Should the national drinking age be lowered to 18?

Title endorsed in part by:

The Responsibility Project

Results so far:

Yes		54%	382 votes	Total: 710 votes
No		46%	328 votes	Total: 710 votes

Yes

8 of 17

The real debate here is whether the projections used concerning traffic fatalities to compel the age change have proven accurate or not. Under the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, all states were to raise the legal drinking age to 21 or risk losing federal highway funds. By 1987, all states were compliant, which has given us over 20 years of data to make an educated decision about the correlation between legal drinking age and highway fatalities related to drinking.

According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publication 1, traffic fatalities for people under 21 dropped by 43% during the years 1987 through 1996. This should be seen in context of a 28% drop in alcohol-related fatalities in the general population, according to the same publication. Although this may seem definitive, it is not.

The data collected on automobile accidents is often subjective, based on emergency response personnel documentation, causing data validity concerns. Also, other factors such as earliest driving age, legal age to purchase alcohol, economics, and other factors could also contribute to the decrease in highway fatalities.

The more refined question to ask is, What are we trying to address with this law? The answer is that we are trying to address fatalities while driving. There has been no substantial research finding that those 18-21 are more likely to drive while intoxicated that those over 21, so we should address the issue directly without unnecessarily limited freedoms. The issue at hand is whether one can legally drink, limits the number that actually do drink and therefore the number that drive while intoxicated.

It's my opinion that the data is not definitive in either direction and a correlation has not been established that we can reliably base the raised age on. Given the social acceptance of drinking after high school, it would seem to me that law enforcement efforts to stop drinking below 21 are ineffective. The idea that a college student who is inclined to drink would not start drinking until their junior year, seems far fetched and any effort to police that policy would be a waste of resources.

Drinking at age 18 does not cause increased fatality. Drinking irresponsible and driving at any age increases fatalities. I have not seen any evidence that an intoxicated driver at 18 is any less dangerous that one at 21. This is what really needs to be addressed.

Stiff penalties for drinking while driving will reduce fatalities, as we have seen a 28% drop as cited above, for all aged drivers. Increasing penalties for those under 21 would help control the increased risk associated with age and inexperience specifically with driving, without limiting the right to drink as an adult.

Therefore, since drinking at 18 does not in itself cause increased fatalities, lowering the age alone will not increase fatalities on the highway. I do believe that the laws surrounding intoxicated driving should be revisited in some states and those that drink irresponsibly and drive should be penalized with removal of driving privileges. In contrast, removing drinking privileges from 18 to 21 is nearly impossible to enforce effectively and unrelated to the desired result of reducing highway fatalities.

1 National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration/FARS (7/ 23/97). Compiled by The Century Council, 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20004. 21.

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No

8 of 17

by Brandon Zubek

Alcohol is a drug. Alcohol is a depressant. Alcohol destroys lives.

Since 1984, the national drinking age has been 21, despite a few short-lived exceptions. This is for a reason. Alcohol is a dangerous toxin that affects young people more than it does older people. People under the age of 21 (i.e. 'young drinkers') have a smaller quantity of water in their bodies, meaning that alcohol takes its toll faster and more severely in these younger people.

Due to the 'special' effects those between 18 and 21 receive due to alcohol, many end up doing something they regret. An Australian study found that young drinkers were more likely than young abstainers to develop high levels of psychological distress. That same study also found young drinkers between 18 and 21 were the most likely group to receive short or long term harm from their drinking compared to drinkers in other age groups. Additionally, another Australian anti-drinking campaign conjectured that one in two young drinkers who become intoxicated will do something they regret, and one in four hospitalisations of people under 21 occurs because of alcohol.

Moving away from the statistics point of view, there is also a human biological argument to be found here as well. The human body is constantly developing under the age of 21, and contrary to popular belief, the brain continues to mature until around the age of 20. It takes less time for alcohol to damage a young drinker's brain than it does to damage an older drinker's brain.

Alcohol affects two parts of the human brain; the frontal lobe and the hippocampus. These parts of the brain are responsible for memory and human emotion, meaning that their destruction can result in memory loss, addiction, learning difficulties, depression and speech impairment. These effects are not short term; drinking between the ages of 18 and 21 can stay with you for life.

It is said that we should lower the drinking age to 18 because of personal liberty. However, those who argue this forget about the massive burden to our society young drinking is. The 'personal liberty' argument is the same idea that supporters of the legalisation of marijuana use, but this is quickly rebuffed by rattling off statistics that show marijuana's effect on society. Sure, Americans should have liberty to do what they choose. However, when this liberty infringes on others' rights to mind their own business, this liberty needs to be restricted.

What drinking age lowering supporters neglect to say when arguing the liberty idea is the fact that ordinary citizens also have the personal liberty not to be harassed by intoxicated persons and those under the influence of alcohol. They also have the right to personal liberty when it comes to driving; they have a right to feel safe on the roads, not being constantly on the watch for drunk drivers (which statistics from other countries show, the majority of which are between the ages of 18 and 21).

There is also a growing argument as to the ineffectiveness of the underage drinking laws. However, whilst many 'underage' drinkers will still consume alcohol even while a drinking age of 21 is in place, a higher drinking age will still deter some percentage of underage drinkers. Even this slight reduction would be enough to save thousands of lives and prevent thousands more from being wrecked by the scourge of excessive alcohol consumption.

I urge all readers to think about the points I have raised in this article - the statistics to support the continuation of the 21 drinking age, the human biological argument as to the dangers of underage drinking and the futility of the opposing argument. Together, we can save many older teens from the dangers of alcoholic beverages.

Extra reading and references

http://www.dassa.sa. gov.au/site/page.cfm ?u=88 http://druginfo.adf. org.au/druginfo/fact _sheets/prevention_o f_alcoholrelated_/wh y_its_dumb_to_drink_ when_you.html

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