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?
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Perhaps it should be mentioned that the authors' of the article indicate that the other two effects (ALR and .08 per se) are likely methodological artifacts. THAT'S full disclosure! I would encourage everyone to read the article themselves.
- JSearles
August 19, 2008 10:03AM
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I am glad that Choose Responsibility has been successful in convincing you to read further into the sources used by the government. Please let us all know if you find anything in that study that seriously counters CR's arguments.
The fact is that almost all of the statistics used by proponents of the MLDA 21 are before 1995 and are presented incompletely. Since the government and organizations like MADD receive millions of dollars in funding, it isn't surprising that the public has only heard their argument and limited facts.
- PhilyG January 29, 2009 9:27PM
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Actually, CR had nothing to do with my reading of this peer-reviewed artile. It's what scientsits do to keep up on the literature. It is disingenuous to fault a study for using the only data available. This was a study on the effects of policy and policies don't change on a regular basis. The data suporting the MLDA-21 laws are overwhelming. Here is the bottom line: lower the MLDA and adverse outcomes increase; raise the MLDA and adverse outcomes decrease. Pretty simple, really!
- JSearles January 30, 2009 10:10AM
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Should Abraham Lincoln consider whether crime statistics might rise if the slaves are freed? No amount of statistical analysis of historical crash data can establish that the government has a right to impose alcohol prohibition on an innocent person who never consented to it. In a free country, the citizen would decide what to eat and drink.
- TomAlciere February 16, 2009 5:56PM
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Minimum Drinking Age Laws have Proven Their Effectiveness
- From PIRE
By Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation - Bringing Research to Life
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It's not the drinking age...
It's also true that standards for automobile safety have increased significantly, in terms of how their manufactured. Laws about wearing seat belts are now enforced strictly as are laws about speeding. It is not the drinking age that has changed the decrease in highway deaths, but the other laws.
Maybe if people weren't allowed to get off with DUI's then they wouldn't drink and drive at all. In some places you don't even get your license suspended, just a ticket. Make the consequences of drinking and driving more serious and people are less likely to do it. To most people, the most serious consequence, potentially taking one's own or someone else's life, isn't something that is really considered. Having punishments that are harder to think "It'll never happen to me" about may help.
- aaglasse
August 13, 2008 10:28AM
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Side: Yes
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Shouldn't be a shock
that alcohol related arrests or accidents were on the rise when (for example) the drinking age changes were staggered chronologically. In DC the age was 21 while it was 18 in Baltimore for a time. Naturally, the 18-20 set were driving into Baltimore, getting drunk, and coming back to DC, turning Route 1 (the old route from College Park to Baltimore) into a carpile. Oversight like this, coupled with a total lack of responsibility-based education, definitely had something to do with it in my mind.
- Schmevbo August 25, 2008 9:35AM
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Side: Yes
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The evidence you cite doesn't show what you say it does
This site really needs a footnoting function. Most of the studies you cite in your argument are not available online. But one is: Hedlund JH, Ulmer RG, Preusser DF. "Determine Why There are Fewer Young Alcohol-Impaired Drivers." Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation; 2001. DOT HS 809 348.
It does indeed conclude that the incidence of fatal accidents by underage drunk drivers has gone down over time, but it does not conclude that change was due to the increased drinking age laws (or the zero tolerance laws). The study compares the changes in the accident rate in the US with the accident rate in Canada (with 18-19 drinking age laws) and found that the rates are virtually the same in both countries. To quote the report:
"Canadian reductions in youth drinking and driving, measured both by fatal crash data and by surveys, followed virtually the same pattern as in the United States. But the Canadian reduction was not due to laws directed at youth: the drinking age did not change during this time, and zero tolerance laws were implemented after the reduction had occurred. This means that the changes must have resulted from some combination of the difficult-to-assess educational and motivational programs and from other factors outside of traffic safety. This conclusion suggests that a substantial portion of the reduction in the United States also resulted from these same causes."
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/research/FewerYoungDrivers/iv__what_caused.htm #g.%20canadian
- Abigail Adams September 6, 2008 6:40AM
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Educate people on responsible drinking not abstinence from drinking
I think it's more important to educate people on responsible drinking than abstinence from drinking. It is obvious that college students will choose to drink, even when while we've been growing up we've been taught abstinence. If that's the case, then shouldn't the adults choose to educate us on how to drink responsibly? Including not driving while drinking (any amount).
- incognitouser
February 22, 2009 6:11PM
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Side: Yes
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