and have them learn in a controlled environment just what alcohol does to your reflexes, your coordination, and your emotions. But I’d be risking the loss of custody of my own children, and the possibility of jail. It’s insane.
In today’s culture, an even more serious problem with lowering the drinking age to 18 is that once high-school seniors can legally obtain alcohol, some of that booze will find its way to high-school juniors, sophomores, and freshmen as well, and that would be a bad idea.
Back before the Federal government made all states raise their drinking ages to 21, one or two states had a drinking age of 19. That made sense to me.
While this is definitely the popular impression, it is in fact false in some states. Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, New York, Ohio (where you can go to a bar and drink, with your parent) and South Dakota all allow drinking in your home under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian, or, in some cases, a spouse over the age of 21 (or did when I last checked up on this issue).