The Drinking Age
At eighteen you are old enough to vote. To be registered for a potential draft, if you are male. Old enough to enlist in the armed forces, regardless of gender. And certainly to drive. But you cannot be trusted with a glass of beer until you are twenty one. That is the law in most of the United States. Since most undergraduates fall in the age group 18-21 for whom alcohol is prohibited, colleges and universities have become enforcers of this rule.
Like many regulations, this is intended well. There is indeed solid evidence that drunk driving fatalities are reduced this way. But reasonable people also argue that prohibition of alcohol makes abuse of it more likely. The Amethyst Initiative of some College Presidents (hardly known to be radicals) claims that
“A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.
Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.
Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.
By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.”
They don’t quite say they want to do away with this prohibition. But they are asking for a `dispassionate debate’ . (Is that the same as a `sober debate’ ? )
My employer, the University of Rochester has not joined this initiative. I am not aware of any major problems on our campus related to binge drinking. But several other universities have joined: Dartmouth, Duke, Johns-Hopkins, Ohio State, Tufts, Maryland.
Passion has played a role in passing these regulations. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is one of the organizations which lobbied for them. As a parent myself, I understand the passion. But, is this really the best way to deal with it?
Certainly we would not raise the driving age to 21 to reduce accidents. Insurance companies charge a lower rate if you are over 25. There is statistics to show that younger drivers cause more accidents. Even when sober.
Lowering the speed limit on the highway would also reduce fatalities. One of the reasons why Mario Cuomo lost the race to be Governor back in 1994 is that he resisted raising the speed limit to 65 mph, for this very reason. It would also save on gas and reduce CO2 emissions. While this might make some sense rationally, we don’t do it because there is no passionate constituency lobbying for a 55 mph speed limit.
Any prohibition must pass a common sense test: Is the cost to society in enforcing it clearly greater than the benefits? If the answer is ambiguous, we should not prohibit.
People have not had much luck in controlling alcohol consumption by prohibition or taxation. Age has very little to do with it. The kind of immature reaction that some American teenagers show towards alcohol can be found among older adults in societies that prohibit or restrict alcohol.
Please subscribe to our RSS feed!
