drinking age should be raised to 21 essay

Should the Legal Drinking Age be increased to 21?

Readers Question: Evaluate the case for raising the legal drinking age to 21. Will it be more effective than other methods for reducing the harmful effects of alcohol? 

There are several reasons to be concerned about the over-consumption of alcohol, especially amongst young people. In the UK, abuse of alcohol has contributed to several social, economic and health problems, including:

• Alcohol-related accidents.
• Health problems
• Alcohol addiction is a major cause of family breakdown.
• According to a report , “Health First: An evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK”. “The personal, social and economic cost of alcohol has been estimated to be up to £55bn per year for England and £7.5bn for Scotland,”
• Research carried out by Sheffield University for the government shows a 45p minimum price would reduce the consumption of alcohol by 4.3%, leading to 2,000 fewer deaths and 66,000 hospital admissions after 10 years. Researchers also claim the number of crimes would drop by 24,000 a year.

From an economic perspective, we say that alcohol is a demerit good .

• People may underestimate the personal costs of drinking alcohol to excess (especially amongst young people)
• There are external costs to society, e.g. costs of health care, costs of treating accidents, days lost from work. Therefore the social cost of alcohol is greater than the private cost.

These two factors give a justification for government intervention to deal with some issues related to alcohol.  Raising the legal drinking age could help reduce these personal and social costs because it is more difficult to purchase.

Arguments against raising the drinking age to 21

• At 18, people can vote and are considered adults, so we should allow them to have a personal decision on whether to consume alcohol.
• Alcohol in moderation isn’t necessarily harmful. Rather than a blanket ban, the government could focus on tackling binge drinking through making alcohol more expensive and tackling the drinking culture.
• Drinking alcohol is so embedded in the culture, raising the legal age to 21, will make the majority of young people break the law.
• It will encourage people to find ways to circumnavigate the law. Black market alcohol supplies, which may be harder to monitor.
• Arguably, there are better ways to deal with problems of alcohol.

Will raising the drinking age to 21 be effective?

Raising the drinking age to 21 will reduce consumption amongst young people because it will be harder to buy alcohol. Also, young people are the most likely group to misuse alcohol; e.g. drinking to excess, which causes accidents, death and health problems. If people start drinking later in life, they may be more likely to drink in moderation and not get addicted at an early age.

However, it will still be possible for young people to drink at home. People will find ways to avoid the legislation e.g. asking older people to buy alcohol for them. Nevertheless, it will be more difficult. For example, a 16-year-old may not be able to get away with drinking in a pub any more. If the age is 18, it is much easier for a 16 or 17-year-old to get away with drinking alcohol.

This policy doesn’t address the underlying problem of why people want to drink to excess. For that education may be a better solution; education could help to explain the dangers of excess drinking and therefore encourage young people to drink moderation. However, previous education policies have not seemed to be very effective. Young people don’t want to hear lectures from the government about the dangers of alcohol.

Other Solutions

Higher taxes increase the cost of alcohol and may have a significant effect in reducing demand amongst young people, who have lower disposable incomes.  If demand is reduced by say 20% this may reduce many of the problems of over-consumption. This policy also raises revenue for the government. But, on the other hand, it may increase the incentive to import low duty alcohol from abroad. Demand for alcohol may also be inelastic and not effective in stopping consumption.

• Tax on alcohol
• Minimum price for alcohol – pros and cons

In practice, there is very little that the government can do to change social and individual attitudes to alcohol, which is the root cause of most alcohol abuse.

In the US the legal drinking age is 21. They still have many alcohol-related problems, but, it is significantly more difficult for young people to regularly drink alcohol.

What do you think – should alcohol be illegal for under 21s?

91 thoughts on “Should the Legal Drinking Age be increased to 21?”

Personally I think the legal drinking age should be raised to 20 and encourage awareness at younger ages towards responsible drinking toward drinking at a party among people you know, at a pub with a way home, in your own home, but not at work, or in a car, in the open and watching how you mix your drinks. To drink responsibly you have to be responsible for yourself. I think 20 will just give people more time to mature before they make choice like if and when to drink.

I agree with your opinion!

Hi economicshelp.org,

Yes I agree with you that legal drinking age should be up by 21. Because many teens right now are struggling in alcohol addiction regards.

Dont take nothing up to any age… leave things be… we too young to be worrying about anything

Im a 16 year old who loves a good time. Partying is in my genes and so ill admit I sometimes enjoy a glass of rose at home with my mum. I don’t think there is anythig wrong with this as it only gets me tipsy *wink wink* I would argue that the drinking age should be reduced! Keep on partying ya’ll! Quinn out!

Comments are closed.

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It seems like conventional wisdom: The drinking age should be 18. After all, why should you be able to vote or serve your country in the military, but not legally buy a drink?

But there's a very compelling case for keeping the drinking age at 21: It saves lives. That may be hard to believe, given how many people flout the laws and drink anyway, but it's been consistently found to be true in research.

Saving lives from alcohol has serious public health benefits. About  88,000 Americans died on average each year from alcohol-related causes from 2006 to 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . And that estimate doesn't account for the rise in alcohol-related deaths over the past several years, or the alcohol-linked crimes and millions of emergency room visits each year that don't result in deaths.

It's important to note a minimum drinking age of 21 doesn't prevent all drinking among teenagers and 20-year-olds. But it deters some drinking, and that has public health benefits.

The drinking age saves lives

At its heart, the drinking age is supposed to stop people from drinking until they're responsible adults. And the research shows it works — to some extent.

"The evidence is overwhelming [that] raising the age reduces consumption," said Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia professor of health and law. "Even though consumption remains significant among the younger population and increases as people get older, it's still lower than it would be if you lowered the age to 18."

A 2014 review of the research published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs bore this out: Although many young people disobey the drinking age, the evidence shows that it has depressed drinking and saved lives.

The review found the drinking age saves at least hundreds of young lives annually just as a result of reduced alcohol-age-related traffic fatalities among underage drivers. The review pointed to one study after the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 21: It found that the number of fatally injured drivers with a positive blood alcohol concentration decreased by 57 percent among ages 16 to 20, compared with a 39 percent decrease for those 21 to 24 and 9 percent for those 25 and older. Other studies had similar positive findings.

Chances are the number of lives saved is higher, potentially in the thousands each year, when accounting for alcohol-related deaths beyond drunk driving, such as liver cirrhosis, other accidents, and violent behavior.

The review also pointed to New Zealand, which reduced its drinking age from 20 to 18 in 1999. The country saw significant increases in drinking among ages 18 to 19, bigger increases among those 16 to 17 years old, and a rise in alcohol-related crashes among 15- to 19-year-olds.

How the drinking age works

Critics of the drinking age commonly argue that it forces youth to drink in secret, which may lead to binge drinking as people stash booze to secretly consume all at once. But the 2014 review of the research found no evidence for this, and instead concluded that the national drinking age law reduced access to alcohol and consumption.

"The basic idea behind these laws is to reduce youth access to these substances," William DeJong, a professor at Boston University School of Health and a co-author of the research review, wrote in an email. "The evidence is clear that, the later a young person takes a first drink, the less likely they are to experience negative alcohol-related consequences as adults."

The law accomplishes this in two big ways. Obviously, it makes it harder to buy alcohol before 21. But it also breaks up social groups in a way that makes alcohol less accessible: If the drinking age were 18, someone who is a freshman or sophomore in high school is much more likely to have access to an 18-year-old senior in high school. But if the drinking age is 21, a freshman or sophomore in high school is not going to have as easy of access to a 21-year-old who's likely working or in college.

The second effect — the breaking up of social groups — also explains why a drinking age beyond 21 might not be very effective. Since 21-year-olds are likely to have access to 25-year-olds through their jobs and college, they could still easily access booze even if the drinking age was raised to, for example, 25. So the negative effects of raising the drinking age to 25 — the economic impact, costs of enforcement, and deterioration of personal freedoms — might not be worth the few lives saved.

These principles apply to other substances, as well. A 2015 report from the Institute of Medicine, which Bonnie of the University of Virginia contributed to, found raising the smoking age to 21 could prevent approximately 223,000 premature deaths among Americans born between 2000 and 2019. Why? Older friends and family "are largely where young people get their tobacco," Bonnie said. "If you raise [the smoking age] to 21, over time we think that's going to have a significant effect on separating these social networks."

