There’s a debate brewing in many states in America as to whether or not the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18. Ever since the drinking age was set at 21, there has been controversy. Many Americans believe that if a young adult is old enough to risk their life defending their country at age 18, then they are mature enough to drink alcohol. People who are against ever lowering the drinking age, point out the fact that fatal automobile accidents have been on a decline ever since the drinking age was set to 21. There are perceived pros and cons to lowering the drinking age. Americans who believe that an 18 year old adult can be responsible when drinking might advocate a drinking age of 18. It is possible that lowering the drinking age could send a message to young Americans that they can be trusted to show a level of maturity. This in turn might result in more responsible adults and college students.
A lower drinking age could potentially lead to less dangerous decisions made by people under the age of 21 who decide to drink. Sometimes young adults who have not yet reached the age of 21, experiment with alcohol primarily because it is illegal. They are curious as to what it is about drinking that makes it forbidden until 21. If the drinking age was lowered to 18 a potential pro would be that less men and women under 21 would drink. In addition, lowering the drinking age would make it more likely that college students and other young adults would call for help if they were drunk. Since the drinking age is currently 21, some minors drive under the influence of alcohol because they are afraid to tell their parents they are drinking. Minors do not ask for help if they are having difficulty staying safe while drinking because it is illegal. A lower drinking age might decrease some risky behavior by minors who would otherwise be afraid to admit they were drinking.
Of course, there are many cons to lowering the drinking age. Many 18 year olds just are not ready to drink responsibly. Young adults find themselves away from home for the first time during college. Although many minors do drink even knowing it is against the law, there are some who wait until they are 21. Less young adults drinking on campuses across the country can cut down on crimes and deaths related to alcohol. If the drinking age was lowered to 18 (for instance), there would be many high school students who would be able to legally drink. Students could fall behind on their studies if they started to drink. Most high school students are not mature enough to handle drinking alcohol. They could make poor choices such as sneaking alcohol to school, driving under the influence or binge drinking. These possibilities are another reason many people do not advocate a lower drinking age.
Federal highway statistics reflect that there were at least 25,000 less fatal car accidents involving minors under the influence with the legal drinking age of 21. This is one of the biggest pros to leaving the drinking age as is. It seems as if the American youth is much safer with a drinking age three years past first reaching adulthood. However when Chris Konschak attended the University of Richmond in 1983, school policy allowed him to keep a keg in his room. Today, freshmen who roll kegs into Dennis Hall could face expulsion. Until it was changed to 21 in 1984, the legal drinking age was 18. And Chris Konschak no longer does keg stands. He is now the executive director for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Virginia and the District of Columbia. Since the Amethyst Initiative started last July, Konschak has had to work extra hard to keep alcohol out of freshmen dorms.
The Amethyst Initiative is a nationwide petition to return the legal drinking age to 18. So far, 135 college and university presidents have signed. Presidents of Virginia Tech, Randolph-Macon College and Washington & Lee University are among those who have signed the petition, but Richmond’s President Edward Ayers, who was unavailable for comment, is not. Some students and faculty at Richmond are starting to wonder what he is waiting for. Tracy Cassalia, the health educator at Richmond’s Weinstein Center for Recreation and Wellness, said she had no idea why the president hadn’t signed the petition. She said lowering the drinking age on campus would definitely decrease binge drinking and pre-gaming. “When students turn 21, it takes the mystique away from drinking,” Cassalia said. “Once it becomes legal it loses something.” Dan Fabian, the chemical health coordinator at Richmond and associate dean of Richmond College, said lowering the drinking age would be a good idea. But, he didn’t think there would be a change anytime soon.
“It doesn’t matter if President Ayers signs the Amethyst Initiative or not,” he said. “MADD is too strong a lobbying group – politicians won’t stand up against them.” The debate between members of the Amethyst Initiative and MADD has reached national and individual campus levels. Konschak said the MADD chapter in the City of Richmond had worked to educate the leaders of Virginia colleges and universities in a history lesson. “Look at the number of lives saved when the drinking age was changed to 21,” he said. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the increase in the minimum legal drinking age has saved 21,887 lives nationwide. “Many school leaders today were legal to drink when they were in college,” Konschak said. “They buy into the myth that lowering the drinking age will stop binge drinking, but they haven’t done the research to see if any of the data is true.”
