American Spirits: The Drinking Age Debate

By: Timothy Bleasdale

Posted: 3/20/08

I'm willing to bet almost anything that you've had an illegal drink or two in your life. Chances are good that most of the people sitting around you while you read this have as well and probably will this weekend, too. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), four out of every five college students drink and of these four, roughly half are underage. Despite statistics like these, the debate over the legal status of drinkers between the age of 18 and 21 has been relatively quiet since the mid-1980s.

In recent weeks, however, the debate over the national minimum drinking age has been making its way back into national news. On Monday, presidential hopeful Barack Obama made headlines by telling Connecticut Army veteran, Ernest Johnson, that lowering the drinking age would not be on his agenda as president. The movement to return the legal drinking age to 18 is gaining serious traction in a surprisingly large number of states, the most widely publicized of which is Vermont.

In The Green Mountain state, the state legislature has formed a task force to examine lowering the legal age back to 18. A group in Missouri is petitioning to have the issue placed on the ballot in November for citizens to decide. In Wisconsin and South Carolina lawmakers have suggested that active-duty military personnel younger than 21 be allowed to purchase alcohol, a proposal which was made in New Hampshire just last year. A petition is circulation in South Dakota that would allow people 19 years and older to buy beer no stronger than 3.2 ABV. And in Boulder, Colo., the chief of police, Mark Beckner, told CBS' "60 Minutes" that he believes raising the legal drinking age limit to 21 was "not a wise decision."

But who made the decision, wise or not? The story of the national minimum drinking age is a complicated one, involving constitutional amendments, battles over the rights of states, wars in Asia and hippies.

The most common misconception about the minimum drinking age is that it was set at 21 years of age by the 21st Amendment, which repealed prohibition. Actually, the amendment simply allotted all regulation of alcohol - including legal age of consumption - to the states. When the amendment was ratified in December of 1933, many states set the legal age at 21, but lowered the age for purchasing beer to 18.

During the Vietnam War, lawmakers around the country recognized the hypocrisy of forcing people as young as 18 to fight in a foreign war when they were not even allowed to vote. In response the federal voting age was lowered to 18, a move which nearly all states mimicked, lowering their drinking age to 18 at the same time as they lowered their voting age. However, in the late '70s and early '80s there were a number of highly publicized studies claiming that the number of drunk driving fatalities was turning into a devastating problem of epidemic proportions. By the mid-1980s Congress had decided to address the problem and drafted the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. When President Ronald Reagan signed the act into law, it effectively forced the states to raise their legal drinking age to 21.

This controversial law required all states to raise their minimum drinking age to 21 in order to keep their portion of federal-aid highway funds. While the law doesn't violate the constitution (states were given the option to not raise the limit), many opponents have called the law legislative extortion.

The renewed push to lower the drinking age has brought many of these issues back to the forefront of debate. States like Vermont are re-raising the question of states' rights in this issue and veterans like Johnson are forcing politicians in the limelight take a stance on the "old enough to die but not to drink" dilemma.

But in the renewed debate, many opponents of the national minimum drinking age are taking a new approach - debunking or redirecting the major claims of a connection between drunk driving fatalities and drinking between the ages of 18 and 21. Beckner told "60 Minutes" the effects that he has observed as a police officer. Beckner claims that the level of drinking between the ages of 18 and 21 has actually increased since the passage of the law. The law, he claims, has helped to create an "underground culture that encourages binge drinking without any oversight or supervision."

Ruth Engs, professor of applied health science at Indiana University, has countered arguments by MADD and similar groups by pointing out that the drunk driving accident rate began dropping in 1980, a number of years before the law was passed. Supporters of the law claim that it has cut the number of traffic fatalities related to alcohol, but Engs points out that there are a number of other factors affecting these rates: education concerning drunk driving, designated driver programs, increased seat belt and air bag usage, safer automobiles, lower speed limits, tougher penalties for infractions and free taxi services from drinking establishments - to name a few.

Perhaps the most interesting development in the renewed debate is the great amount of credit that opponents of the law are giving to groups like MADD for helping lower alcohol related traffic fatalities. They claim that the educational programs that these groups have led over the last few decades have played a large role in decreasing the number of drunk drivers on the road.

It still may be too early to tell which way this debate will go. But one thing is clear, this is definitely something to watch in the coming months and if you have an opinion on the matter, you should voice it loud and clear.