So the laws may not be perfect, and they may be disobeyed at times. But the overall evidence is clear: A drinking age of 21 reduces use and saves lives.

Other policies can help reduce alcohol consumption

The drinking age, however, should be just one part of a broader array of policies that help reduce alcohol abuse and deaths.

Many, many studies, for example, have found benefits from a higher alcohol tax. A recent review of the research from David Roodman, senior adviser for the Open Philanthropy Project, made the case:

[H]igher prices do correlate with less drinking and lower incidence of problems such as cirrhosis deaths. And I see little reason to doubt the obvious explanation: higher prices cause less drinking. A rough rule of thumb is that each 1 percent increase in alcohol price reduces drinking by 0.5 percent. Extrapolating from some of the most powerful studies, I estimate an even larger impact on the death rate from alcohol-caused diseases: 1-3 percent within months. By extension, a 10 percent price increase would cut the death rate 9-25 percent. For the US in 2010, this represents 2,000-6,000 averted deaths/year.

This wasn't the first positive finding in favor of raising the alcohol tax, but it was one of the most convincing. Roodman found not just that high-quality research supports a higher alcohol tax, but that the effects seem to grow stronger the higher the tax is.

So for the US, boosting alcohol prices 10 percent could save as many as 6,000 lives each year. To put that in context, paying about 50 cents more for a six-pack of Bud Light could save thousands of lives. And this is a conservative estimate, since it only counts alcohol-related liver cirrhosis deaths — the number of lives saved would be higher if it accounted for deaths due to alcohol-related violence and car crashes.

Aside from raising taxes, a 2014 report from the RAND Drug Policy Research Center suggested state-run shops (like those in Ohio and Virginia) kept prices higher, cut access to youth, and reduced overall levels of use. And a 2013 study from RAND of South Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program , which briefly jails people whose drinking has repeatedly gotten them in trouble with the law (like a DUI) if they fail a twice-a-day alcohol blood test, attributed a 12 percent reduction in repeat DUI arrests and a 9 percent reduction in domestic violence arrests at the county level to the program.

Like the drinking age, these policies won't eliminate problematic drinking. But coupled with the drinking age, they can help — and potentially save tens of thousands of lives in the process.

Watch: Alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana

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Age 21 Minimum Legal Drinking Age

A minimum legal drinking age (mlda) of 21 saves lives and protects health.

Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) laws specify the legal age when an individual can purchase alcoholic beverages. The MLDA in the United States is 21 years.  However, prior to the enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, the legal age when alcohol could be purchased varied from state to state. 1

An age 21 MLDA is recommended by the:

• American Academy of Pediatrics 2 • Community Preventive Services Task Force 4 • Mothers Against Drunk Driving 5 • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 1 • National Prevention Council 8 • National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine) 9

The age 21 MLDA saves lives and improves health. 3

Fewer motor vehicle crashes

• States that increased the legal drinking age to 21 saw a 16% median decline in motor vehicle crashes. 6

Decreased drinking

• After all states adopted an age 21 MLDA, drinking during the previous month among persons aged 18 to 20 years declined from 59% in 1985 to 40% in 1991. 7
• Drinking among people aged 21 to 25 also declined significantly when states adopted the age 21 MLDA, from 70% in 1985 to 56% in 1991. 7

Other outcomes

• There is also evidence that the age 21 MLDA protects drinkers from alcohol and other drug dependence, adverse birth outcomes, and suicide and homicide. 4

Drinking by those under the age 21 is a public health problem.

• Excessive drinking contributes to about 4,000 deaths among people below the age of 21 in the U.S. each year. 10
• Underage drinking cost the U.S. economy $24 billion in 2010. 11

Drinking by those below the age of 21 is also strongly linked with 9,12,13 :

• Death from alcohol poisoning.
• Unintentional injuries, such as car crashes,  falls, burns, and drowning.
• Suicide and violence, such as fighting and sexual assault.
• Changes in brain development.
• School performance problems, such as higher absenteeism and poor or failing grades.
• Alcohol dependence later in life.
• Other risk behaviors such as smoking, drug misuse, and risky sexual behaviors.

Alcohol-impaired driving

Drinking by those below the age of 21 is strongly associated with alcohol-impaired driving. The 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey 14  found that among high school students, during the past 30 days

• 5% drove after drinking alcohol.
• 14% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.

Rates of drinking and binge drinking among those under 21

The 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System found that among high school students, 23% drank alcohol and 11% binge drank during the past 30 days. 14

In 2021, the Monitoring the Future Survey reported that 6% of 8th graders and 28% of 12th graders drank alcohol during the past 30 days, and 2% of 8th graders and 13% of 12th graders binge drank during the past 2 weeks. 15

In 2014, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the New York State Liquor Authority found that more than half (58%) of the licensed alcohol retailers in the City sold alcohol to underage decoys. 17

Enforcing the age 21 MLDA

Communities can enhance the effectiveness of age 21 MLDA laws by actively enforcing them.

• A Community Guide review found that enhanced enforcement of laws prohibiting alcohol sales to minors reduced the ability of youthful-looking decoys to purchase alcoholic beverages by a median of 42%. 16
• Alcohol sales to minors are still a common problem in communities.

More information on underage drinking

• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Determine Why There Are Fewer Young Alcohol Impaired Drivers External . Washington, DC. 2001.
• Committee on Substance Abuse, Kokotailo PK.  Alcohol use by youth and adolescents: a pediatric concern External .  Pediatrics . 2010;125(5):1078-1087.
• DeJong W, Blanchette J.  Case closed: research evidence on the positive public health impact of the age 21 minimum legal drinking age in the United States External .  J Stud Alcohol Drugs . 2014;75 Suppl 17:108-115.
• Task Force on Community Preventive Services.  Recommendations to reduce injuries to motor vehicle occupants: increasing child safety seat use, increasing safety belt use, and reducing alcohol-impaired driving Cdc-pdf External  [PDF-78 KB].  Am J Prev Med . 2001;21(4 Suppl):16-22.
• Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Why 21? 2018;  https://www.madd.org/the-solution/teen-drinking-prevention/why-21/ External . Accessed May 3, 2018.
• Shults RA, Elder RW, Sleet DA, et al.  Reviews of evidence regarding interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving Cdc-pdf External  [PDF-2 MB].  Am J Prev Med . 2001;21(4 Suppl):66-88.
• Serdula MK, Brewer RD, Gillespie C, Denny CH, Mokdad A.  Trends in alcohol use and binge drinking, 1985-1999: results of a multi-state survey External .  Am J Prev Med . 2004;26(4):294-298
• National Prevention Council. National Prevention Strategy: Preventing Drug Abuse and Excessive Alcohol Use  [PDF-4.7MB]. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General; 2011.
• Bonnie RJ and O’Connell ME, editors. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.  Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility External . Committee on Developing a Strategy to Reduce and Prevent Underage Drinking. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2004.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Alcohol-Related Disease Impact (ARDI) Application website . Accessed February 29, 2024.
• Sacks JJ, Gonzales KR, Bouchery EE, Tomedi LE, Brewer RD.  2010 national and state costs of excessive alcohol consumption External .  Am J Prev Med . 2015;49(5):e73-79.
• Miller JW, Naimi TS, Brewer RD, Jones SE.  Binge drinking and associated health risk behaviors among high school students External .  Pediatrics . 2007;119(1):76-85.
• Department of Health and Human Services. The Surgeon General’s call to action to prevent and reduce underage drinking External . Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General;2007.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data . Accessed on September 13, 2023.
• Johnston LD, Miech RA, O’Malley PM, Bachman JG, Schulenberg JE, Patrick ME. Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2021: Overview, key findings on adolescent drug use external icon . Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan; 2023.
• Elder R, Lawrence B, Janes G, et al.  Enhanced enforcement of laws prohibiting sale of alcohol to minors: systematic review of effectiveness for reducing sales and underage drinking External  [PDF-4MB].  Transportation Research E-Circular . 2007;E-C123:181-188.
• The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Alcohol & Health website . Accessed October 18, 2016.

