Rethinking the Drinking Age

Here in the US the drinking age is 21. This requires young adults to wait until they are quite a bit older than people in other countries before they can legally consume alcohol. Being well beyond 21 myself and having no kids this isn’t something that I spend a lot of time worried about.

But there is a group that is keenly interested in trying to get the law changed. The organization is called Choosing Responsibility. They seek an “informed and dispassionate public discussion about the presence of alcohol in American culture” with a particular focus on the drinking age limit. The logic goes that if we allow adults at the age of 18 to vote, serve in the military and serve on juries why can’t we let them have a beer?

Makes sense to me.

Another group, related to Choosing Responsibility, recently formed. The Amethyst Initiative has the same goals but its membership is restricted to college and university presidents and chancellors. From their website:

It’s time to rethink the drinking age.
In 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposed a penalty of 10% of a state's federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.
Twenty-four years later, our experience as college and university presidents convinces us that twenty-one is not working.
A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.
Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.

Should this turn into a national debate let’s hope that heads remain cool, if that’s possible. There are real issues here that require dispassionate discussion.

What do you think? Check out the drinking age poll of at About's Cocktails site.