As young adults eagerly count the days until their 21st birthday, it’s quite obvious that, for most, the occasion becomes just a formality commemorating their first legal alcoholic drink after many years of illegal experimentation in college, or even with family at home. And it is exactly for this reason that Dr. David J. Hanson, a sociologist at the State University of New York at Potsdam, argues that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. In 2008, over 130 college chancellors and presidents nationwide signed a petition in support of this proposal, which is something ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is strongly in favor of as well.
When her own daughter was heading off to college, Dr. Whelan prepared her by teaching her what a drink was and how to handle alcohol responsibly. “Writing in an op-ed for Newsweek many years ago, I underscored the inconsistency of the drinking age: If you’re old enough to go to war, vote, drive a car, or get married, you should be old enough to have a cocktail,” she says.
Opponents such as James C. Fell, a senior program director at the Alcohol, Policy and Safety Research Center of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Calverton, Maryland, argue that keeping the drinking age at 21 saves lives due to fewer driving accidents. However, Dr. Hanson points to research that suggests those ostensibly averted fatalities are actually just being shifted to an older age group of 21 to 23-year-olds.
“Like any behavior that’s going to be done even though it’s illegal, stringent enforcement will merely drive it into the shadows. Bans and regulations may cut down on the number of episodes you’re trying to prevent, but they will also likely increase the number of unintended consequences, like dangerous drinking games at fraternity parties,” notes ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. Binge drinking at college frat parties, common among underage students, involves the rapid, excessive consumption of alcohol, thus putting many at risk of the potentially fatal condition of alcohol poisoning.
Maintaining the drinking age at 21 is effectively an invitation for young adults to engage in illicit activities, thus normalizing things such as the fake I.D. that so many underage drinkers use to get into bars, adds Dr. Whelan.