A bunch of college presidents want to lower the drinking age. One can make that case, but why would college presidents make it? Drinking and underage drinking are huge problems on college campuses, part of the climate of debauchery that rules at most of our institutions of higher education. These presidents are saying that if the legal drinking age were lowed to 18, that would somehow help them deal with binge drinking. That is hugely naive. College students tend to drink, not so much to make the heart glad, but precisely in order to get drunk. Later, they might develop a more mature use of alcohol, but 18 year olds at fraternity parties will not.
Fighting drinking with more drinking
August 21st, 2008 | Education, Law | 
Email This Post
| 
Print This Post
I have mixed feelings with lowering the drinking age but in response to Dr Veith’s question. I wonder is it really about liability issues. If a underage drinker does something stupid while on campus is the school somehow legally responsible? Do they end up spending money settling the matter. Perhaps this is a bit cynical but stranger things have been done.
My views on this are unpopular with almost everyone. I think the rational thing is to lower the drinking age to either 16 or 14 when the youth is still legally under the supervision of parents. But at the same time raising the driving age to 18 or legal adulthood. I think this could very well combat the cultural promotion of binge drinking if approached in a level-headed rational and very careful way.
I think Veith is right that this proposal sure sounds more than a bit strange coming from a group of college presidents, though.
I have heard that in Australia and the Netherlands (not independently checked by me), that the drinking age is 16, but the driving age is 18. I believe that such a system would be far superior to what we have now. People should learn their tolerances for alcohol before they can get behind the wheel of a car.
I also have an instinctive negative reaction to inconsistent paternalism from the government. We now have numerous ages of majority some of which are set for political, not logical, reasons.
For example, for most things (voting, entering into contracts, getting a credit card, joining the military, sexual consent) the age of majority is 18. For child support, majority comes at the end of high school or 19, which ever arrives first. For drinking, the age is 21. In Wisconsin, the age of criminal responsibility (the age at which you are charged as an adult) is 16 for traffic laws and 17 for all other crimes; and this age can be decreased to as low as 10 if a court approves.
Why can a person make decisions that affect the direction of the country and his own safety at age 18, yet he can’t make decisions about whether he should have a drink until age 21? Why should a parent have the obligation to financially support someone who is a legal adult in most other respects until he is out of high school (unless the adult choses to drop out of high school, which he is legally entitled to do)? WHy should a person be expected to take adult responsibility for the decision to commit a crime at age 17, when we deny that such a person has sufficient judgment to be legally bound by any other decision? It doesn’t make sense.
I understood that this group (at least formally) was only asking for a debate on the issue.
I agree with Bryan on the drinking age issue – although I would just get rid of it all together. There really is no good reason to take this issue away from parents. I would like to see some data about alcohol use/abuse in countries with lower or no drinking age for comparison.
I agree with Kerner too!
I’m with Bryan here. My dad and mom basically ignored the 21 rule when I was at home, saying that I could drink as much as I wanted as long as I stayed at home and didn’t drive or use power tools or something like that.
They then stocked only execrable light beer, the kind that freezes at 0F and pops the cans open. So I had about one sip of liquor before I spent the summer in Germany, and after that, any desire I had to drink mass produced American beers was gone forever.
So let the parents teach about liquor, and enforce public drunkenness laws vigorously.
N-America just does not have a responsible drinking culture. In Italy, for instance, there is no minimum drinking age - but there, for the most part, wine is something you drink with a meal. Maybe the unhealthy attitude toward drinking, especially in the US, is a result of prohibition, and the preceding demonising of alcohol be generations of evangelistic types - especially Finney-ist revivalism. The pilgrims and many of that age had a very healthy attitude toward alcohol.
It is a great pity.
When drinking is allowed on a campus, fraternity parties, and college events that are officially sponsored by the university come back on the administration’s head. Some may remember the over the top scene from Van Wilder (Those darn midgets!), but at the college here in town, I remember having a frat shut down once. So the presidents have a stake in what goes on at, and even away from, the college. An 18 year old drinking age is a great way to cover their own butts.
