HereWeGoAgain
Grandpa
A group of professors has proposed fighting college drinking by... lowering the drinking age. According to their logic, it would end clandestine binge drinking, or something.
Sometimes when people make a "counter-intuitive" argument, it makes sense when you think about it. But on this one, I ain't buying.
Here's a good article I came across:
The Perils of a Lower Drinking Age by Steve Chapman
Some excerpts:
Sometimes when people make a "counter-intuitive" argument, it makes sense when you think about it. But on this one, I ain't buying.
Here's a good article I came across:
The Perils of a Lower Drinking Age by Steve Chapman
Some excerpts:
Well said.It's true that in the old days, there was no college culture of clandestine, off-campus binge drinking. It was out in the open, right on the quad. Another difference back then: There was more of it.
[...]
According to Monitoring the Future, an ongoing research project at the University of Michigan, binge drinking has not risen since 1988, when 21 became the minimum drinking age throughout the country. Among college students and other college-age Americans, the rate is lower today than it was then, and the decline has been even bigger among high-school students.
[...]
Since 1988, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, drunk-driving deaths have ... dropped most among those younger than 21...
This is not a coincidence. When states lowered their drinking age in the 1970s, they got more drunk-driving deaths among teenagers than similar states that stayed at 21. A 1983 study in the Journal of Legal Studies concluded that any state that "raises its drinking age can expect the nighttime fatal crashes of drivers of the affected age groups to drop by about 28 percent."
[...]
... f high-school seniors could legally patronize a liquor store, sophomores would find it much easier to get party fuel. Raising the drinking age to 21 reduced alcohol-related traffic fatalities not only among 18-year-olds, who lost the right to drink, but 16-year-olds, who never had it.
It's not hard to make a logical case for allowing 18-year-olds to buy alcohol, but only if you disregard the practical effects of letting them do something that many of them are not mature enough to handle. In this debate, the ultimate wisdom comes from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who reminded us that sometimes, a page of history is worth a volume of logic. (emphasis added by me)