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Raising the Drinking Age to 25: What Are the Pros and Cons?

• Medically Reviewed by David Szarka, MA, LCADC

There’s been an ongoing debate about the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) in the U.S. since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed in 1984. The federal law requires people be 21 years old to buy or possess alcohol . Some people feel that requiring people to be 21 to drink just makes underage drinking more of a problem and doesn’t align with other minimum age restrictions like joining the military or owning a gun. On the other side of the debate, people argue that young adults are less likely to drink responsibly, and that alcohol can damage the still-developing human brain. Some proponents of drinking age limits feel that the U.S. should raise the drinking age even higher — to 25.

Pros of Raising the Drinking Age to 25

Some people believe raising the legal drinking age to 25 is imperative because of considerations like emotional and physical maturity. They also say the minimum drinking age saves lives by reducing the risk of danger to oneself and others. Here are a few reasons why they believe the legal drinking age should be raised to 25:

Protects Brain Development

Much research has shown the damaging effects of alcohol on brain development in teens and young adults. The brain is still undergoing crucial developments until age 25, and some scientists have found evidence that it keeps developing until as late as age 30. Young adult and teen drinking can interfere with brain development, causing long-term consequences like :

• Damage to the hippocampus resulting in issues with memory and learning.
• Damage the prefrontal cortex, which can impair judgement and impulsivity in adulthood.
• Damage to the brain’s white matter, negatively impacting brain cells’ communication with each other.
• Greater risk for conditions like mood disorders, ADHD, PTSD, and other mental health challenges.

Prevents Drunk Driving Fatalities

There is a strong correlation between drunk driving and youth. Data shows that since the drinking age was raised to 21, there has been a significant decrease in alcohol-related car accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that raising the drinking age to 21 saved 31,959 lives between 1975 and 2017. Furthermore, some research has shown that people aged 21-25 are the most likely age group to drive after drinking alcohol.

Decreases Underage Drinking

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), after the drinking age was raised to 21, alcohol consumption in people aged 18 to 20 decreased from 59% to 40% in the six years following the change. Drinking also decreased from 70% to 56% during the same period in people aged 21 to 25.

Lowers Addiction Risk

Some research suggests that around 90% of adults with substance use disorders drank as teens or young adults. Proponents argue that raising the drinking age can help stem the addiction epidemic in the U.S.

Cons of Raising the Drinking Age to 25

People who don’t think the drinking age should be raised and should potentially be lowered feel this way for a number of reasons. Some believe it’s a form of ageism, actually encourages underage drinking, and may put lives at risk because underage drinkers may be worried about reporting emergencies.

Raises the Thrill of Underage Drinking

Having a rebellious streak is part of the teenage years and sometimes continues into young adulthood. Youth are trying to develop their sense of self, and this often means pulling away from parents and questioning other authority figures. It’s a normal part of growing up. The parts of the brain responsible for impulsivity and decision-making are still under construction. This combination can fuel underage drinking. Critics of raising the drinking age argue that this change will just extend that “thrill” of asserting your independence against authority for a longer period given that we know that the brain continues developing well into the 20s.

Discourages People to Get Help in Emergencies

Some people believe lowering the drinking age can prevent medical emergencies and dangerous situations from becoming worse or deadly. They maintain that people who are drinking illegally may not call 911 if a friend is in trouble or an accident has happened because of drinking for fear of getting in trouble with the law or with their families. Many may not know that most states have laws in place that protect them from legal ramifications if they report an emergency.

Doesn’t Align With Other Age Restrictions

The United States is one of a handful of countries with a drinking age of 21. Proponents of keeping the drinking age at 21 or lowering the drinking age even more argue that European countries don’t have the same underage drinking problems as the U.S. They say that because people can drink legally at a younger age, it takes the allure of “breaking the rules” through alcohol consumption and so less youth drink. However, recent data shows that this is simply not the case. Around 50% of European countries have higher intoxication rates among teens and young adults, and also have similar binge drinking patterns.

Proponents of keeping drinking age limits at 21 or lowering the drinking age say that the law is counterintuitive to other minimum age laws. They point to the fact that people can own a gun, join the military, vote, and be convicted of a crime as an adult at age 18, so not allowing people to drink until age 21 is a form of ageism.

The Truth About Alcohol

Whatever side you’re on in the debate about minimum drinking age, the truth is that alcohol can be dangerous and deadly at any age. When alcohol use progresses to alcohol addiction it takes over your life. If you’re worried about your drinking or that of a loved one, reach out to Footprints to Recovery. We provided evidence-based substance abuse treatment that will help you take back your life.

• https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/the-1984-national-minimum-drinking-age-act
• https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00298/full
• https://www.menshealth.com/health/a26868313/when-does-your-brain-fully-mature/
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7183385/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24565317/
• https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812753
• https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/report_2688/ShortReport-2688.html
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22525104/
• https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/minimum-legal-drinking-age.htm
• https://www.mdt.mt.gov/visionzero/docs/taskforces/ojjdp_feb01.pdf

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The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health

In summer 2008, more than 100 college presidents and other higher education officials signed the Amethyst Initiative, which calls for a reexamination of the minimum legal drinking age in the United States. The current age-21 limit in the United States is higher than in Canada (18 or 19, depending on the province), Mexico (18), and most western European countries (typically 16 or 18). A central argument of the Amethyst Initiative is that the U.S. minimum legal drinking age policy results in more dangerous drinking than would occur if the legal drinking age were lower. A companion organization called Choose Responsibility—led in part by Amethyst Initiative founder John McCardell, former Middlebury College president—explicitly proposes “a series of changes that will allow 18–20 year-olds to purchase, possess and consume alcoholic beverages” (see 〈 http://www.choose responsibility.org/proposal/ 〉).

Fueled in part by the high-profile national media attention garnered by the Amethyst Initiative and Choose Responsibility, activists and policymakers in several states, including Kentucky, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Missouri, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Vermont, have put forth various legislative proposals to lower their state's drinking age from 21 to 18, though no state has adopted a lower minimum legal drinking age yet.

Does the age-21 drinking limit in the United States reduce alcohol consumption by young adults and its harms, or as the signatories of the Amethyst Initiative contend, is it “not working”? Alcohol consumption and its harms are extremely common among young adults. According to results from the 2006–2007 National Health Interview Survey, adults age 18–25 report that on average they drank on 36 days in the previous year and typically consumed 5.1 drinks on the days they drank. If consumed at a single sitting, five drinks meets the clinical definition of “binge” or “heavy episodic” drinking. This consumption contributes to a substantial public health problem: five drinks for a 160-pound man with a limited time between drinks leads to a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.12 percent and results in moderate to severe impairments in coordination, concentration, reflexes, reaction time, depth perception, and peripheral vision. For comparison, the legal limit for driving in the United States is generally 0.08 percent blood alcohol content. Not surprisingly, motor vehicle accidents (the leading cause of death and injury in this age group), homicides, suicides, falls, and other accidents are all strongly associated with alcohol consumption ( Bonnie and O'Connell, 2004 ). Because around 80 percent of deaths among young adults are due to these “external” causes (as opposed to cancer, infectious disease, or other “internal” causes), policies that change the ways in and extent to which young people consume alcohol have the potential to affect the mortality rate of this population substantially.

In this paper, we summarize a large and compelling body of empirical evidence which shows that one of the central claims of the signatories of the Amethyst Initiative is incorrect: setting the minimum legal drinking age at 21 clearly reduces alcohol consumption and its major harms. However, this finding alone is not a sufficient justification for the current minimum legal drinking age, in part because it does not take into account the benefits of alcohol consumption. To put it another way, it is likely that restricting the alcohol consumption of people in their late 20s (or even older) would also reduce alcohol-related harms at least modestly. However, given the much lower rate at which adults in this age group experience alcohol-related harms, their utility from drinking likely outweighs the associated costs. Thus, when considering at what age to set the minimum legal drinking age, we need to determine if the reduction in alcohol-related harms justifies the reduction in consumer surplus that results from preventing people from consuming alcohol.