Well, its nice to hear some support for this view for once. But in Utah, even many Lutherans frown fiercely when this view is shared (especially by a pastor). In the state of Utah, hell just may freeze over, before the ruling class (read Mormon elites) will give an inch on alcohol consumption. Teetotaling Mormons will never admit to what the Law actually does to people spiritually and physically - it kills! They are so confused because they must feel good about all their words of wisdom which they believe give them a ladder to salvation and godhood.
I assume similar feelings toward alcohol in the South would greatly inhibit the use of reason in these matters.
By the way, Joe, I would also be for removing drinking age laws altogether, but I figure you gotta start somewhere.
I think good drinking habits and even the temptation of overconsumption could be dealt with at a much younger age, before we begin asking people to make adult decisions and take responsibility for them. Binge drinking, alcoholism, and irresponsible prolonged adolescence are all encouraged and promoted by current law and many lives are needlessly ruined.
I would like to hear someone from MADD work to reasonably debate here on current drinking laws. They would be a powerful ally in these matters.
Again, changing driving laws in order to get youths off the road, would be essential.
In Wisconsin parents have a great opportunity to take up this responsibility. It is not illegal for a minor to drink alcohol as long as they are in the presence of their parent or their of age spouse. Wis. Stat. Sec. 125.07. Many people do not know this but this means that you can lawfully introduce your child to alcohol when and how you want them to be introduced to it. I think we could help the drinking culture in Wisconsin by taking advantage of this and raising our kids to handle alcohol in an appropriate manner.
I think the Amethyst Initiative’s goals are good. What I got from their website was that the lowering of the limit would only be one piece and what needed to be in place was a whole society response to teens and drinking. They seem to be pushing for an educational campaign.
I, too, am in support of changing the drinking age to 18 or 19. I think by the age of 21, many “children” are long gone from the family home and parents aren’t as able to be aware of alcohol abuse. In our home, our kids have seen their parents enjoy small amounts of alcohol at meals or in the evenings. We even let them have a small taste now and then.
I don’t allow my 16 year old to drink yet, but I do allow my 19 year old to have a beer or glass of wine with us in our house if she will not be doing any driving the rest of the night. I hadn’t planned on doing this with either of my kids, but I changed my plans in preparation for my daughter’s trip to Europe last spring. There she was allowed to drink, with parental permission given to the tour guides (good Lutheran people I knew and trusted as her teachers for 4 years). She has handled it well, both in Europe and at home. I really expect little problem from her even as she heads off to the infamous town of Mankato (where there have been way too many deaths due to extreme consumption of alcohol by 21 year olds at the state university there.
My son’s situation will be different because he is an athlete and is prohibited to consume alcohol in season by the state’s high school athletics governing board. He will be allowed to have a beer or wine off-season, but I haven’t started this practice with him yet.
Don’t assume we take alcohol abuse lightly. One side of our family has severe alcoholic tendencies, so I have consciously chosen my strategies of learning to communicate rather than stuff your emotions, exploring other outlets for frustrations and learning how and when to use alcohol. This all happens in the home! It absolutely won’t happen by chance at college (or wherever a person is a full three years after graduating from high school).
First off I want to express unity with Bryan on this issue, as a fellow Utahn. I think that 21 is an absolute stupidity for a drinking age. And watching the commercials here, they claim that drinking before 26 somehow hampers the development of the brain. Tell that to Mozart, Einstein, …
But I don’t think that lowering the drinking age to 18 will cut down on Binge drinking, neither do I think it will increase it much. It will cut down on legal paper work, and government tyranny. I agree with veith that you tend to binge drink when you are younger. You mature a bit about it with age.
lowering it to sixteen or even 14 and encouraging parents to teach there kids responsible behavior regarding alcohol, would probably improve much concerning irresponsible behavior, driving and so on after drinking. But binge drinking will always be a problem. There will always be those who will choose to abuse alcohol.