Dawn Watkins, the vice president of student affairs at Washington & Lee University, said that laws and regulations for drunk driving had changed significantly since MADD first started. Since the drinking age has been raised, increases in binge drinking had actually created a higher risk on college campuses, she said. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18- to 20-year-olds had the steepest increase in binge drinking rates – 56 percent – between 1993 and 2001. “Richmond is not that dissimilar to Washington & Lee,” Watkins said. “I believe that 75 percent of students are already using alcohol before coming to a college campus – that in and of itself makes the drinking age disjointed with reality.” But at Richmond, students aren’t drinking as much as we think they are, Cassalia said. “Here, there are 17 percent that don’t.” Cassalia said a small portion of students at Richmond binge drank, which created problems for the rest of the people on campus.
Other Virginia schools see binge drinking as a greater problem. Larry Hincker, the associate vice president of university relations at Virginia Tech, said that President Charles W. Steger signed the Amethyst Initiative to show that he acknowledged there was a problem of underage drinking on college campuses. “The national binge drinking rate for time and number of drinks for males and females is 42 percent,” Hincker said. “In Virginia it is higher than the national average – 54 percent. And at Virginia Tech it is even higher than that – 58 percent.” Hincker said that Virginia Tech had suffered the consequences from underage drinking and welcomed dialogue on the law. Richmond is starting to welcome it, too. Cassalia said that the university was sending her to the American College Health Association Conference at the end of May. She said that John McCardell, the Amethyst Initiative’s founder, and Robert Saltz of the Prevention Research Center would lead a day-long debate on the pros and cons of lowering the drinking age. Fabian said he still thought the Amethyst Initiative would just “fizzle out.” “But, hey, maybe I’ll be wrong,” Fabian said. He paused, taking a moment to laugh. “Maybe that would be a good thing.”
Still there are others who say that the drinking age is not working and should be lowered to 18. Dr. Morris E. Chafetz, a Doctor of Psychiatry, has played a pivotal role on important social issues including drugs and alcoholism. He founded the National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse in 1970. He gained national recognition as a member of the Presidential Commission on Drink Driving, and Director and Executive Member of the National Commission against Drink Driving. Finally he was the Presidential appointee at The White House Conference for a Drug-Free America. His career has culminated in the foundation of The Health Education Foundation in Washington. Nonetheless in 1982 Dr. Chafetz accepted an appointment to the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving and agreed to chair its Education and Prevention Committee. The Commission met over the next 18 months and ultimately advanced 39 recommendations to President Reagan, in December 1983. All 39 received unanimous Commission approval.
The most conspicuous of those recommendations, and arguably the most controversial, called for rising the minimum legal drinking age to 21 nationwide. Dr. Chafetz admitted to having had serious reservations about this particular proposal. But in the interest of maintaining unanimity, Dr. Chafetz reluctantly voted yes. It is the single most regrettable decision of my entire professional career. Legal Age 21 has not worked according to Dr. Chafetz. To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the United States. It has been argued that "science" convincingly shows a cause-and-effect relationship between the law and the reduction in fatalities. Complicated mathematical formulas, which include subjective estimations (called "imputation") have been devised to demonstrate "proof." But correlation is not cause. We must neither confuse numbers with science nor interpret a lack of numbers as implying an absence of science.
But even if we concede that the law has had some effect on our highways, we cannot overlook its collateral, off-road damage. The National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, which I founded in 1970, estimates that 5,000 lives are lost to alcohol each year by those under 21. More than 3,000 of those fatalities occur off our roadways. If we are seriously to measure the effects of this law, we cannot limit our focus. And if we broaden our look, we see a serious problem of reckless, goal-oriented, drinking to get drunk. Those at whom the law is directed disobey it routinely. Enforcement is frustratingly difficult and usually forces the behavior deeper underground, into places where life and health are put at ever greater risk. The 600,000 assaults reported annually, the date rapes, the property damage, the emergency room calls do not in general occur in places visible to the public. They are the inevitable result of what happens when laws do not reflect social or cultural reality.
The reality is that at age 18 in this country, one is a legal adult. Young people view 21 as utterly arbitrary -- which it is. And because the explanation given them is so condescending -- that they lack maturity and judgment, these same people who can serve on juries and sign contracts and who turned out in overwhelming numbers to elect our first black president -- well, they don't buy it. And neither does Dr. Chafetz. And neither should the American public according to Dr. Chafetz. Whether we like it or not, alcohol is woven into the fabric of our world, most of which has determined that the legal drinking age should be 18 -- or lower. And so far as Dr. Chafetz can tell, there is no evidence of massive brain impairment, alcohol dependency, or underage alcohol abuse, which the "experts" tell us will be the inevitable result of lowering the age in the United States. “It is time to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of "experts," who invoke "science" in order to advance a prohibitionist agenda,” said Dr. Chafetz. Prohibition does not work. It has never worked. It is not working among 18-20 year-olds now.