We begin this paper by examining the case for government intervention targeting the alcohol consumption of young adults. We develop an analytic framework to identify the parameters that are required to compare candidate ages at which to set the minimum legal drinking age. Next, we discuss the challenges inherent in estimating the effects of the minimum legal drinking age and describe what we believe are the two most compelling approaches to address these challenges: a panel fixed-effects approach and a regression discontinuity approach. We present estimates of the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on mortality from these two designs, and we also discuss what is known about the relationship between the minimum legal drinking age and other adverse outcomes such as nonfatal injury and crime. We then document the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on alcohol consumption, which lets us estimate the costs of adverse alcohol-related events on a per-drink basis. Finally we return to the analytic framework and use it to determine what the empirical evidence suggests is the correct age at which to set the minimum legal drinking age.

Economic Economic Considerations for Determining the Optimal Minimum Legal Drinking Age

Alcohol consumption by young adults results in numerous harms including deaths, injuries, commission of crime, criminal victimization, risky sexual behavior, and reduced workforce productivity. A substantial portion of these harms are either directly imposed on other individuals (as is the case with crime) or largely transferred to society as a whole through insurance markets as is the case with injuries ( Phelps, 1988 ). In addition, there is the theoretical possibility (supported by laboratory evidence) that youths may discount future utility too heavily, underestimate the future harm of their current behavior, and/or mispredict how they will feel about their choices in the future ( O'Donoghue and Rabin, 2001 ). If this is the case, even risks that are borne directly by the drinker are not being fully taken into account when an individual is deciding how much alcohol to consume. Given that young adults are imposing costs on others and probably not fully taking into account their own cost of alcohol consumption, there is a case for government intervention targeting their alcohol consumption. The minimum legal drinking age represents one approach to reducing drinking by young adults. 1

Determining the optimal age at which to set the minimum legal drinking age requires estimates of the loss in consumer surplus that results from reducing peoples' alcohol consumption. It also requires estimating the benefits to the drinker and to others from reducing alcohol-related harms. Unfortunately, it is not possible to obtain credible estimates of these key parameters at every point in the age distribution. First, there are no credible estimates of the effects of drinking ages lower than 18 or higher than 21 because the minimum legal drinking age has not been set outside this range in a signififi cant portion of the United States since the 1930s, and the countries with current drinking ages outside this range look very different from the United States. In fact, as we describe in detail in the next section, even estimating the effects on adverse outcomes of a drinking age in the 18 to 21 range is challenging. Second, we lack good ways to estimate the consumer surplus loss that results from restricting drinking, a problem that has characterized the entire literature on optimal alcohol control and taxation (see Gruber, 2001 , for a general discussion).

Thus, rather than try to estimate the optimal age at which to set the minimum legal drinking age, we focus on an analysis that is more feasible and useful from a policy perspective. The drinking age in the United States is currently 21, and there is no push to raise it. If it is lowered, there are many reasons to believe it will most likely be lowered to 18. First, the primary effort by activists for a lower drinking age is to lower the age to 18, either on its own or in conjunction with other alcoholcontrol initiatives such as education programs. In fact, 18 was the most commonly chosen age among the states that adopted lower minimum legal drinking ages in the 1970s. Second, 18 is the age of majority for other important activities such as voting, military service, and serving on juries, thus making it a natural focal point (though notably many states set different minimum ages for a variety of other activities such as driving, consenting to sexual activity, gambling, and purchasing handguns). Finally, many other countries have set their minimum legal drinking age at 18.

Because a change in the drinking age is likely to involve lowering it from 21 to 18, we focus on estimating the effect of lowering the drinking age by this amount on alcohol consumption, costs borne by the drinker, and costs borne by other people. Alcohol consumption can result in harms through many different channels. The effects of age-based drinking restrictions on long-term harms are very hard to estimate so we focus on the major acute harms that result from alcohol consumption including: deaths, nonfatal injuries, and crime. We pay particular attention to the effect of the drinking age on mortality because mortality is well-measured, has been the outcome focused on by much of the previous research on this topic, and is arguably the most costly of alcohol-related harms. To avoid the difficulty of trying to estimate the increase in consumer surplus that results from allowing people to drink, we estimate how much drinking is likely to increase if the drinking age is lowered from 21 to 18 and compare this to the likely increase in harms to the drinker and to other people. This allows us to characterize the harms in terms of dollars per drink. Since we are missing some of the acute harms and all of the long-term harms of alcohol consumption, the estimates we present in this paper are lower bounds of the costs associated with each drink.

Adding how much the drinker paid for the drink to the cost per drink borne by the drinker yields a lower bound on how much a person would have to value the drink for its consumption to be the result of a fully informed and rational choice. The per-drink cost borne by people other than the drinker provides a lower bound on the externality cost. If the externality cost is large or if the total cost of a drink (costs imposed on others plus costs the drinker bears privately plus the the price of the drink itself) is larger than what we believe the value of the drink is to the person consuming it, then this would suggest that the higher drinking age is justified.

The Evaluation Problem in the Context of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age

Determining how the minimum legal drinking age affects alcohol consumption and its adverse consequences is challenging. An extensive public health literature documents the strong correlation between alcohol consumption and adverse events, but estimates from these studies are of limited value for determining whether the minimum legal drinking age should be set at 18, 21, or some other age. Their main limitation is that the correlation between alcohol consumption and adverse events is probably due in part to factors other than alcohol consumption, such as variation across individuals in their tolerance for risk. People with a high tolerance for risk may be more likely both to drink heavily and to put themselves in danger in other ways, such as driving recklessly, even when they are sober. If this is the case, then predictions based on these correlations of how much public policy might reduce the harms of alcohol consumption will be biased upwards. Moreover, estimates of the average relationship between alcohol consumption and harms in the population may not be informative about the effects of the minimum legal drinking age, which probably disproportionately reduces drinking among the most law-abiding members of the population. This suggests that direct estimates of the effect of the drinking age on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms are needed if we are to compare the effects of different drinking ages.

Estimating the effects of the minimum legal drinking age requires comparing the alcohol consumption patterns and adverse event rates of young adults subject to the law with a similar group of young adults not subject to it. Since all young adults under age 21 in the United States are subject to the minimum legal drinking age, difficult to find a reasonable comparison group for this population. Because of cultural differences and different legal regimes, young adults in countries where the drinking age is lower than 21 are unlikely to constitute a good comparison group.

However, researchers working on this issue have identified two plausible comparison groups for 18 to 21 year-olds subject to the minimum legal drinking age. The first is composed of young people who were born just a few years earlier in the the same state (and who thus grew up in very similar circumstances) but who faced a lower legal drinking age due to changes in state drinking age policies. In the 1970s, 39 states lowered their minimum legal drinking age to 18, 19, or 20. These drinking age reductions were followed by increases in motor vehicle fatalities, which were documented by numerous researchers at the time (for a review, see Wagenaar and Toomey, 2002 ). This evidence led states to reconsider their decisions and encouraged aged Congress to adopt the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which required states to adopt a minimum drinking age of 21 or risk losing 10 percent of their federal highway funds. By 1990, every state had responded to the federal law by increasing its drinking age to 21. Thus, within the same state some youths were allowed to drink legally when they turned 18, while those born just a short time later had to wait until they turned 21. We use a fixed-effects panel approach to compare the alcohol consumption and adverse event rates of these two groups.

The second approach for identifying a credible comparison group is to consider a period when the minimum legal drinking age is 21 and compare people just under 21 who are still subject to the minimum legal drinking age with those just over 21 who can drink legally. These two groups of people are likely to be very similar, except that the slightly older group is not subject to the minimum legal drinking age. This approach is called a regression discontinuity design ( Thistlewaite and Campbell, 1960 ; Hahn, Todd, and Van der Klaauw, 2001 ). In the next two sections, we describe these two research designs in detail and how we use them to estimate the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on mortality.

