Should the national drinking age be lowered to 18?

by Algernon Moncrieff

Created on: July 04, 2009   Last Updated: July 17, 2009

The problem is undeniably a serious one. Alcohol abuse, especially amongst young people who are supposed to be succeeding at school and college, can be utterly destructive of a person's life, and this is the main thinking behind the drinking age of 21. This aim in itself is a good one; nobody would advocate the active encouragement of the youth of today to abuse alcohol.

However, it seems to me to be very much arguable that the drinking age of 21 has little going for it, and is instead an insulting paternalist restriction on the liberty of young people between the age of 18 and 21. Worse, I would argue that far from promoting its aim of reducing alcohol abuse amongst young people, it is actually damaging to this aim. As such I believe there is an overwhelmingly strong argument for a reduction of the drinking age in the US to 18.

First then, what are the advantages of leaving the drinking age at 21? The main argument for this it would seem is that people who are 21 are seen to be responsible in a way that 18 year olds are not; this makes drinking something that is restricted to adults who should be less likely to abuse it, and furthermore young people going through college will not fail their exams because of drinking problems.

Making the drinking age 21 makes it undeniably harder for people younger than this to obtain alcohol. Already though a problem has arisen here: one of the main arguments for not reducing the drinking age to 18 is that 18 years olds abuse the alcohol and therefore should not be given access to it. But first, they DO have access to it, otherwise they could not abuse it, and second, it is not clear that it is not actually the law itself that is contributing to the mystique and coolness of alcohol consumption, that in fact is inducing the 18 year olds to be irresponsible. By making alcohol only legally available to adults, you make it far more desirable to those who want to be mature - namely, the 18 year olds.

Immediately this suggests that the current system may not be working all that well. Before I examine this claim further, let me draw attention to the clearer argument that actually 18 year olds (and 19 and 20 year olds) are not nearly as immature as the drinking age would suggest. We already accept that 18 year olds deserve most of the responsibilities of an adult (and here I wheel out the well-used but nevertheless relevant cliches) that an 18 year old in the US is able to vote, die for his or her country, can enter into legal

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