Lower the legal drinking age?

[Pangloss]

the law is broken when the 21 year old gives me the alcohol. However it is impossible to stop this type of distribution

 

No it isn't, it's just more difficult. And in fact if you can drive past a frat house on a Friday night in Fall term and NOT find any alcohol I'd be amazed. How 'bout a few random raids? How 'bout real penalties for violators? Blind eyes have all sorts of "enforcement issues", and you've just given us an example of how it can work when rules are enforced (NYU). I think you're making my case for me, guy.

 

What exactly is the benefit for having the legal age at 21 supposed to be? I've only read studies showing a legal age of 21 making matters worse. Where are the studies showing it helps?

 

Here are some:

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0701083542.htm

 

http://www.cspinet.org/booze/mlpafact.htm

 

Interesting stuff. These seem to focus on accident-related deaths, but I think there's also stuff out there on binge-drinking, which we've been talking about here as well.

 

I think either of these points are reasonably countered with the concept of not having a legal age at all, but I do think they support the notion that lowering it from 21 to 18 (specifically) is dangerous.

[bascule]

I agree with Pangloss that if you want to curb illegal drinking, you go to the source and make it financially unfeasible to sell it to those who aren't supposed to have it.

 

And how do you prevent a middle man who's of age from redistributing to minors? That's generally how it works... it's not as if existing penalties for selling to minors aren't severe enough. I always get carded when going to a new liquor store.

[Pangloss]

I agree that's difficult, but you can stop the parties, and the parties are why they're drinking.

[CPL.Luke]

Pangloss you are continually saying that NYU is an example of rules being enforced, I have said nothing of the kind anywhere. ITs an example of the rules "not" being enforced at all.

 

as I said in New York City enforcement is so lax that at the age of 17 I was getting served in bars and at liquor stores, and NYU has less binge drinking because of this.

 

No it isn't, it's just more difficult. And in fact if you can drive past a frat house on a Friday night in Fall term and NOT find any alcohol I'd be amazed. How 'bout a few random raids? How 'bout real penalties for violators? Blind eyes have all sorts of "enforcement issues"

 

since when can the police raid private property at random? as I recall your American so you should know that that would be illegal.

 

That is why the college administrators are asking for the drinking age to be lowered, because there are alcohol related deaths on campuses that are a direct result of binge drinking and despite their best attempts they have not been able to curb binge drinking and the problem has gotten succesively worse rather than better.

 

I'm sure their are a couple of people on here who went to college before the drinking age was set to 21, how often did you see people half drink themselves to death, or better yet how many drinks would you estimate the average person drank at a party back then?

 

my rough estimate for today would be that on average a person drinks between 8 and 16 units of alcohol at a party at my school. and mine is a school that has demolished frats has one of the largest police forces of any university (staties) combined with its own police helicopter and riot guard. The police do continually conduct raids and similar such things that are boderline or blatantly illegal. The school has also tried seperating the freshman from everyone else in order to limit access.

 

All of these efforts have been completely innefective. there are 25000 people who attend the school and when they try seperating the freshman from everyone else the freshman go off campus and find parties, then they meet people who will buy them alcohol. Our police force which has attempted every legal means of catching violators has failed. Its time to attempt a different policy rather than more of the same.

 

you also haven't adressed any aspect of my analogy nor proposed any real solution to change the sociology of drinking rather you just say that it should be changed and then lower the drinking age (even though lax enforcement standards seem to accomplish that goal anyway)

[Pangloss]

It's not private property if it's a frat house on campus, which is where most of them are. If they're off campus, fine, but that's really none of the university's business anyway, so there's no reason for the college presidents to be involved. But like I said, there's a whole industry revolving around the sale of alcohol to minors, and all you have to do is watch a commercial for "Girls Gone Wild" or visit any college campus on a Friday or Saturday night to see the result.

 

It's ineffective because the problem isn't taken seriously. It's kids being kids, or just not as important as other issues. Part of the campus life, etc.

 

Fine. Make partying no longer part of campus life. Remove the fraternities completely, if that's what it takes. Like I said, the problem isn't that the problem CANNOT be solved, it's that the problem is not taken at the level of seriousness that it could be to solve it.

[CPL.Luke]

It's ineffective because the problem isn't taken seriously. It's kids being kids, or just not as important as other issues. Part of the campus life, etc.

 

Fine. Make partying no longer part of campus life. Remove the fraternities completely, if that's what it takes. Like I said, the problem isn't that the problem CANNOT be solved, it's that the problem is not taken at the level of seriousness that it could be to solve it.