Panel Estimates of the Effect of the Drinking Age on Mortality

The panel approach to estimating the effects of the minimum legal drinking age focuses on the changes in the drinking age that occurred in most states in the 1970s and 1980s. We begin by presenting graphical evidence in Figure 1 on the relationship between the drinking age and the incidence of fatal motor vehicle accidents. The data underlying the series in Figure 1 come from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System for 1975–1993 for the 39 states that lowered their drinking age during the 1970s and 1980s. In figure, we present the time series of deaths due to motor vehicle accidents among: 18–20 year-olds during nighttime (solid circles); 18–20 year-olds during daytime (dotted line with hollow squares); and 25–29 year-olds during nighttime (stars). The time series in the figure are centered on the month in which a state took its largest step towards raising its drinking age back to 21. The daytime/nighttime distinction is standard in the literature (for example, Ruhm, 1996 ; Dee, 1999 ) and is useful for understanding the effects of young adult alcohol consumption because the majority (67 percent) of fatal motor vehicle accidents occurring in the evening hours (defined here as between 8:00 p.m. and 5:59 a.m.) involve alcohol, while only about a quarter of fatal motor vehicle accidents occurring in the daytime hours involve alcohol.

Notes : This figure is estimated from the 39 states that lowered their drinking age to below 21 at some point in the 1970s or 1980s. A nighttime accident is one occurring between 8:00 p.m. and 5:59 a.m.; 67 percent of these accidents involved alcohol and 26 percent of daytime accidents involved alcohol. The figure is centered on the year a state took its largest step towards raising its drinking age back to 21.

We also plot the percent of 18–20 year-olds that can drink legally in the 39 states that experimented with a lower minimum legal drinking age. This line does not drop instantly from 100 to 0 percent because some states increased their drinking age from 18 to 19 and then from 19 to 21 a few years later, and other states allowed people who could drink legally when the drinking age was increased to continue drinking legally.

Figure 1 reveals that, in the seven years after the increase in the drinking age, there is a substantial reduction in deaths among 18–20 year-olds due to nighttime motor vehicle accidents and much smaller reductions in deaths of 18–20 year-olds due to daytime accidents and of 25–29 year-olds due to nighttime accidents. That the largest reduction in death rates occurs for the type of accident most likely to drop in response to an increase in the drinking age is consistent with the possibility that the increase in the drinking age reduced the motor vehicle fatality rates of 18–20 year-olds. However, the graphical evidence in favor of the hypothesis that increasing the drinking age reduced deaths is not fully compelling. First, the decline in deaths due to nighttime motor vehicle accidents among 18–20 year-olds is not as abrupt as the decline in the percent of this population that can drink legally. Second, as can be seen in the figure, the number of 18–20 year-olds that die in nighttime accidents was already declining before the drinking age was raised in most states. For this reason turn to a state-level panel data approach that allows us to adjust for trends and time-invariant differences across states and estimate the effect of the minimum legal drinking on mortality rates.

To obtain an estimate of the decline in mortality attributable to the drinking age, we implement a panel regression analysis of the following form:

where ( Y st ) is the number of motor vehicle fatalities per 100,000 person-years for one of four age groups: 15–17 year-olds, 18–20 year-olds (the group directly affected by changes in the drinking age), 21–24 year-olds, and 25–29 year-olds in state ( s ) in time period ( t ). For each age group, we separate daytime and nighttime motor vehicle fatality rates. As noted above, any effects of the minimum legal drinking age on motor vehicle fatalities should be primarily on evening accidents because they are much more likely to involve alcohol. The regressions include a dummy variable for each state (θ s ) to remove time-invariant differences between states and dummy variables for each year (μ t ) to absorb any atypical year-to-year variation. 2 In addition, the regression includes state-specific linear time trends (ψ st ). The inclusion of state-specific dummies in combination with the state-specific time trends mean that the regression will return estimates of how raising the drinking age changes the level of motor vehicle mortality in a typical state, while adjusting for any state-specific trends in outcomes that preceded the change in the drinking age. This approach lets us compare people born in the same state just a few years apart who became eligible to drink legally at different ages. The variable MLDA (an acronym derived from Minimum Legal Drinking Age) is the proportion of 18 to 20 year-olds that can legally drink beer in state s in time t , and the coefficient on this variable is our best estimate of the impact on mortality rates of lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. 3 The regressions are weighted by the age-specific state-year population, and the standard errors clustered on state are presented in brackets below the parameter estimates ( Bertrand, Duflo, and Mullainathan, 2004 ).

The estimates of the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on mortality for the subgroups described above are presented in Table 1 and are consistent with a large body of previous research showing that the minimum legal drinking age has economically significant effects on the motor vehicle mortality rates of young adults (for example, Dee, 1999 ; Lovenheim and Slemrod, 2010 ; Wagenaar and Toomey, 2002 ). Specifically, we find that going from a regime in which no 18–20 year-olds are legally allowed to drink to one in which all 18–20 year-olds are allowed to drink results in 4.74 more fatal motor vehicle accidents in the evening per 100,000 18–20 year-olds annually. Relative to the base death rate for this age and time of day, this is a 17 percent effect (4.74/28.1 = 0.17), and it is statistically significant. The associated point estimate for daytime fatalities (the majority of which do not involve alcohol) among 18–20 year-olds is much smaller, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of the daytime fatality rate, and it is not statistically significant. In addition, the changes in evening fatalities among 15–17 year-olds and 25–29 year-olds (whose behaviors should not be directly affected by the drinking age changes) are not statistically significant, though the 95 percent confidence intervals around the point estimates for these groups cannot rule out meaningfully large proportional effects relative to the low average death rates for individuals in these age groups. Overall, these patterns are consistent with a causal effect of easier alcohol access on motor vehicle fatalities among the 18–20 year-old young adults whose drinking behaviors were directly targeted by the laws. However, the rate of motor vehicle fatalities in the evening for 21–24 year-olds also changes when the minimum legal drinking age changes. While the proportional effect size for 21–24 year-olds (2.61/23.2 = 0.1125, or about 11 percent) is substantially smaller than for 18–20 year-olds (17 percent), this approach does not have sufficient statistical power to reject that the two estimates are equal. The apparent effect of the minimum legal drinking age on fatalities among 21–24 year-olds could reflect the effects of other unobserved anti-drunk driving campaigns that were correlated with drinking-age changes and targeted at young adults, or it may reflect spillovers, as members of these two groups are likely to socialize.

Panel Estimates of the Effect of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age on Motor Vehicle Fatalities (deaths per 100,000)

Source: The mortality rates are estimated using data from the Fatal Accident Reporting System 1975–1993.

Notes: For the regression results presented in this table, the top number is the point estimate and its standard error is directly below in brackets. All the regressions include year fixed effects, and state-specific time trends. The regressions are weighted by the age-specific state-year population. The dependent variable in each regression is the motor vehicle fatality rate per 100,000 person years for a particular age group and time of day. A nighttime accident is one occurring between 8:00 p.m. and 5:59 a.m.; 67 percent of these accidents involve alcohol and 26 percent of daytime accidents involve alcohol. The independent variable in each regression is the proportion of 18–20 year-olds who can drink legally. The "Average mortality rate" is that from motor vehicle accidents for each particular age group and time of day.

In Table 2 , we present estimates of the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on a more comprehensive set of causes of death. The mortality rates for this part of the analysis are estimated from the National Vital Statistics death certificate records. Since these records are a census of deaths and include substantial detail on the cause of death, it is possible to examine causes of death other than motor vehicle accidents. We present estimates of the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on all-cause mortality in Table 2 using the same fixed-effects specification as in Table 1 . Specifically, the dependent variable in each regression in the bold row of Table 2 is the death rate of 18–20 year-olds per 100,000 person-years estimated from the death certificate records. All models in Table 2 include state fixed effects, year fixed effects, and linear state-specific time trends. To increase the precision of the estimates, the regression are weighted by the size of the relevant population in that state and time period.

Panel Estimates of the Effect of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age on Mortality Rates (deaths per 100,000)

Notes: Each of the estimates presented above is from a separate regression, and its standard error is presented directly below it in brackets. The dependent variable in each regression is the mortality rate per 100,000 person years for a particular age group and cause of death. The independent variable of interest is the proportion of 18–20 year-olds that can drink legally. The regressions are weighted by the age-specific state-year population. All regressions have year fixed effects, state fixed effects, and state-specific time trends. The mortality rates are estimated from death certificate records for the 1975–1993 period. Deaths are categorized according to the primary cause of death on the death certificate.

