Drinking age change impractical

I was perusing the Internet looking at news sites, and I came across an interesting article… I was perusing the Internet looking at news sites, and I came across an interesting article on the ABC News website about a group that wants to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18. Led by John McCardell, the group “Choose Responsibility” proposes a system of alcohol education programs and the granting of a “drinking license” to counteract the effects of unregulated and oftentimes dangerous underage drinking that occurs in high schools and colleges nationwide.

Now, I’ll be honest: My first reaction to this story was a big grin and a quiet “Hell yeah!” But as I read through the piece, it got me thinking about the nature of drinking on a college campus and how a move like this might affect the presence of, and attitudes toward, underage drinking.

At first, McCardell’s theory seems to make a lot of sense. By bringing drinking out into the open, it almost automatically would reduce the amount of risk that young drinkers encounter currently. The theory centers around the idea that older, more responsible and knowledgeable adults would be present to make sure that nobody got hurt or made bad decisions, rather than leaving that responsibility in the hands of peers and students.

Often when proposals like this are brought up they are compared to those in European nations that have a lower drinking age and also much lower occurrences of binge drinking and drunk driving accidents. So, in theory, McCardell’s plan seems like it would have some merit.

However, as a college student and a first-hand witness to the many aspects of a collegiate drinking culture, I can say with confidence that I don’t really think it would be the best idea to just drop the drinking age to 18.

First, from my perspective, the years that high school and college students spend unable to buy alcohol for themselves are also the years that they really start to build up a tolerance to the effects of drunkenness. I think that there are a lot of similarities to getting a driver’s license: When you first start to learn to drive, you have to have an adult with you because that’s the time at which you’re most likely to make mistakes.

Young drivers have very little practice or sense for the road and their abilities, just as inexperienced drinkers very rarely know their tolerance levels. If we were to just give a full-blown license to 16-year-olds who had never been behind the wheel of a car before, the effects could be catastrophic. So then imagine what would happen if any legal adult could walk into a bar or liquor store and buy himself as much as he wanted without knowing how much he could actually handle.

So by placing the “keys to the city,” as it were, in the hands of more experienced drinkers, we effectively install a control into how novice drinkers handle themselves in regard to alcohol. Sure, sometimes older college students aren’t the best gatekeepers, but I can think of more than once when I personally was grateful for the presence of a few older friends to help me handle myself, and I sincerely doubt any 18-year-old newbie could have done the same thing.

Another potential problem with McCardell’s proposal is the implementation. His system of a drinking license makes sense at first, until you think about the added levels of bureaucracy and the new identification schemes it would entail. McCardell said in an interview that he thinks the system would help stem the flow of underground fake IDs that allow youths into bars and clubs. But what would stop people from just forging a drinking license instead? Not to mention the fact that the lower age would mean younger forgers could get in on the act, potentially expanding the current underage drinking problem from colleges into high schools.

Although these plans sound attractive at first, after some careful reasoning it’s pretty clear that a scheme like this simply wouldn’t be a good idea given the current American drinking culture and attitudes. And interestingly, it would appear that many college students agree: According to a poll ABC News did in 2005, approximately 80 percent of the public was in favor of keeping the drinking age at 21, and more than 73 percent of people aged 30 and under felt the same.

Perhaps instead of lobbying for a lower drinking age, we should instead try for a more extensive program of education and tolerance – rather than abstinence – to ease young people into a responsible and adult state of mind toward alcohol.

Until then, however, we can always make fun of the freshmen.

E-mail Richard at rab53@pitt.edu and tell him all your boozed-up stories and opinions.