Alcohol and Other Drugs
Reducing Underage Drinking: Lower the Drinking Age to 18?
Lower the Drinking Age fact sheet (pdf 35kb/6 pgs)
There has been a lot of discussion about whether or nor lowering the minimum legal
drinking age to 18 would help reduce the amount of binge drinking among people under
age 21. The evidence from recent history and research do not support this change.
Increasing the drinking age to 21 saves lives
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the 21 minimum legal drinking age has reduced traffic fatalities involving drivers 18 to 20 years old by 13 percent and saves approximately 900 lives a year.1
Delaying the age of first drink reduces problems
Studies by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicate that delaying the initiation of drinking by youth contributes to reductions in future alcohol problems, including alcohol dependence, binge drinking and alcohol-associated traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities and violence.2,3
The younger a person starts drinking, the more problems
Research suggests that lowering the drinking age will make alcohol more available to an
even younger population.4 Young people who begin drinking before age 15 are 4 times more likely to develop alcoholism as those who begin drinking at age 214, 7 times more likely to be in a motor vehicle crash after drinking, and 10 times more likely to have been in a physical fight after drinking.3
Responses to the arguments for lower drinking age
1. Drinking is a rite of passage, “we drank when we were young,” everyone does it.
The drinking environment is different than it was 2-3 decades ago. Based on internet postings, news reports and anecdotal reports, drinking games, marketing, paraphernalia and a drink-as-much-as-you-can-as-quickly-as-you-can attitude pervade youth drinking today.
Finally, too many young people are dying because they are drinking too much. Since the fall of 2007, there have been at least eight alcohol-related deaths among young people ages 16-22 in Minnesota.
2. Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.
Scientists now know that the human brain does not full develop until the mid 20s. The last part of the brain to develop is the pre-frontal cortex which controls judgment. This may be less important for some things than others.
For example, the military needs people to follow orders unquestioningly. To be healthy, young people need to question the wisdom of drinking excessively and following others.
3. Lowering the drinking age will reduce the allure of alcohol as a "forbidden fruit"
for minors.
Research suggests that lowering the drinking age will make alcohol more available to an
even younger population, replacing "forbidden fruit" with "low-hanging fruit."4 Legal
access to alcohol for 18 year-olds will provide more opportunities for younger teens to obtain it illegally from older peers, making enforcement that much more difficult among high school students.
4. Laws emphasizing abstinence have not worked.
Based on comparisons of data since the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) was
established at age 21 in all states in the 1980s, increasing the drinking age has worked.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the 21 minimum legal drinking age has reduced traffic fatalities involving drivers 18 to 20 years old by 13 percent and saves approximately 900 lives a year.1
Fewer college students reported drinking in the past month in 2006 (65.4%) than in 1980 (82%),5 Annual alcohol use by high school seniors dropped from 87% in 1983 (before passage of the national MLDA law) to 72.2% in 2007.6
5. Widespread use of fake IDs tends to erode respect for the law.
There is no reason to believe that lowering the drinking age will decrease the use of fake IDs. Rather it will lower the age of those using fake IDs.
6. Young people will learn to drink responsibly and learn their tolerance for alcohol in a supervised setting like a rather than at uncontrolled parties.
Of the eight young people who have died from alcohol-related problems in Minnesota
since the fall of 2007, at least two were drinking in bars. Several other young people who
died in Minnesota, La Crosse, Wisconsin and other states were drinking in bars.
Youth who reported that a parent or a friend’s parent had provided alcohol at a party within the past year reported drinking more on their last drinking occasion and were twice as likely to have consumed alcohol within the past 30 days and to have engaged in binge drinking.7
7. Most other countries allow youth to drink and they don’t have problems like the
U.S.
Research comparing drinking among European Countries with lower drinking ages does not support the argument. The report from the U.S. Department of Justice shows that 16-year-olds in most European nations report drinkin more than their peers in the U.S.8
1. Accident Analysis and Prevention, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 2008
2. National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey. Journal of Substance Abuse, 1998.
3. Social and Health Consequences of Underage Drinking. Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility, Background Papers (The National Academies Press, 2004).
4. Bonnie, RJ, "Discouraging Unhealthy Personal Choices through Government Regulation: Some Thoughts About the Minimum Drinking Age," In Minimum-Drinking-Age Laws, Wechsler, H (Ed.), Lexington, MA: DC Heath Co., p39-58, 1980.)
5. Monitoring the Future: National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2006. Volume II: College Students & Adults, Ages 19-45. NIH Publication No. 07-6206. Bethesda, MD.
6. Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2006. Volume I: Secondary school
students (NIH Publication No. 07-6205). Bethesda, MD.
7. Foley, Kristie, et al. "Adults’ Approval and Adolescents’ Alcohol Use." Journal of Adolescent Health. 35, No. 4, (2004).
8. Youth Drinking Rates and Problems: A Comparison of European Countries and the United States,
U.S.
Department of Justice, 2005