 

have you any evidence whatsoever that the problem isn't taken seriously? I have given ample personal accounts of how it is being taken seriously. What would you feel would be taking it seriously, and please try to answer the question of how to stop someone from legally purchasing alcohol and then redistributing it to persons between the the ages of 18 and 21.

 

The Frats and dorms are private property for the duration of of the school year. a student effectively "leases" the property from the school, subject to certain conditions such as maintaining a inimum of noise and the like. The school cannot mandate that the dorms be available to search, over and beyond that that would normally be considered appropriate for law enforcement.

 

AS I said in my previous post my school demolished the dorms and saw no decline in parties. In fact if you want to know the damaging effects of alcohol laws on campus consider the statistic that Umass is currently circulating to curb drinking.

 

9 out of 10 Umass students know how to have fun without alcohol"

 

this of course implies 1 out of 10 students at Umass are borderline alcoholics, considering the school has ~25000 students, this implies ~2500 students are borderline alcoholics.

[Pangloss]

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 90% of the alcohol consumed by minors is in the form of binge drinking. (source) Given that, why do universities sponsor fraternities with rush parties at all? Answer: Because the drinking is a necessary evil -- fraternities are part of campus life, and campus life is a big part of what draws students. College presidents have a clear conflict of interest here. Is it any wonder they call it "impossible" to fix the problem?

 

The Christian Science Monitor's editorial board has this to say:

 

College administrators can work with local police to identify bars and restaurants that tolerate under-age drinking by students. They can enforce zero-tolerance rules against drinking – even if strict enforcement offends many parents and moneyed alumni.

 

Such "environmental management" of students should be premised on the idea that they naturally want the benefits of sobriety in their studies and social life. Then they will follow the law and colleges won't ask for its repeal.

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0821/p08s01-comv.html

 

They're right. The problem isn't that it's unenforceable, it's that we compromise on the issue.

 

Interestingly, Georgia's major universities announced disagreement with the Amethyst Initiative. The presidents of Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia (two absolutely legendary "party schools" (I went to Tech myself)), as well as those of Emory University, Morehouse, Georgia State, and Agnes Scott College all refused to sign.

 

http://www.ajc.com/gwinnett/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2008/08/20/lowering_drinking_age.html

 

Emory, Georgia Tech , UGA, GSU and Agnes Scott do not have plans to sign it, their respective spokespeople said Wednesday.

 

“On the issue of changing the drinking age, this is not a parade I want to lead,” UGA President Michael Adams said.

[iNow]

You guys may have a point about the maturity growth between 18 and 21. My own experience was quite different from my peers at the time due some some incredibly challenging life experiences before being 21.

[Pangloss]

Just to follow up on my last post, here's an example of how the battle can be fought:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121928142497058879.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

In the early 1990s, the University of Rhode Island, the state's flagship college, had such notoriety for drinking that wags said that its initials, URI, stood for "You are high." The campus made Princeton Review's list of top party schools.

 

Robert L. Carothers, who became president of the university in 1991, eliminated all drinking at university functions, even among faculty. The university stepped up enforcement, helping spur the shutdown of half of the school's 18 fraternities.

 

The Rhode Island school secured $8 million in grants to study ways to stop drinking. The school worked with local authorities to ban businesses that ran "pub crawls" that ferried students from one bar to another. It supported a local ordinance that places a big orange sticker on off-campus houses that have been visited by police because of unruly parties. After three violations, landlords are required to terminate leases. The school also pushed for a law that requires beer kegs to be registered, so those who sold to underage students could be tracked and punished.

 

The University of Rhode Island is no longer on the list of party schools. "To the degree it gives impetus to the idea that colleges and undergraduates should ignore the law and the science, it's a destructive thing to do," Dr. Carothers says of the effort to reconsider the drinking age.

 

I understand why people think nothing can be done, and I definitely understand why young people hate the law (I was a party animal too). But the battle can be fought, you just have to think outside the box a little. And I don't think people realize how the universities are themselves invested in the continuance of the problem.

[CPL.Luke]

thats interesting I had never heard of a school succesfully stopping or reducing drinking. While I still doubt that its been as success full as they have made it appear, I stick by my belief that the drinking just went further underground (although possibly in reduced quantities).