The first estimate for all-cause mortality in Table 2 suggests that when all 18–20 year-olds are allowed to drink, there are 7.8 more deaths of 18–20 year-olds per 100,000 person-years (on a base of 113 deaths) than when no 18–20 year-olds are allowed to drink. This estimate is not statistically significant at conventional levels. Though the table reveals no evidence of a statistically significant increase in deaths due to internal causes (like cancer), it does reveal statistically significant increases in deaths due to motor vehicle accidents (4.15 more deaths on a base of 45.5 deaths, or a 4.15/45.5 = 0.091, or a 9.1 percent effect). This does not exactly match the estimate from Table 1 because the Vital Statistics records do not include the time of day when the accident occurred, so we are unable to split the rates based on the time of the accident as we did with the earlier data. 4 Table 2 also shows that increasing the share of young adults legal to drink leads to a statistically significant 10 percent increase in suicides (1.29/12.8 = 0.10), which is consistent with work by Birckmayer and Hemenway (1999) and Carpenter (2004b) . There is no evidence of statistically significant effects on the other causes of death for 18–20 year-olds. The lack of a discernable impact on deaths directly due to alcohol is surprising, though in this period deaths due to alcohol overdoses appear to have been significantly undercounted ( Hanzlick, 1988 ).

In the remainder of Table 2 , we present estimates of the relationship between the proportion of 18–20 year-olds that can drink legally and the mortality rates of three age groups: 15–17, 21–24, and 25–29 year-olds. Since the proportion of 18–20 year-olds that can drink should not directly affect these groups (except possibly through spillovers), these groups should experience at most modest increases in mortality rates. As can be seen in the table, with the exception of 21–24 year-olds there is no evidence of statistically significant changes in the mortality rates of the three age groups surrounding 18–20 year-olds. This suggests that the changes in mortality rates of 18–20 year-olds are probably not being driven by safety initiatives that may have been implemented at the same time the drinking age was increased as these would have affected the other age groups also. Overall, the patterns in Tables 1 and ​ and2 2 suggest that easing access to alcohol increases the overall death rate of 18–20 year-olds due to increases in two of the leading causes of death for this age group: motor vehicle accidents and suicides.

Regression Discontinuity Estimates of the Effect of the Drinking Age on Mortality

Our other main strategy for identifying a plausible comparison group for people subject to the minimum legal drinking age is to take advantage of the fact that the drinking age “turns off” suddenly when a person turns 21. People slightly younger than 21 are subject to the drinking age law while those slightly older than 21 are not, but otherwise the two groups have very similar characteristics. If nothing other than the legal regime changes discretely at age 21, then a discrete mortality rates at age 21 can plausibly be attributed to the drinking age.

Again, we begin with the graphical approach by presenting the age profile of mortality rates for 19–22 year-olds in Figure 2 . This figure is estimated using Vital Statistics mortality records from 1997–2003. The age profiles are death rates per 100,000 person-years for motor vehicle accidents (dark circles), suicides (cross hatches), and deaths due to internal causes (open squares), by month of age. A best-fit line for ages 19–20 shows a decreasing trend in motor vehicle fatalities. Similarly a best-fit line from age 21 to 22 shows a decreasing trend. However, the two trends show clear evidence of a discontinuity at age 21, when drinking alcohol becomes legal. The visual evidence of an effect of the minimum legal drinking age in the regression discontinuity setting in Figure 2 for motor vehicle accidents is notably stronger than the associated evidence from the annual time-series trends in Figure 1 . There is also evidence of an increase in deaths due to suicide at age 21. In contrast, as can be seen in Figure 2 , there is little evidence of a discontinuous change in deaths due to internal causes at the minimum legal drinking age of 21.

Notes : The death rates are estimated by combining the National Vital Statistics records with population estimates from the U.S. Census.

To estimate the size of the discrete jumps in the outcomes we observe in Figure 2 , we estimate the following regression:

where y is the age-specific mortality rate. MLDA is a dummy variable that takes on a value of 1 for observations 21 and older, and 0 otherwise. The regressions include a quadratic polynomial in age, f( age ), fully interacted with the MLDA dummy. This serves to adjust for age-related changes in outcomes and, as seen in Figure 2 , is sufficiently flexible to fit the age profile of death rates. The Birthday variable is a dummy variable for the month in which the decedent's 21 st birthday falls and is intended to absorb the pronounced effect of birthday celebrations on mortality rates. We have recentered the age variable to take the value zero at age 21. As a result the parameter of interest in this model is β 1 , which measures the size of the discrete increase in mortality that occurs when people turn 21 and are no longer subject to the minimum legal drinking age. The parameter β 1 has the same interpretation as the parameter α from the panel models: it is the effect of going from no one in a population being allowed to drink legally to everyone in a population being allowed to drink legally.

We present regression estimates of the paramete β 1 in Table 3 . The regressions are estimated using mortality rates for the 48 months between ages 19 and 22. As with the state-year panel evidence in Table 2 , we estimate the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on the overall death rate as well as deaths due to various causes. The results in Table 3 are consistent with the graphical evidence and reveal a statistically significant 8.7 percent increase in overall mortality when people turn 21 (8.06 additional deaths per 100,000 person-years from a base of 93.07 deaths corresponds to 8.06/93.07 = 0.087, or an 8.7 percent increase). 5 The increase in overall mortality at age 21 is almost entirely attributable to external causes of mortality. We estimate that deaths due to internal causes increase by just 3.3 percent at age 21 (0.66/20.07 = 0.033), and this estimate is not statistically significant. Among the various external causes of death, deaths due to suicide increase discretely by a statistically significant 20.3 percent at age 21 (2.37/11.7 = 0.203), and motor vehicle mortality rates increase by 12.2 percent (3.65/29.81 = 0.122). We find no statistically significant change in homicide deaths at age 21. Deaths coded as due to alcohol (including some non-vehicular accidents where alcohol is mentioned on the death certificate) increase by about 0.41 deaths at age 21 (a very large effect given the average death rate from alcohol overdose of just 0.99 per 100,000). Overall, the visual evidence in Figure 2 and the corresponding regression estimates in Table 3 provide persuasive evidence that the minimum legal drinking age has a significant effect on mortality from suicides, motor vehicle accidents, and alcohol overdoses at age 21.

Regression Discontinuity Estimates of the Effect of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age on Mortality Rates (deaths per 100,000)

Notes: In the table above, we present estimates of the discrete increase in mortality rates that occurs at age 21 with the associated standard error directly below in brackets. The regression estimates are from a second-order polynomial in age fully interacted with an indicator variable for being over age 21. All models also include an indicator variable for the month the 21 st birthday falls in. Since the age variable has been recentered at 21, the estimate of the parameter on the indicator variable for being over 21, which we present in the table, is a measure of the discrete increase in mortality rates that occurs after people turn 21 and can drink legally. The mortality rates are estimated from death certificates and are per 100,000 person-years. The fitted values from this regression are superimposed over the means in Figure 2 . The mortality rates presented below the standard errors are the rates for people just under 21. Deaths are catgorized slightly differently than for Table 2 . Whereas Table 2 focused on the primary cause of death listed on the death certificate, Table 3 considers all factors mentioned on the death certificate and imposes the following precedence order: homicide, suicide, motor vehicle accident, alcohol, other external, internal.

Effects of the Drinking Age on Nonfatal Injury and Crime

In addition to premature death, alcohol use has been implicated in other adverse events such as nonfatal injury and crime. 6 Surprisingly, however, there is very little research directly linking the minimum legal drinking age to nonfatal injury. This is due, in part, to the lack of precise age-specific measures of injury rates during the 1970s and 1980s, which makes it impossible to estimate the effects of the minimum legal drinking age with precision using the panel approach. In ongoing work, however, we have used the regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on nonfatal injury rates using administrative data on emergency department visits and inpatient hospital stays ( Carpenter and Dobkin, 2010a ). Although injuries have lower costs per adverse event than deaths, accidents resulting in a nonfatal injury are much more common than fatal accidents. We find that rates of emergency department visits and inpatient hospital stays increase significantly at age 21, by 408 and 77 per 100,000 person-years, respectively. These increases in nonfatal injuries are substantially larger than the increase in death rates of 8 per 100,000 person-years documented in Table 3 . However, estimating the discrete increase in adverse events at age 21 in percentage terms reveals that emergency department visits are increasing by 1 percent, hospital stays by 3 percent, and deaths by 9 percent. This pattern holds even when we restrict the analysis to motor vehicle-related injuries and fatalities, which suggests that alcohol plays a disproportionate role in more serious injuries.

