What it if the drinking age was 18? Whether lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would help in solving the problem of alcohol abuse has been a question of interest for this past week’s PLA sophomore class. It has been constantly argued that the fact that the drinking age is 21 is the cause of various alcohol-related accidents including death. Students have continuously argued that the reason they hesitate to call an ambulance or even university police for their drunk friends is that they d0 not want to put their underage drunk friends in trouble.
This argument is further supported by the fact that most of the developed countries such as France, Spain, Italy, England, China, and South Korea have set the minimum legal drinking age to 18 years or 19 years. “Even the neighboring Canada has set the drinking age to 18 and 19 years depending on the province!” some people exclaimed. Japan is one of the few developed countries where the legal drinking age is 20 years, but still, some people argue that it is not as strict as it is in the US. On a closer observation, these countries have been found to have lesser issues with underage drinking and alcohol abuse compared to the US, but this has nothing to do with the minimum legal drinking age.
Considering a country like Italy, children are alleviated into the drinking culture by their parents. It is common for parents and children to share a glass of wine during dinner, which is very different from the American drinking culture whereby parents are strict and straight about which age you should have your first alcohol. As a result, the two drinking cultures yield opposite results whereby people, especially in Europe, see alcohol consumption as a form of enjoyment, which must be done in moderation and casually. On the other hand, growing up with strict rules on the drinking age, children in the US see alcohol consumption as something that must be done in excess. Even though this observation is true to some extent, there is no solid evidence to support how the difference in the two drinking cultures affects alcohol abuse, especially among young people.
Furthermore, those who advocate for lowering the drinking age to combat the problem of binge drinking among young people fail to realize or simply ignore the fact that underage drinking is not done by 18-year olds only. 16-year olds and below engage in underage drinking too. Are we going to lower the drinking age to 16 years and below when we finally realize that lowering the drinking age to 18 years didn’t work? Also, if you look closely, the argument of lowering the drinking age to 18 years is made mostly by underages, who argue that a 3 to 4-year difference is so small that it should not make lowering the drinking age a problem. What will happen if 16-year olds start making the same argument as well after we’ve finally lowered the drinking age?
Personally, I think that having the drinking to 21 years is not a problem, in fact, it has done more good than harm. I find the problem to be how alcohol consumption by minors is seen in the US. There is so much stigma that comes with underage drinking and so many strict laws against alcohol consumption by minors that when people finally get a chance to drink, they do it as if there is no tomorrow. As a result, individuals are reluctant to call for help for their friends who indulge in binge drinking. However, in as much as I realize that a cultural shift cannot happen overnight, I also believe that so many issues associated with alcohol abuse among minors could be eradicated if the negative connotation that comes with underage drinking was to be eliminated.
Emmy,
Well put! I was pondering these issues after our discussion in class as well. I agree that the act of lowering the drinking age has the potential to be a slippery slope – where does it end? However, since the majority of students turn 18 before their freshman year of college, this could allow them to adapt to the responsibility of drinking prior to moving on campus. While it isn’t a given, the lowered drinking age could cut down on some of the binge drinking on campus. Most importantly, I believe that lowering the drinking age to 18 could be a safer in several ways, as individuals would not be as fearful when calling for help for others, even with medical amnesty laws as they are today.
Hi Emmy,
I think you raised may good points. Particularly, in the last paragraph one sentence caught my eye, “As a result, individuals are reluctant to call for help for their friends who indulge in binge drinking.” I think you may be interested to learn more about an initiative UPUA is tackling at the moment to provide medical amnesty to both parties in the event of an alcohol related medical emergency. As the law currently stands, only the party who calls for help is able to receive legal protection if they are under 21, but the person who needs help is often cited with an underage the next morning after waking up in the hospital. UPUA has found good traction in the legislator and with university officials in advocating for a change to the law that would protect all individuals involved in order to incentivize action in alcohol related incidents.
Emmy
I agree with you that cultural problems are not solved by adding or removing laws and in particular the drinking culture in the United States will need more than just laws to help turn the perspective of drinking around. It is quite difficult to combat this issue because if we take a look at what entertains us nowadays a lot of it thrives around the drinking culture of the country. Children while growing up are exposed to this form of entertainment and this somewhat contributes to the now upheld view on excessive drinking. Already we have the media promoting this kind of behavior so it is going to be hard to turn everything around and at the same time retain our entertainment which has proved that we cannot survive without it. This is just one aspect on this issue, a lot of other factors come into play concerning the state of the current drinking culture.
