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?
Perhaps no alcohol safety measure has attracted more research and public attention or shown more consistent evidence for its effectiveness than the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) 21 law in the United States. MLDA laws were established in the States after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 (21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). Many States set the MLDA at 21 during that time. When the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971 (26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution), many States lowered their drinking age to 18 or 19. Studies in the 1970s and 1980s showed significant increases in alcohol-related crashes involving youth aged 18-20 in States that lowered their drinking age. Consequently, the U.S. Congress adopted the National Uniform Drinking Age 21 Act and President Reagan signed the bill into law in 1984. Since 1988, the MLDA has been 21 in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. Between 1982 and 1998, the population-adjusted involvement rate of drinking drivers aged 20 and younger in fatal crashes decreased 59 percent. MLDA-21 laws have been shown to be associated with this decline. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has estimated that MLDA laws save approximately 900 lives a year in traffic fatalities alone. Contrary to all the research that has demonstrated the effectiveness of MLDA 21 and the lives it has saved over the years, there are still some critics of the drinking age and there are movements in some States to lower it again.
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