Another costly adverse outcome commonly linked to alcohol is crime, including nuisance, property, and violent crime: we provide a review in Carpenter and Dobkin (forthcoming). Since the pharmacological profile of alcohol includes both disinhibition and increased aggression, a causal effect of minimum legal drinking ages on crime rates is plausible. Three studies have examined the effects of drinking ages on crime. Two have used the state-year panel approach described above to test whether more permissive drinking ages increased arrests for youths age 18–20. Using data from the Uniform Crime Reports, Joksch and Jones (1993) show that states that raised their minimum drinking age reduced nuisance crimes, such as vandalism and disorderly conduct, significantly over the period 1980–1987; these results are confirmed and replicated in fixed-effects models estimated in Carpenter (2005a) . More recently, we have applied the regression discontinuity design design to evaluate the relationship between alcohol access and crime ( Carpenter and and Dobkin, 2010b ). Using data encompassing the universe of arrests in California from 2000–2006, we found an 11 percent increase in arrest rates exactly at age 21. These effects were concentrated among nuisance crimes and violent crimes. Of the crimes for which we find a statistically significant effect, the two with the most substantial social costs are assault and robbery (larceny with force or threat of force) which increase by 63 and 8 arrests per 100,000 person-years, respectively.

Much of the literature on the minimum legal drinking age and the social costs of alcohol has focused on mortality. The evidence on other adverse outcomes suggests that an exclusive focus on mortality will lead one to substantially under-estimate the protective value of the minimum legal drinking age.

Effect of the Drinking Age on Alcohol Consumption

Estimating how a lower minimum legal drinking age would affect alcohol consumption is difficult. In addition to all of the challenges confronting researchers trying to estimate the effect of the drinking age on adverse event rates, there is an additional problem of data quality. While most adverse events are well-measured, alcohol consumption is not. Specifically, surveys of drinking do not generally include objective biological markers of alcohol consumption (such as blood alcohol concentration). Self-reported measures of drinking participation and intensity are subject to underreporting on the order of 40–60 percent ( Rehm, 1998 ). An additional issue is that, despite the usual confidentiality assurances given by survey administrators, 18–20 year-olds probably underreport alcohol consumption even more than the typical survey respondent because it is illegal for them to drink. 7

Recognizing these concerns, we nonetheless present estimates of the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on alcohol consumption from both the panel fixed-effects approach,and the regression discontinuity approach. For the fifi xed-effects approach, we focus on alcohol consumption reported by high school seniors age 18 and over who were surveyed in the Monitoring the Future study between 1976 and 1993. We use the same panel fixed-effects approach used to examine mortality rates with added controls for individual demographic characteristics such as race and gender. We examine three measures of alcohol consumption: whether the person drank at all in the past month, whether the person drank heavily in the past two weeks (defined as five or more drinks consumed at a single sitting), and the number of times the person drank in the last month. The effect of the minimum legal drinking age on these measures of alcohol consumption as estimated using a panel fixed-effects approach are presented in the first three columns of Table 4 . The relevant independent variable in each of the first three columns is the proportion 18–20 year-olds legal to drink in the state. The results indicate that allowing 18–20 year-olds drink increases drinking participation by 6.1 percentage points, heavy episodic drinking by 3.4 percentage points, and instances of past month drinking by 17.4 percent (0.94/5.4 = 0.174). These results are similar to previous estimates of the effect of the minimum legal drinking age that used these same data and a similar approach ( Dee, 1999 ; Carpenter, Kloska, O'Malley, and Johnston, 2007 ; Miron and Tetelbaum, 2009 ).

The Effect of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age on Alcohol Consumption

Notes: The independent variable of interest for the regression results presented in the first three columns is the proportion of 18–20 year-olds who can drink legally. These regressions are estimated using responses of high school seniors age 18 and older at the time they completed the Monitoring the Future survey. The regressions include state fixed effects, year fixed effects, state-specific time trends, and dummies for male, Hispanic, black, or other race. The regressions are estimated using a sample of 121,279 high school students from 1976–2003. The estimates in the last three columns are regression discontinuity estimates of the discrete increase in each drinking behavior that occurs after people turn 21. These are estimated using responses of 16,107 19–22 year-olds in the 1997–2005 National Health Interview Survey. These regressions include a quadratic polynomial in age interacted with a dummy for being over 21 at the time of the interview and the following covariates: indicator variables for census region, race, gender, health insurance, employment status, 21 st birthday, 21 st birthday + 1 day, and looking for work. People can report their drinking for the last week, month, or year, and 71 percent reported on their drinking in the past week or month. All the regressions include population weights. Standard errors for the panel fixed-effects analysis are clustered on state and reported in brackets below the point estimates in the first three columns. Robust standard errors for the regression discontinuity analysis are reported in brackets below the point estimates in the last three columns.

We also estimated the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on alcohol consumption using the regression discontinuity design. Since this approach required detailed information on alcohol consumption for people very close to age 21, we used the National Health Interview Survey which includes questions on drinking participation heavy episodic drinking, and the number of days in the last month on which the person consumed alcohol. We estimated the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on these measures of alcohol consumption using a version of the regression discontinuity design used earlier enriched with controls for individual demographic characteristics such as gender, race, region, and employment status. The estimates of β 1 are reported in the last three columns of Table 4 . Given that the regression model includes a polynomial in age fully interacted with a dummy variable for being over 21 and that the age variable has been recentered at 21, these are estimates of the discrete change in drinking that occurs at exactly age 21. We find that the probability an individual reports having consumed 12 or more drinks in the past year increases at age 21 by about 6.1 percentage points, and the estimate is statistically significant. We find a 4.9 percentage point increase in the probability an individual reports heavy drinking (five or more drinks on a single day at least once in the previous year), and we estimate that the number of drinking days in the previous month increase by 19.6 percent (0.55/2.8 = 0.196) at age 21, though only the second of these estimates is statisically significant at the conventional level. These estimates are quite similar to the estimates from the panel approach and have also been replicated using other datasets including the California Health Interview Surveys ( Carpenter and Dobkin, 2010b ) and the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health ( SAMHSA/OAS, 2009 ).

Below, we require an estimate of the number of additional drinks consumed if the drinking age were lowered from 21 to 18, in order to appropriately scale the cost estimates on a per-drink basis. In Column 3 of Table 4 , with the panel design, we estimated that moving from a situation in which no 18–20 year-olds can drink legally to one in which all 18–20 year-olds can drink would increase the number of times a youth reported drinking in the past month by about 0.94 instances. In Column 6 of Table 4 , using the regression discontinuity design, we estimated that the minimum legal drinking age increases the number of days the individual drank in the past 30 by about 0.55 days. Assuming instances are similar to days, the average of these two estimates implies that the minimum legal drinking age reduces alcohol consumption by about 0.745 drinking days per month. To put this on the same scale as the adverse event estimates (which are per 100,000 personyears), we calculate 0.745 × 12(months) × 100,000(persons) = 894,000 drinking days averted per 100,000 person-years. Young adults consume about 5.1 drinks on average each time they drink, so 894,000 drinking days corresponds to about 4.56 million drinks.

How Credible are the Estimates of the Effects of the Minimum Legal Drinking Age?

We have presented estimates of the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on alcohol consumption, mortality, and a variety of other adverse events from panel fixed-effects models and regression discontinuity models. Before using these estimates to compare drinking age regimes, it is important to examine how credible the evidence from each of these research designs is. The two approaches have different strengths and limitations, which can be roughly grouped into two categories: “internal validity” and “external validity.” In the context of this paper, internal validity refers to how well a research design estimates the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on a particular population in a particular place and time. External validity refers to how well estimates from a research design are likely to predict the effect of the policy under consideration. External validity is a function of both the internal validity of the estimates and how similar the regime (population, policy, and environment) in which each of the research designs was estimated is to the regime in which the policy is being proposed.

