Lowering Drinking Age: Research Says Bad Idea

By Doug Carlson - Aug 27, 2008 - 1

Business, engineering, journalism, medicine, philosophy. The nation’s finest institutions of higher education pride themselves in rich traditions of academic study. Now presidents of more than 100 of the nation’s top colleges are going back to class themselves, but majoring in a very different field of study: drinking.

The 114 presidents, who corroborated over the last year on what’s known as the Amethyst Initiative, concluded last week that the legal drinking age of 21 is too high, encouraging binge drinking among college students, and should be lowered. Not so fast, say others.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty finds company with Mother’s Against Drunk Driving and 77 percent of Americans surveyed in a 2007 Gallup poll who support keeping age restrictions on drinking set at 21. With the exception of a roughly 15-year period during the 1970s and early 1980s, nearly all states have maintained a legal minimum drinking age of 21 since Prohibition ended.

ERLC Policy Position: Opposing the Reduction of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age

A host of research formulated in a new paper by Andy Lewis, the ERLC’s research editor, shows that lowering age restrictions for alcohol consumption would not reverse negative trends but enhance them, a fallout for youth and society that would only snowball. Among his findings, Lewis found that a lowered legal drinking age “would result in drinking at even younger ages, increased cases of drunken driving, more vehicular accidents, and higher levels binge drinking, especially among teenagers.” His research found that the law of 21:

  • Saves lives. At least 1,000 deaths are averted annually under the current law, which has also led to an 11-16 percent drop in alcohol-related fatalities among youth.
  • Reduces binge drinking among teens. Binge drinking among teens dropped 15 percent among 12th graders between 1983 and 1988, the adoption period of the minimum age restrictions at 21, while rates were rising among this age group in Canada.
  • Lowers drinking and intoxication rates. Many countries with lower minimum legal drinking ages have higher drinking and intoxication rates.

Conversely, lowering the legal minimum drinking age would only heighten dangers associated with alcohol use among the younger generations. He found multiple dangers that would result under a lowered minimum age, including:

  • Impairment of cognitive development among youth. The brain is still developing into a person’s early twenties, meaning alcohol consumption during the teen years could decrease performance in school and impose some learning handicaps for years to come.
  • Alcohol use among even younger crowds. Many 18-year-olds, for example, are still counted among the high school ranks and wield tremendous influence among their younger peers. The 14-to-17-year-old subset would have much easier connections to imbibe in an abundant flow of alcohol.
  • Increased likelihood of unplanned and unprotected sex.

The proposed panacea that many thinkers offer to the alcohol problem that persists among college students would do nothing more than shift it to younger, more impressionable students in their teens. What might seem to some at first thought to be a good idea is fraught with problems that only compound a larger problem that exacts a societal toll of $184 billion in health care, criminal justice, social services, property damage, and loss of productivity expenses each year, in addition to as many as 105,000 alcohol-related deaths annually.

Lewis’ research casts a dark shadow on the Amethyst Initiative. That group of college heads and every concerned American would do well to consider his findings before tampering with current minimum age restrictions.

ERLC Policy Position: Opposing the Reduction of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age

Further Learning

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1 comments (post your own) feed

1 On Aug 28th, 2008, at 3:33pm, michael mcnulty wrote:

You make a lot of interesting points here. If interested, you may want to check out a very compelling debate between the main players. Check out: http://www.opposingviews.com/questions/should-the-drinking-age-be-lowered-from-21

I think you’ll find some very interesting points. Overall, I think we need to ask ourselves: At what point do we consider people adults?

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