2012

Turning eighteen is generally one of the most important birthdays in a person’s life. You finally get the label of being an actual adult. This entitles privileges such as buying cigarettes, driving, marrying, divorcing, possessing a weapon, and receiving the right to vote for a leader to run the country. Also at the age of 18 one is subject to being drafted for war, full income tax and jail time instead of going to a juvenile detention center. This all happens before alcohol is legally allowed to touch their lips. This seems absolutely absurd for one to be permitted these civil liberties but denied the right to consume alcohol. Nearly 5,000 people below the age of 21 die because of excessive alcohol consumption each year. (The
Economist, 2009) Oddly, this has triggered a new movement to lower the drinking age. Many states once set their minimum drinking-age at 18. But in 1984 Ronald
Reagan oversaw the passage of the “21 law”, which requires states to set 21 as the minimum drinking-age or risk losing 10% of their highway funds. Now campaigners want to move it back. I feel like although this is not a being put on the back burner. I believe the age should be lowered to 18 when we receive all our other rights and responsibilities of being an adult.
Supporters of the status quo, including the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving, say that the law has averted thousands of fatalities. But skeptics point out that other countries, like our neighbors to the north, Canada, have seen similar declines, even though their drinkingage is 18. They also argue that putting rules on young people’s drinking does not stop them from consuming alcohol: it just makes them drink more quickly. This law hasn't reduced or eliminated drinking. It has simply driven it underground, behind closed doors, into the most risky and least

manageable of settings, like basements, fraternity houses and locked dorm room. This law has created a dangerous culture of irresponsible and reckless behavior, unsupervised binge and extreme drinking, like pre-gaming (downing as much alcohol as possible before going out in order to avoid getting caught drinking in public). Young people get a thrill out of this cat and mouse game, making it a challenge to not get caught and doing it simply knowing they are doing something that is “forbidden” and considered rebellious to society. That just goes to show that this law really isn’t preventing young adults from drinking, it’s making them smarter. On the other side, if the drinking age was lowered, it would most likely result in increased drinking for people in the 18 – 21 age brackets. However, it’s likely that it would gradually fall as young people grew used to it. It would become more casual and less of a big deal, which would most likely result in a decrease in their usage of alcohol. Regardless of whether or not 18 year olds would drink more or less in the long run, that’s not the point; the fact is that they should be allowed to drink at 18. It doesn’t matter if they’ll drink anyway, it doesn’t matter that the rest of the world has a drinking age of 18; what matters is that, as a responsible adult, those aged 18 to 21 should be able to make decisions for themselves. Essentially, an 18 year old is an adult and should be treated as one; they should be trusted to know their limits and to drink responsibility. Just as it is not the governments duty to police morality, censor the internet, or regulate what people do in the privacy of their homes, it is not the government’s duty to prohibit an 18-year-old from drinking. There are countless solutions to this problem rather than thinking that just because there is a law against underage drinking, young people are not going to do it. This first one seems like a growing trend in technology and could potentially decrease driving under the influence.

“Sweat, it seems, is one source of self-reported data that never lies, at least when it comes to alcohol consumption. That’s the logic behind the Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol
Monitor, otherwise known as the SCRAM bracelet or the “bling and ping”. This eight ounce bracelet, usually worn around the subjects ankle, relies on a process called transdermal alcohol testing to measure the levels of alcohol vapor that show up in perspiration when alcohol has been consumed. The measurements are then transmitted and posted on a website via wireless modem, allowing the subject to prove- or disprove- that he or she remains sober.
” (Gaines/Miller, 2013).
Now if we were to take that device from the ankle and apply it to steering wheels think of the amount of drinking and driving that would be eliminated. Another step would be to have more alcohol education classes. Require that classes in high school educate students on everything to do with alcohol. That would include the chemistry of alcohol, the physical consequences of abuse, the psychological impacts on the brain and damaging side effects, and finally actually sitting in on AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) sessions. Once completing all these steps, passing an exam would result in a license to drink. Alcohol education would be just like driving education. Think about that analogy, People become responsible by being properly taught, given responsibility, and then held accountable for their actions. We don't tell young people to "just say no" to driving, fail to teach them to drive, and then on their 18th birthday give them drivers licenses and turn them loose on the road by saying “Here are the keys. Good luck.
Go figure it out.” So we cannot expect that young people are just supposed to know about all the dangers of alcohol without any prior experience or any education on the subject. I believe that by taking steps like that, society is never going to completely eliminate underage drinking but it is

