DRINKING AGE part II
Remember my first Corporal’s Corner column in mid-March, when I advocated the lowering of the U.S. drinking age from 21 to 18, which is what it is in most of the world? Looks like some other big, important people might have been reading my column that week.
Have a drink?
No, of course I’m kidding. A little humor before I make my point for this week. More than 100 U.S. college presidents recently signed a public letter urging that the issue of the drinking age in this country be revisited because of the epidemic of binge drinking on so many campuses. One of the signers was Dr. Sue DeWine, president of Hanover College.
Unlike Corporal’s Corner, these educators didn’t say, “We should lower the drinking age to 18.” But they did say that delaying legal drinking until age 21 obviously isn’t working, and that some type of national change should be considered, after due deliberation.
I gave a breakdown of the legal drinking and alcohol purchasing ages of many countries in my first column, so I won’t revisit that, except to say that there are very, VERY few other nations where you can’t consume alcohol legally, anywhere in the country, until age 21.
Now, if these other nations manage to handle teen drinking without a national catastrophe, why can’t we? Isn’t America — well, exceptional? I always thought that meant exceptional as in “superior,” not exceptional as in, “Well, they can do it but we just can’t deal with it.” That hardly makes sense.
Some opponents of lowering the drinking age have cited studies which supposedly show that alcohol damages bodies that are “still growing” between ages 18 and 21. But that sounds to me like an argument dredged up in desperation. You could probably say the same thing about french fries, or pizza.
If the “problem” is teens drinking and then driving, maybe we’re letting them drive too early. Does anyone really think that the average 16-year-old is really ready to operate a large, heavy, powerful machine down the highway?
When I wrote my first column, some posters on Old Madison suggested that instead of lowering the drinking age, we should raise it to, oh, say, 25. I assume they were being facetious. Kids are ignoring the drinking age at 18 and 19; does anyone think they would suddenly begin honoring it between 21 and 25, when most of them already have a career underway, or are about to?
Here’s the bottom line, folks: When a law is perceived as unfair, unenforceable, or downright silly, people will ignore it, evade it and flout it. That’s one of the laws of human nature.
Now, understand what I’m saying. I’m not saying we should lower the drinking age so high school seniors and all college students can go get stinko drunk legally as often as they want to. Drinking as much as possible, in as short a time as possible, is not “partying” in any sensible person’s book. It’s a ticket to big-time sick, and maybe to the morgue. But when you make a substance that gives people a rush and is legal, like alcohol, illegal to people of college age, you’re going to have a lot of breaking of that law, of buying as much as they can get in one trip so they don’t have to risk being “caught” during a second trip, and of guzzling the booze quickly, one again before they “get caught.”
Alcohol can be a good social lubricant, IF it’s consumed in moderation. With this artificially elevated drinking age, we’re making it undesirable and impractical for our young people who want to drink, to do so sensibly. We’ve done a very poor job of teaching them how to use alcohol sensibly. And a change in that should accompany any lowering of the drinking age.
Lastly, I want to commend those college presidents, and especially Dr. DeWine as she heads the only four-year institution in our immediate area, for bringing this issue to the attention of the nation, and for encouraging a public debate on the issue of young people’s drinking.
Old Corporal <corporalko@yahoo.com>
Drinking age, Part 2, – Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 20:07:24 (EDT)