I really enjoyed reading this Emmy! I went to Italy this summer and couldn’t help but notice the looks I got when drinking wine from locals who new I was an American student. It’s almost as if they immediately judged me, and I don’t blame them to an extent. I agree that the age isn’t necessarily the problem; rather, it’s the culture. College atmospheres definitely don’t help either.
Thanks for sharing your unique insight on this topic!
Emmy,
I too believe that lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18 will not be an effective solution to America’s binge drinking problem. You are correct to say that underage drinking is an act committed by many that are even under the age of 18; therefore, lowering the legal drinking age will not eliminate underage drinking from society. Furthermore, while I believe that lowering the drinking age will decrease the number of individuals receiving underages, due to the fact that they are no longer considered underage, I do not believe this will change the behavior of those drinking.
Binge drinking has become part of our generation’s culture. President Baron pointed out the difference in college-aged drinking from a few decades ago to now, and the difference is shocking. I am not sure why our generation has adopted this idea that drinking large amounts of alcohol in short periods of time is the social norm. Regardless of what caused the escalation, lowering the drinking age out of nowhere will not lead to positive results.
When talking about the American drinking culture we often juxtapose our points with the European drinking culture. As you pointed out, individuals who grew up in European countries view alcohol consumption as a leisure activity or something done for enjoyment. Many attribute this to a lower legal drinking age, but I do not think that is true. The legal drinking age is just an arbitrary number that tells people when they can go legally buy a drink. It does not force people to drink a certain way or behave a certain way when intoxicated.
Overall, I agree with your opinion that setting the legal drinking age to 21 is not a problem. The problem lies within our culture, and that can only be changed over a long period of time. If we were to lower the legal drinking age in the U.S. now I think that drinking among teens and young adults will only worsen. Binge drinking is a cultural issue and there is no direct fix for that.
Hi Emmy,
I agree with a lot of your points in this blog. I know that my PLA class has also discussed the impact of the United States drinking age on the binge drinking culture observed in college and high school. I agree that there is a cultural problem that develops into behaviors of binge drinking. I know that many of my European friends have grown up around alcohol and learned how to pair it with different meals. For them, certain alcoholic beverages are just accents to a great dinner, not a way to binge drink to the point where they are visibly intoxicated or hospitalized.
While lowering the drinking age seems like a viable option to solve this culture of binge drinking, I agree that it could be a slippery slope where younger and younger children would start debating why the drinking age is 18 or 19 years of age.
Also, I do not think that lowering the drinking age would solve binge drinking culture. Many adults in the United States do not have the same view of alcohol that adults in European nations do, so an abrupt change in the drinking age would still not change how alcohol is viewed by children and their parents. Culture cannot be changed by changing a law. It is a much slower and more intricate process. Therefore, changing the drinking age would most likely just allow people in the United States to legally binge drink at a younger age. Overall, lowering the drinking age in the United States would likely just mean that children would be brought into the culture of binge drinking earlier than they are now.
Best,
Krista
Hey Emmy,
I enjoyed some of the points you made in this post. One thing that I feel is often overlooked in this debate is the difference in driving culture between the United States and Europe. While there are definitely large parts of Europe that are rural, there a plenty of extremely large metropolitan areas, such as London and Paris, that have extensive public transit systems. Thus, those who chose to drink don’t have to drive home, but can easily utilize the city subway or bus systems. As for the US, while the idea of lowering the drinking age may seem like a good idea, there is no way states would ever lower their drinking ages without Federal direction. The Federal infrastructure funding provided by keeping the drinking age at 21 is too substantial to voluntarily give up. Additionally, opposition from groups such as MAAD would likely make changing drinking laws practically impossible.
Nice post Emmy! You articulated your points very well. I think binge-drinking is the result of a cultural problem, not the law. Those who say that having the drinking age at 21 is the problem are missing the point. As you said, once you lower the age, how low do we go?
The argument for a lower drinking age that has a little more weight is one about freedom of adults. We protect our children from certain things because they are too young and immature to handle them. But if we consider 18-year-olds adults, then is there a basis for telling them they cannot drink when their older peers can? I’m not sure. Thanks for sharing.