 

The question is what was the net cost and the net benefit of this procedure. They may have fewer academic notables joining the factory because after all alcohol has been one of the great social lubricants of all time. A reduced number of social gatherings may hurt students oppurtunities to "vent" and relax etc. this can lead to students becoming more stressed and suffering academic problems. Also the cost of running that kind of police force and the lobbying campaigns to cahnge the laws must have cost the school a good deal.

 

The potential beneits would be something along the lines of students binge drinking less, which will lead to better academic performance, also fewer alcohol related deaths.

 

 

Now the question is whether or not this could be accomplished more efficiently with comparable results if the drinking age was lowered. Leep in mind a school could still pursue a policy like URI's with a lower drinking age, by merely declaring the campus dry. Or they could combat the problems I mentioned about a lack of social activities by placing a pub/poolhall/thing on campus, enforcing strict no alcohol policies on the rest o campus however treating the bar as a normal bar where the bartenders cut people off and do all that.

[Royston]

Sorry if this has already been mentioned before, (I know this thread is primarily about the situation in the US) but the problem in the UK with so-called binge drinking (which to be classed as binge drinking, it's something silly like 4 pints) is purely the price. The age thing doesn't come into it, there are loads of bars closing across the UK due to large supermarkets competing on prices of alcohol, and along with the smoking ban, most people would rather get a cheap crate, and relax in with their mates playing playstation...you can get a lot more for your money if you buy lots of alcohol.

 

The age groups of kids on the street, and in parks falling on their faces with a bottle of cheap cider in their hands, is around 13 to 17. If you're old enough to buy alcohol, then it's more than likely you'll 'get some in' before going to the pub i.e 18 onwards...purely because bar prices are ridiculous at least compared to shop prices.

[CPL.Luke]

interesting I had always heard europeans had less of a problem with binge drinking than we did.

 

I wonder what the rate of acohol poisoning is at universities in the UK and Germany

[Klaynos]

interesting I had always heard europeans had less of a problem with binge drinking than we did.

 

I wonder what the rate of acohol poisoning is at universities in the UK and Germany

 

Mostly it's media hype... although a guy died of alcahole poisoning at my uni a few years ago...

 

An accountancy student, a first year, on his first golf society social... I think the excitement killed him...

[Royston]

Mostly it's media hype.

 

That will always be something to consider, but this article highlights the situation in the UK recently...

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/23/drugsandalcohol.health1

 

The impact of the smoking ban on pubs...

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/04/business.smokingban

 

The point is, these two factors only confound the issue, of people choosing to buy cheap alcohol (which obviously means more), sit at home i.e no waiting times at the bar, as well as not being in public (although many people couldn't careless how they conduct themselves...just walk through my neighboring city on a Friday night.)

 

I'm not saying bring back smoking in public places et.c, just highlighting the situation in the UK, and the so-called booze Britain that's been coined by the media. The area where I live at least, has always been renowned for people going out to get very drunk, but it's a seaside town that attracts people from across the country...so not the best comparison.

 

24hr licensing has also caused a rise in more rowdiness in the city. I'm certainly not adversed to people enjoying themselves, by any stretch of the imagination, but binge-drinking (that is to get drunk, not just a few pints) is definitely a real thing in the UK, but I feel it has been for some time. However, the recent changes in policy on licensing and smoking et.c, really doesn't help matters.

 

I'm sure there's more to add, but I'm off down the pub

[john5746]

interesting I had always heard europeans had less of a problem with binge drinking than we did.

 

I wonder what the rate of acohol poisoning is at universities in the UK and Germany

 

The biggest difference in the US, especially rural US - is driving after drinking, IMO. In Japan(just after college), I drank much more than I did in college. I was able to ride a train, bus, taxi or walk back to my quarters. In America, you really need to plan ahead and have someone who will keep you straight after you get 5 in you and are ready to lay any woman, beat any pool shark, take on an army and win any race.

[iNow]

A great post on this issue today over at Pure Pedantry:

 

http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/08/more_on_the_legal_drinking_age.php

 

I talked last week about the pros and cons of lowering the drinking age back to 18. One of the cons that I had assumed was that lowering the drinking age would increase the number of traffic fatalities in the 18-20 cohort.

 

A study from NBER disputes this argument. <more at link>

[Pangloss]

Interesting comments on that page as well. It doesn't really sound conclusive but I think you have to take what he's saying seriously. The NTSB and AMA were hitting a lot of other issues as well, but that core argument might bear closer study.

 

The AMA has a summary of their points (in favor of 21) here:

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13246.html

 

That page makes a good resource for comparison with the points in the link in the post above.