Dr. Chafetz says, “The cult of expertise has made parents feel incapable of raising their children. In many states parents are disenfranchised from helping their sons or daughters learn about responsible alcohol consumption. But as a parent and psychiatrist I trust the instinct of parents more than I do the hubris of "experts.” Despite what these latter-day prohibitionists may think, the problem is not the drink -- it is the drinker. There should be more emphasis on the person and the surroundings in which alcohol is consumed and less emphasis on alcohol itself. Personal and social responsibility, not the substance, is the real issue. But so long as the age remains a one-size-fits-all, federally-mandated 21, and so long as any state that may want to try something different, in hopes of reversing the dismal trend of binge-drinking that (maybe or maybe not coincidentally) has become more serious in the years since the drinking age was raised, forfeits 10% of its federal highway funds, nothing is likely to change for the better. Dr. Chafetz does not believe that any state should be forced to adjust its drinking age. But Dr. Chafetz does believe that the genius of federalism should be allowed to work its will unimpeded, and from that genius, not only better practices, but also safer environments and more responsible consumption, are likely to emerge.
So should the legal drinking age be reduced to 18 is the question? The debate has stirred up again lately over the last two years because the movement is being championed by John McCardell, the president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont. McCardell's efforts are based upon the fact the epidemic that is underage and or binge drinking is proof that the current approach is not effective or working. For these reasons, McCardell feels it is time for the United States to bring back the 18-year old drinking age. What caught my particular attention about McCardell's reasoning is that he proposes a system that issues drinking "licenses" that would only be issued after someone under the age of 21 would have completed mandatory education about
alcohol consumption and its risks, which is pretty much and many people who do such teaching believe he is definitely on the right track, but they would take it one step further, and that is too keep the mandatory education from being too "preachy" or filled with "scare tactics" or statistics. Simply put, if presented properly, and these young adults are indeed treated like adults they will respond as adults accordingly, as one expert told me who trains the University specific program of the TIPS
Alcohol Awareness program across the nation.
The University specific program is almost always taught to leaders on their campuses from the various Greek organizations and Student Orientation Committees. Although statistics show, according to Federal highway crash data from the country, that the raising of the legal drinking age to 21 has saved nearly 25,000 lives over the last 30 years, some still feel that by having a "gap" in the ages of when the law classifies someone as an adult and when the law says that that adult can consume
alcohol drives illegal drinking activities "behind closed doors" where it most certainly has no chance of being responsibly as the person doing the consumption knows they are already doing something illegal in the first place. So while it is encouraged to look further into John McCardell's efforts on your own, but here are some suggestions to ensure that if the legal drinking age is ever reduced to 18 from 21, the likelihood that it would be successful would be greater if some simple steps are followed. First, the mandatory education that McCardell suggest for under 21 drinking license must come from a credible source such as the TIPS program that is based upon proper serving and selling practices, information about how
alcohol affects individuals, and most importantly how to effectively intervene when someone has over consumed to prevent them from harming themselves or others. Simply putting forth information without support on how to apply it will fail miserably as programs of this kind are only as effective as their implementation.
Second, it is important to invite into the training sessions those within the surrounding college community that offer alcohol to be part of the training session so that they feel less like part of the problem, and more part of the solution. This will also ensure a "sameness" in presentation and understanding of the material. Third, invite local law enforcement and media representatives into the class to not only participate in the class itself but to help spread the word about the responsibility initiatives that will be in place going forward. If law enforcement is involved from the start they are much more likely to respond to situations to help, as opposed to enforce, and media sources exposed to prevention practices are very likely to champion those causes which is goodwill within the community. Lastly, as said earlier, it is worth wrapping up with, "Teach, don't Preach." Young adults treated like adults will surprise you with how much they really do want to do the right thing, they just have to be told what and why about the right thing, and "each will respond according to their own gifts", which if you're a
Star Trek fan you will recognize that quote from
Star Trek II spoken by Spock to Kirk about the trainees on the Enterprise when put under fire. Therefore, let the debate continue and let’s see what comes of it.
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