Ryan ChartrandIn the U.S., people can legally smoke cigarettes, serve in the armed forces, vote, get arrested, have sex and gamble in some casinos at the age of 18, yet they cannot drink.
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required all states to enforce a minimum drinking age of 21, was signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1984, with the strong urging of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
The purpose of this legislation was to take the right to drink away from young adults and thus reduce the number of drinking-related accidents. The problem is that current alcohol-related statistics involving teenagers do not look good.
Sixty percent of all teenage automobile accidents are alcohol-related. About 70 percent of all teenagers drink alcohol, including one in 10 between the ages of 12 and 13, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Wait – does this mean that 70 percent of our country’s future leaders are committing crimes regularly? Is the U.S. breeding a generation of criminals? Not quite. The problem is that in our society, kids know it is illegal to buy alcohol, but have absolutely no problem consuming it. In fact, having the drinking age set to 21 adds to the mystique of drinking.
Teenagers are going to drink no matter what and the statistics prove this. The problem with not being able to legally drink until the age of 21 is that kids are under a zero tolerance, “alcohol is evil” policy for their entire lives and then, randomly, after 7,665 days of life, they are told to drink up and it is one big happy celebration. With this social mindset, problems occur.
First, teenagers do not learn about drinking in moderation. In the U.S., about two-thirds of teenagers who drink admit to binge drinking, which is defined as drinking five or more drinks in a few hours. The movie “Superbad” portrays the teenage drinking mindset very well. Teenagers are desperate to get their hands on alcohol and when they do, they drink as much as they can, as if it’s a precious resource.
Secondly, when teenagers do turn 21, they tend to go nuts. In a survey of 2,518 college students, 34 percent of men and 24 percent of women surveyed reported consuming 21 drinks or more on their 21st birthdays. This is a dangerous trend. Of college-aged deaths that made news in 2006, 11 died celebrating their 21st birthdays.
When a teenager becomes an adult at the age of 18, it is a bittersweet day. For all intensive purposes they are adults, yet, for whatever reason they cannot legally drink. America should at least be consistent with its laws. If we’re going to deny people the right to drink, we might as well just raise the age of all adult responsibilities to the age of 21.
The U.S. should seriously consider adopting an alcohol policy similar to that of the U.K. Lower the drinking age to 18, but don’t enforce it too heavily. Make it legal for kids to have an alcoholic beverage with a meal. Young adults will start to see consumption of alcohol as a normal aspect of society instead of a deviant, reckless act. Alcohol-related deaths and accidents will potentially decrease, (but will always happen to some degree no matter what) and 18-year-olds will be able to call themselves adults with no asterisk.
Chris Jagger is a journalism senior and Mustang Daily reporter.