I wouldn’t make any claims that such a change would necessarily lessen binge drinking, but nor would I claim that it would make binge drinking worse. And if, in fact, such a change could be predicted to have a net neutral impact, I’d be in favor of it just to make our society’s declaration of adulthood, as discussed above, more consistent and reasonable.
When I went to college, there were two types of parties: those thrown in an official capacity, and private parties. The official ones had wristbands and ID checks and were, all told, pretty sedate. Student servers would cut you off if you were obviously drunk, and campus security would be called if things got out of hand. I think they were even required to notify campus police that the party was taking place.
But, of course, those under 21 could not drink at such parties, so if they wanted to drink, they would go to the private parties, where there were no limitations on serving and things might well get out of hand.
I could see how lowering the drinking age to 18 might change the tendency of a person from drinking in unregulated, irresponsible, underground parties towards drinking in regulated, responsible, official parties. But there are a lot of factors at play.
And, of course, lowering the drinking age will in no way eliminate private parties or binge drinking. Some people will always want to drink to excess, and no law will change that.
To me, the more interesting question is the effect it would have on drunk driving. Again, my university, where most of the students lived on campus, allowed on-campus private parties and drinking in order (as I understand it) to discourage drinking and driving. They turned a blind eye to underage drinking, but then, I don’t recall any reported incidents of drunk driving, much less fatal ones.
I blogged about this:
http://tinyurl.com/6lzhbd
The short version is that I’m with Bryan (@2). Lower the drinking age to some teenage level so that parents can teach kids proper social behaviors regarding alcohol, rather than keep it illegal and therefore illicit and therefore appealing to 18-year olds.
The thing that strikes me about the discussion of this issue is that the notion that parents ought to be teaching kids normative social behaviors, and not colleges or fraternities, is nowhere to be found. I think the college presidents’ tackling of this issue is geared towards paving the way for colleges and universities to include training on proper social behavior re: alcohol just like they train on other kinds of social behaviors. And that’s a mixed bag.
Just a question–how does regular alcohol consumption affect the teenage brain, which is underdeveloped?
The parents must teach their children responsibility, but isn’t part of that teaching them to obey the laws of the land as well?
As a Lutheran, I am opposed to any attempts to revive Prohibition. The current drinking age simply encourages college students to become scofflaws, which is not a desirable character trait.
Farm kids still need to be able to drive during their high school years.
Studies have shown that the incidence of habitual drunkenness is highest among the parents of drunks and the parents of teetotalers. Children who grow up with parents who treat wine as dessert rather than as a drug, tend to view it as a food item. Those who grow up with parents who view it as a drug will view it -that- way, and are more likely to use it that way.
Bror, don’t you mean “choose to get drunk” rather than “abuse alcohol”? Abusing alcohol is serving champagne with a steak.
Anon,
and there will always be those who choose to serve perfectly good and decent wine out of dixie cups.
Leave your response!
Search
About the Blogger
Gene Edward Veith is the Provost and Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.
Lucas Cranach, self portrait c.1530.
About Lucas Cranach
Lucas Cranach was the great artist of the Reformation. He was a close friend of Martin Luther. He was a businessman, who first printed Luther's translation of the Bible; a politician, who served on the Wittenberg town council and served the city as its mayor; a chemist, who operated a pharmacy; a teacher, who trained a host of apprentice artists; a family-man, who helped arrange Luther's marriage with the two men serving as the godfathers of each other's children; and an active layman in his church, who gave his pastors important personal and material support. As a Christian who lived out his faith in his many different callings, Cranach thus embodies the Reformation doctrine of vocation, using the gifts God had given him in service to Christ and his neighbor in the church, the family, the workplace, and the culture. In the spirit of Lucas Cranach, this blog will discuss wide-ranging issues of Christianity and culture with a Lutheran twist.
Books on Vocation
Archives
Pages
Blogroll
Site Statistics
Recent Posts
Most Commented
Most Viewed
© Cranach: The Blog of Veith — Copyblogger theme design by Chris Pearson