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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The Rest of World Has its Own Share of Alcohol Problems
- From GHSA
By Governors Highway Safety Association - The States' Voice on Highway Safety
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There are alcohol problems in other European Countries
September 11, 2008
Scotland Considers Raising Drinking Age to 21
AFP news service recently reported that Scotland officials are considering increasing the drinking age from 18 to 21, after two trails showed a decrease in alcohol-related incidents among young people as a result of increasing the drinking age. The news comes as the nation discusses the Amethyst Initiative, which seeks to revisit the debate on the legal drinking age and encourages lawmakers to lower it.
Alcohol-related deaths have more than doubled in Scotland in the last 15 years, while 40 percent of 15-year-olds and 15 percent of 13-year-olds surveyed by the government said they had drunk alcohol in the previous week. The announcement was made by Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond, who said the government was considering banning alcohol sales to under-21s to make "the streets safer and communities better" and counter mounting drinking problems.
In the AFP article, Salmond was quoted as saying: "The practical evidence is that restriction, that protection for young people actually helps reduce violent incidents, protects people and makes the streets safer and communities better.”
New Zealand has first-hand experience on the negative effects of lowering the drinking age. In a 2005 New Zealand-based study, researchers found that lowering the drinking age resulted in a 12 percent increase in alcohol-involved crashes among 18- to 19-year-olds and a 14 percent increase among 15- to 17-year-olds. In addition, hospitalization for road traffic crashes among 15- to 17-year-olds went up by 25 percent after the drinking age was lowered.
- Kathy September 11, 2008 4:15PM
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