better than leaving things the way they are. Although we realize that the law has had some effect on our highways, we cannot overlook its off-road damage. The National Institute for
Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse 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 broaden our look, we see a serious problem of reckless, goal-oriented, and drinking to get drunk. Enforcement is frustratingly difficult and usually forces the behavior deeper underground, into places where life and health are put at even greater risk. The 600,000 assaults reported annually, the date rapes, the property damage, the emergency room calls do not in general occur in public. They are the 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. There is no evidence of massive brain impairment, alcohol dependency, or underage alcohol abuse, which the 'experts' tell us will be the definite result of lowering the drinking age in the United States. But so long as the age remains a one-size-fits-all, 21, and so long as any state that may want to try something different, in hopes of reversing the trend of binge-drinking, nothing is likely to change for the better.
The minimum drinking age of 21 in the U.S. appears to be not only ineffective but actually counter-productive. Although it was passed with the best of intentions, it has had some of the worst of outcomes. “While deaths on the road may have declined among 18-20 year-olds, the slowest rate of decline and greatest number of annual fatalities is seen each year in the 21-24 age groups. In 2002, for example, twice as many 21 year-olds died in alcohol-related auto accidents as 18 year-olds. Such a staggering statistic speaks volumes: a policy that claims to be saving thousands of each year may simply be re-distributing deaths over the life cycle to the

point at which it becomes legal to drink alcohol—age 21.” (Choose Responsibly, 2012)
Furthermore, for all alcohol related fatalities not associated with automobiles, raising the drinking age to 21 has had no noticeable effect on fatalities associated with alcohol. Alcoholrelated suicides, accidents, drowning’s, murders, and alcohol poisoning rates have shown no decline associated with the drinking age. So clearly the real problem is alcohol related deaths opposed to automobile related deaths, at least one of those could be fixed by simply lowering the drinking age and the other could be fixed by simply requiring a license to purchase alcohol, just like driving a car.
Society uses young teenagers as scapegoats for alcohol problems when really it doesn’t matter if your 17, 21 or 38 years of age. Alcohol is still a serious problem among all people. It does not magically go away when you become 21 years of age. People tend to make the argument that a teenager or young adult at the age of 18 is not quite mature enough to handle the effects or consequences that drinking alcohol brings. How is that so when you look at most countries and see they have a legal drinking age of 18 years and seem to doing fairly well economically and not to mention, taking less pressure off law enforcement who here in the United States, are fighting a losing battle. There are also several countries in Europe with a lower drinking age of 16 years old like Belgium, the Netherlands,
Cyprus and Italy. Even being so, do you hear much talk about the teenagers in those countries being raging alcoholics? How about tremendous amounts of traffic accidents and fatalities? The answer is no. The statistics are more than likely equivalent, if not even less in foreign countries

because there are no restrictions; they make their own choices and suffer their own consequences.
I realize not everyone is for lowering the drinking age, and no matter what factual material or statistics provided, they never will be. I will stand to it though that there will be a more positive impact rather than harm done when the drinking age is finally lowered. Think of how many lives could be saved? Think about all the money that has been spent incarcerating people for underage drinking or arresting people for contributing alcohol to a minor and now take all that money and think about how useful it would be to actually be put towards something that will prevent, rather than be used too late. Money that could be put towards classes for young people who don’t know the dangers of alcohol, or money that could be given to law enforcement to help enforce and punish much more serious crimes that happen every day. If you think about it, the United States is only like 5% of the world’s population, well we hold about 20-25% of the world’s prisoners. That’s right; we incarcerate a greater percentage of our population than any country on Earth. Depending on the state, the average price it costs to incarcerate one prisoner is somewhere in between 25,000-50,000 dollars. That is more than most teachers or police officers make in a whole year!
I agree with the statement, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” but when it comes to the law on the U.S drinking age, clearly something needs to be fixed. Not only would lowering the drinking age save money (or at least put it to better use) but it would save lives. History is said to repeat itself and in this case, that might not be such a bad idea.