Drinking age

There’s a news item circulating that a number of college presidents recommend lowering the drinking age to 18. According to the reports, the presidents believe it would reduce binge drinking.

NewMexiKen has a better idea. You must be 21 to drink alcoholic beverages unless you are a high school graduate. My plan might reduce binge drinking AND lower the drop out rate.

11 thoughts on “Drinking age”

  1. I happened onto a local news report about this while eating pizza for dinner. (Carry out Papa John’s.) The reporter interviewed two UNM students and three parents (two of them a couple for crying out loud). The parents were opposed. So was UNM we were told.

    What a waste even by TV news standards. Nothing beyond the intro discussing the various pros and cons the college presidents must have considered. Who cares what random people think? Why not interview the UNM president? Why not interview the UNM police chief? Why not interview student leadership? How about a student health center official? Why not mention that this was tried in the 60s or 70s — lowered to 18, but then raised again. Why was it lowered then? Why was it raised back?

    Why has so much local news turned into how do you feel and what do you think? Most people are morons. Who cares what they feel or think.

  2. This is most likely going to reduce illegal binge drinking and increase legal binge drinking, but I believe it would be unlikely to have a significant effect on the actual number of 18 to 21 year-olds drinking, or the amount of alcohol they drink.

  4. Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.
    ———————-
    Hennry

    New Mexico Drug Treatment

  5. Give out IDs at graduation Ephraim.

    Twenty-four years ago the feds put the hammer to states to lower their legal drinking age to 18 from 21 as a way to cut drunk-driving deaths. Do it, or we’ll withhold 10% of your highway funds, the feds said, and pretty quickly the states fell in line.

    But now more than 100 college presidents and chancellors have signed a statement calling for politicians to consider lowering the drinking age in the face of widespread flouting of the law and a wave of dangerous binge drinking on campuses around the country.

    The college officials liken the effect of the current drinking age to the failed experiment to ban alcohol for all during Prohibition. But supporters of the restrictions on alcohol say any loosening would lead to more deaths on the roads.

    WSJ.com Health Blog

    Drunk driving deaths haven’t been reduced. The MADD-type campaign isn’t working. A large portion of drunk driving fatalities involve recidivist DUI offenders. Execute those SOBs if you really want to reduce drunk driving.

    21 to drink on campus is a joke and it breeds contempt for the law.

  6. Speaking rhetorically, I must remind all of the Vietnam years, and the beliefs we had then.

    “If you’re old enough to die in war, you should be able to responsibly handle drinking.”

    If an 18 year old can’t manage alcohol consumption, then why are they piloting fighter jets, driving tanks, and making life-and-death decisions daily?

    Mention raising the Selective Service age to 21, hear the military scream bloody murder.

  7. Using some kind of ID is what the system is now. It usually involves a driver’s license. You would add a diploma.

    What’s another piece of paper to ‘fake’.

    So the method to ask for a diploma won’t help. That’s the method in use now and its not working. Its still a good idea to base the drinking age on life performance but it would be a bear to enforce.

    University presidents want to lower the age so they won’t be bothered with enforcement issues. If all students come to university able to legally buy booze, the responsibility passes from the university to the student.

  8. As it should. The responsibility be the student’s, that is.

    Regarding the ID. In NM when you are under age your driver’s license is portrait rather than landscape. When/if a kid graduates, school districts could provide documentation directly to MVD so that high school graduates (if 18) get the landscape ID. No problem.

    Enforcement is another issue, unrelated to age.

    It will be, I understand, pretty difficult to fake ID under the new federal mandate — and a federal crime if you do.

  9. Let’s add some European perspective: to calm me down my pacifier was dipped into beer when I was a baby; when i was old enough (6 yrs) to ride my bike to the local grocery store (2 miles away), my dad asked me to go there and get some beer; i was allowed to drink sips of wine/beer for dinner/lunch way before the legal drinking age here in the US; and I don’t think I turned out to be alcoholic.

    Only by not being allowed to feel what this alcohol thing is all about you make kids stigmatize it to a point where binge-drinking seems to be the only way to experience it (trying to make up for all the missed time). Let them have it early! Let them have it to the point where they throw up (not on a regular basis)! And you’ll never have a problem again. Pia’s going to get raised that way …

  11. If one had to graduate from HS to drink before age 21, would would presumably note that on a driver’s license.

    Better yet, a driver’s license would serve double duty as a drinking license. Everyone of every age would be carded. If you are convicted of DUI or were drunk and disorderly, or bought alcohol for someone without a drinking license, or were on probation or parole, or were facing some sort of restraining order, your drinking license could be revoked.

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