Do you remember your first taste of alcohol? How old were you? Twenty-one? All 50 states currently demand that their citizens reach age 21 before they can legally drink. But there's a growing movement that says mandatory minimum laws may do more harm than good. When determining the right date when a young person can take one of their final steps towards personal responsibility and freedom, what's the right answer?
The 21 year-old drinking age has successfully banished alcohol consumption from public view and public places. But there is no disputing the reality that alcohol consumption continues, often with life-threatening consequences, in clandestine, remote settings away from supervision by parents, residence life staff, and other adult authority figures and usually beyond the effective reach of law enforcement. Proclaiming a campus, or a household, "dry" may seem a virtuous act. But too often such pronouncements simply uproot and transplant the practice and, as a result, worsen the problem and heighten the risk. Research has found both a growing number of college students choosing to attend parties off-campus and a corresponding increase in the number of students consuming five or more drinks while there. Drinking that is not out in the open, and drinking that requires one to find a dark corner or travel to a remote location, is drinking that puts not only the drinker, but also the innocent citizen, at greater risk.
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