Many activities have an age of initiation. A person has to wait until the age of 16 to start driving, until the age of 18 to marry without parental consent, until the age of 35 to become president, and so on. The age limit for alcohol is based on research showing that young people react differently to alcohol. Adolescents get drunk twice as fast as adults,9 but have a harder time knowing when to stop. Teenagers, of course, overdo it and are more often than adults. Raising the legal drinking age of 21 reduces road accidents,4-6 protects the brains of mature youth,12,14 and ensures overall safety. References 4. Fell, J.; Minimum Legal Drinking Age Policy Knowledge Asset, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Substance Abuse Policy Research Program website; March 2009. Since then, arguments against the age of alcohol consumption have persisted. Some argue that the illegality of alcohol gives it a “taboo appeal” and actually increases rates of underage drinking.
Others argue that if you can fight in war, you should be able to drink. 1176-1919: No national drinking age. Prior to prohibition, the drinking age varied from state to state, with most states imposing no drinking age. The United States has one of the highest legal drinking ages in the world. Only seven countries are as old as the United States, which begs the question: Why is ours so high? The CDC still calls underage drinking “a public health concern.” In fact, young people in Europe have higher rates of poisoning than in the United States, and less than a quarter had rates lower or equivalent to those in the United States. In addition, a higher percentage of young people in the majority of Europe report excessive drinking more often than in the United States. 1-2 Most European adolescents have higher rates of alcohol-related problems due to heavy drinking. Perhaps the best example of fact in relation to the myth is what happened in New Zealand. In 1999, New Zealand lowered the purchasing age from 20 to 18. Not only has the number of alcohol-related accidents increased, but young people have started drinking earlier, excessive alcohol consumption has increased, and in the 12 months following the lowering of the legal drinking age, there has been a 50% increase in the number of intoxicated patients aged 18 and 19 in the emergency department of Auckland Hospital.3 References 1.
ESPAD Report 2003. Substance use among students in 35 European countries. Published in 2004. Read excerpts here. 2. Johnston, L. D., O`Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J.
E. (2004). Monitoring the Future national results on adolescent drug use: Overview of key findings, 2003 (NIH Publication No. 04-5506). Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse. Read the overview here. 3. Kyrpi, Kypros, et al.
“Minimum purchase age for alcohol and traffic accident injuries among 15- to 19-year-olds in New Zealand.” American Journal of Public Health, January 2006, Voi 96, No. 1. As can be seen in the table below, since the repeal of prohibition in 1933, there has been great volatility in the age of alcohol consumption in the states. Shortly after the 21st Amendment was ratified in December, most states set their purchasing age at 21, which was the voting age at the time. Most of these limits remained constant until the early 1970s. From 1969 to 1976, about 30 states lowered their purchasing age, usually to 18. This was largely due to the fact that the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 with the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971. Many states began lowering their minimum drinking age, most in 1972 or 1973.
[2] [3] [4] Twelve states have maintained their purchasing age at 21 since the repeal of prohibition and have never changed it. History says no. When U.S. states had a lower legal drinking age, the drinking problem was worse for minors.3 For example, before the legal drinking age of 21 was introduced by all states, underage drunk drivers were involved in more than twice as many fatal motor vehicle accidents as they are today.3 References 3. Has fallen, James. Excerpted from “Chapter 2: Federalism: Resolute, the Federal Government Should Restore the Freedom of Each State to Set Its Drinking Age.” in Ellis, Richard and Nelson, Michael (eds.) Debating Reform. CQPress Publishers, Fall 2009. For the most part, July 17 is a pretty anticlimactic day. (Unless you claim this date as your birthday, in which case, woo! Confetti keywords and banners.) Without knowing it, however, something happened in 1984 that affects many of us: the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed, which set the legal drinking age at 21.
However, when the legal drinking age dropped nationwide in the `70s, alarm bells began ringing, notes licensed clinical psychologist Suzette Glasner-Edwards, PhD, associate professor at UCLA`s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. “Research conducted after this period strongly suggested that an increase in road accidents among young people was associated with this change in the legal drinking age,” she tells Teen Vogue. “As a result, citizen efforts have begun to push states to reinstate 21 as the legal minimum age.” Teen alcohol use kills 4,300 people each year, more than all illegal drugs combined.