Challenging the Drinking Age

There is Ken Burns documentary on PBS right now about Prohibition. It chronicles the rise and fall of America’s attempt to legislate morality.

The drinking age nationwide is 21. And I am comfortable saying that reform is needed.  The current age restriction has created a monumental scofflaw. If you set foot on any college campus you will understand this to be true. And parents of college students are complicit in defying the law—parents understand that the law flies in the face of reality.

When I was in college we did not pre-game, funnel or do shots. Beer Pong had not been invented yet. There was no need to. We were allowed to go to bars—we were allowed to drink at 18--in fact most college campuses had their own drinking holes run by the university—mine was called Plato’s Cave. Plato’s Cave was a cheap, safe, place to hang out and have a couple of beers. It was a win-win for the school—they could keep a protective eye on their students while simultaneously making money off of them.

And in my day people did not get “retarded.” And rarely did people wake up and wonder what did I do last night?—it wasn’t good form to get that wasted—it wasn’t a badge of honor. I knew of no one who was rushed to the emergency room with alcohol poisoning. The point of drinking was to get a buzz on, not to get incapacitated.

But things were not perfect—kids died from drunk driving back then. This current generation was schooled better. They take taxis and appoint designated drivers. They fully understand the ramifications of using heavy machinery under the influence of alcohol. Drunk driving deaths are seriously reduced for this generation—but deaths from other alcohol related activities are seriously up. The intended consequence of raising the drinking age was to prevent drunk driving fatalities—it worked—but the socialization and nonchalance of binge drinking is the fatal unintended consequence. Kids are still dying—the cause is just different.

And the people who have profited most from the scofflaws are the lawyers and town coffers. College towns that are located in Nowheresville USA with small town police departments with little to do because of a zero  crime rate, just love to take advantage of college kids and their parent’s pocketbooks. It’s like a turkey shoot for them.  Parents spend lots of money to local lawyers to have their kid’s underage drinking offense  (in some states a misdemeanor)reduced to a parking ticket.

The only benefit that I see of keeping the drinking age at 21 is this—the family restaurant bill is lower for the 3 years between 18 to 21. Now that everyone in my family is over 21 those glasses of wine with dinner at $10-$15 a clip really add up. The bar bill nearly exceeds the food bill.

But even so, I think it’s time to reconsider the wisdom is maintaining the drinking age at 21. Kids no longer drink and drive—they got that message loud and clear—now instead they die from alcohol poisoning and fatal hematomas from falling down drunk.

In his documentary Ken Burns asserts this:

Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals, and made a mockery of the justice system causing illicit drinking to seem glamorous and fun….

It appears history has repeated itself. We did not learn from past mistakes. Prohibition did not then, and does not now, work particularly well. This will be the rehab generation. Maybe there is discount if you pre-pay.