Lower the legal drinking age back to 18

Once again, paternalism has gone too far

Colin Mullaney / Copy Editor / The USD Vista

The most common refrain about the drinking age is undoubtedly: “If 18-year-olds can vote and die for this country, then they should be allowed to drink a beer.” Although this argument is certainly reasonable, the rationale for lowering the drinking age to 18 is actually far deeper than it first appears and would have a wide variety of sociological benefits, besides simply restoring freedom and common sense. The current, standard drinking age of 21 is not only anti-constitutional but also hypocritical and counterproductive to its own professed goals of promoting public welfare and “safety.”
The drinking age being set to 21 is a very recent phenomenon, historically speaking, and it’s far from a settled argument. In the 1970s, the legal drinking age was determined by individual states, most of which set it at 18. Seniors in high school could buy drinks without any issues, and this was standard practice until the mid-1980s.

All of that changed when Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) emerged with concerns about the risk of young people drinking and driving. Lobbying Congress and President Ronald Reagan, MADD convinced politicians to withhold highway funding from states not compliant with their age-21 demands.

As Vox states, the “[pre-existing] Interstate Highway Act of 1956, became a way of bending the states to federal priorities… although it wasn’t technically a nation-wide drinking law, in effect it was.”

Despite his anti-government agenda, President Reagan joined MADD’s cause.

“I’ve decided to support legislation to withhold five percent of a state’s highway funds if it does not enact the 21-year-old drinking age,” Reagan said. “Some may feel that my decision is at odds with my philosophical viewpoint that state problems should involve state solutions… there are some special cases in which overwhelming need can be dealt with by prudent and limited federal action.”

Reagan said it himself. He was being a hypocrite.

No matter how well-intentioned these mothers were, their methodology was undemocratic and authoritarian. Instead of generating grass-roots support with their “stellar” arguments, MADD bypassed state legislatures and the American people by lobbying Congress and the President directly. And instead of raising the drinking age to 21 through the proper, legal process — amendments and legislation at the state level — MADD convinced federal politicians to strongarm the states into obedience. For this reason, “Mothers Against Drunk Drivers” would have been more aptly named “Mothers Against the Tenth Amendment” instead.

This overzealous, interventionist policy started decades before ridesharing services became widely available, which largely mitigated the problem of drunk drivers on the roads today. Even MADD themselves conducted a survey in 2015 and found that “78% of respondents agree that their friends are less likely to drive drunk if rideshare is available, and 93% of respondents recommend ridesharing to friends instead of driving after drinking.”

Given these numbers, younger generations today clearly view drunk driving seriously and usually would not partake. Because of public action campaigns during Gen Z’s childhood, like “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” and “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” as well as the emergence of ridesharing technology, maintaining the drinking age at 21 is not actually necessary at this point. It is only a punishment, with socially adverse consequences.

Author and social commentator Camille Paglia believes that the drinking age of 21 is not only a hypocritical violation of our freedoms and constitutional rights, but it is also responsible for a whole host of sociological issues. According to Paglia, the ages of 18-21 are three, very formative years in which young adults could be partying in socially regulated, public settings like bars instead of private residences and frat houses in relative “secret,” where safety and regulation are essentially absent.

“In my period [during the 1960s and 70s] — you could go to a bar and a restaurant [at 18] and hang around with young men in an adult environment, a safe environment. You could drink a cheap glass of beer, learn how to converse, learn how to flirt and so on, without any consequences. Now, with this stupid law passed— an utterly repressive, tyrannical law — you get the binge [drinking], keg parties at fraternities. Completely removed from any kind of adult or sophisticated setting, no conversation possible in the din going on. People getting fall-down drunk, and all kinds of boorish behavior going on,” stated Paglia.

Young adults who have not been encouraged to find their personal limit of intoxication in an established, public environment are instead required to figure this out at parties that promulgate binge drinking until the point of blackout or memory loss. It has the potential to put young adults in a more vulnerable situation.

As far as putting young adults in risky situations, the drinking age of 21 also encourages young adults to get fake IDs in order to purchase alcohol, which could land them in serious legal trouble or jail. Getting a fake ID as an American teenager today is not only a rite of passage, but something expected by peers in order to thrive socially, epitomized with the film “Superbad” and the character Fogell’s alter-ego: “McLovin.”

A 2007 study in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors found that nearly one-third of college students own a fake ID by their fourth semester, and 66% report having used a fake ID within the last year. Nowadays, a 21-year-old’s birthday is less about having their first drink than it is about saying goodbye to their beloved fake ID.

The age 21 “solution” is an overbearing, heavy-handed approach, far worse than the actual problem itself: a clear indication that paternalism has struck yet again. While paternalism and helicopter parenting have run rampant through society in recent decades, alcohol is perhaps the prime example of older adults imposing arbitrary restrictions on youth that are not only nonsensical, but completely counterproductive to their professed aim. It’s no secret that underage adults drink. However, banning the sale of alcohol to 18-21-year-olds only ensures that these activities go underground, where they are even more difficult to regulate and often require young adults to put themselves in far riskier situations than they would be just drinking at bars and ridesharing home.