We examine internal validity first, because the internal validity of an estimation strategy directly affects its external validity. The panel approach is subject to the concern that some states raised the drinking age at the same time that they implemented other policies targeting both alcohol consumption and its adverse consequences. If this were the case, estimates from the panel approach would likely overstate the true effect of the minimum legal drinking age because the estimates would reflect the benefits of both the minimum legal drinking age and the other policies. 8 By contrast, estimates from the regression discontinuity design are less likely to be biased by policy changes, because to cause bias the policies would have to go into effect at exactly age 21. Another possible problem with the panel approach is that enforcement of the higher drinking age was plausibly less stringent in states that were compelled to raise their drinking age by the 1984 federal National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which could impart downward bias to our panel estimates. Here again the regression discontinuity approach is unlikely to suffer from this bias because the age-21 drinking limit was a long-standing policy by the late 1990s, which is the period on which the regression discontinuity analysis is focused. A threat to the internal validity of both designs is that part of the increase in adverse events that occurs when people are first allowed to drink is probably due to people having to learn to drink responsibly. As a result, there may be an increase in mortality in the first few months after people are first allowed to drink whether the drinking age is set at 18, 21, or higher. As a result, computations that treat the reduction in deaths due to learning effects as saved lives would overstate the effect of the minimum legal drinking age. However, Tables 2 and ​ and3 3 reveal that the panel and the regression discontinuity estimates of the impact of the minimum legal drinking age are quite similar, which would not be the case if learning effects were substantial, because learning effects would result in much more bias to the regression discontinuity estimates than to the panel estimates.

Yet another threat to the internal validity of the panel design is that there is likely slippage in the assignment of the treatment regime for young adults in a given state and year. These errors may arise due to border effects, as neighboring states sometimes had different drinking ages (as discussed in Lovenheim and Slemrod, 2010 ). Errors could also arise from grandfathering policies, in which some states allowed youths who could drink legally before the minimum legal drinking age was raised to continue drinking after the new drinking age was instituted, even if they were younger than the new legal age. This will result in imperfect assignment of treatment status due to the fact that exact age is not available in the datasets used in the panel analyses. These kinds of measurement errors would generally bias the estimated effects of the minimum legal drinking age downward.

Regarding external validity, the major advantage of the state-year panel approach is that it directly examines the effect of allowing 18–20 year-olds to buy and consume alcohol legally, which is the type of policy change that is being debated. Its primary disadvantage is that it examines changes in drinking ages that occurred 30 years ago, and many things have changed since then. For example, the minimum legal drinking age is probably more rigorously enforced now than it was in the 1970s. Public sentiment and legal sanctions against drunk driving have both increased greatly since the 1970s and 1980s. There have been numerous improvements in medicine and automobile safety in the last 30 years, including trauma centers and air bags. These changes would bias the results from the panel studies in opposing directions. The main issue with the external validity of estimates from the regression discontinuity approach is that the estimates are valid for people very near their 21 st birthday, and the proposed policy change would be to move the drinking age of 21 to 18. This is a problem for the external validity of the regression discontinuity estimates if the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on an 18 or 19 year-old are substantially different than the effects on a 21 year-old.

It is not possible to assess the effect of each of the threats to the internal and external validity on our estimates. However, we have some evidence that despite these concerns the estimates still may be of substantial use for predicting the likely effect of a policy change. A comparison of Tables 2 and ​ and3 3 reveal that the two research designs give very similar estimates of the effects of the minimum legal drinking age on all-cause and cause-specific mortality. 9 An examination of Table 4 reveals that the two designs generate fairly similar estimates of the impact of the minimum legal drinking age on alcohol consumption. Most of the sources of bias described above affect the two research designs to different degrees so they should be moving the estimates from the two designs away from each other. We interpret the similarity in the estimated effects as suggesting that the various biases are either not very large or that they are at least partially canceling out.

When considering whether it makes sense to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 the critical issue is determining whether the increase in consumer surplus that results from allowing 18–20 year-olds to drink is large enough to justify the increase in alcohol-related harms. The most direct way to make this comparison is to estimate the change in consumer surplus and compare it to the increase in harms as measured in dollars. However, it is very challenging to credibly estimate the consumer surplus associated with the additional drinks that 18–20 year-olds would consume if the drinking age were lowered to 18. For this reason we implement an alternative approach of estimating the harm per drink to the person consuming the drink and the harm per drink imposed on other people.

The greatest immediate cost to the individual of an additional drink is that it increases their risk of dying. The estimates in Table 3 suggest that if the drinking age were lowered to 18, there would be an additional 8 deaths per 100,000 person-years for the 18–20 age group. A common estimate of the value of a statistical life is $8.72 million ( Viscusi and Aldi, 2003 , converted to 2009 U.S. dollars). This suggests that for every 100,000 young adults allowed to drink legally for a year, the cost in terms of increased mortality is about $70 million (8 × $8.72 million). Given that we estimate an increase of 4.56 million drinks for every 100,000 person-years, this suggests that the hidden cost of each drink due to the increased mortality risk is over $15 (70/4.56). 10 Given that each drink potentially has other adverse impacts on the individual, such as injuries, reduced productivity, and reduced health, this estimate is a lower bound.

The costs of the reduction in the minimum legal drinking age borne by people other than those consuming the drink come from many sources: we focus on three of the major ones. The first external cost includes the risk that an individual will be killed by a drinker in a motor vehicle accident. Our best estimate is that the typical young adult killed while driving drunk kills another person 21 percent of the time ( Carpenter and Dobkin, 2009 ). This suggests that lowering the drinking age will kill at least an additional 0.77 people (3.65 drivers killed in motor vehicle accidents from Table 3 × 0.21) annually for every 100,000 18–20 year-olds allowed to drink. Using the value of a statistical life from above, this is a cost of $6.7 million (8.72 × 0.77 = 6.7) for every 100,000 people allowed to drink after the drinking age is lowered. This estimate is a lower bound, because it does not include the people killed where the drunk driver survives. The second external cost is due to the increased risk that a drinker will commit robbery or assault. The best available estimate suggests that lowering the drinking age will result in 63 additional arrests for assault and 8 additional arrests for robbery annually for every 100,000 newly legal drinkers ( Carpenter and Dobkin, 2010b ). Given that not every crime results in an arrest, these two estimates need to be rescaled by the proportion of reported assaults and robberies that are cleared by an arrest, which are 54 and 25 percent, respectively ( U.S. Department of Justice, 2007 ). At an estimated cost of $20,500 per assault and $17,800 per robbery ( Miller, Cohen, and Wiersema, 1996 , converted to 2009 U.S. dollars), the crime cost imposed on others is $2,400,000 ($20,500 × 63/0.54 ≈ $2,400,000) for assaults and $656,000 ($17,800 × 8/0.25 ≈ $570,000) for robberies. A third external cost is that the drinker will injure themselves and require medical treatment. If the medical care is covered by insurance or if the costs are absorbed by the hospital, these costs are effectively borne by people other than the drinker. The 408 additional emergency department visits and 77 additional hospital stays per 100,000 person-years that would likely occur and 77 additional hospital stays per 100,000 person-years that would likely occur if the drinking age were lowered (estimated in Carpenter and Dobkin 2010a ) impose a substantial cost: the average cost of an alcohol-related emergency department visit is $3,387, and the average cost of an alcohol-related inpatient hospital stay is $12,562 for a total cost per 100,000 person-years of $2.35 million [(3,387 × 408) + (12,562 × 77)]. 11 Summing these externality costs gives a total cost of about $12.02 million per 100,000 person-years (that is, $6.7 million + $2.4 million + $0.57 million + $2.35 million = $12.02 million). Dividing this estimate by the change in the number of drinks yields an externality cost of $2.63 ($12.02/4.56) per drink. Given that there are numerous alcohol-related harms not included in this calculation, this is a downward-biased estimate of the cost that the drinker imposes on others.

The estimates above suggest that the total cost of a drink to the person drinking it is at least $15 plus what the person paid for the drink. It is unlikely that the average drinker values a drink this highly. This finding suggests that the drinker is not fully aware of the personal costs of their behavior and there is a role for government intervention. Moreover, with each drink there are costs imposed on others of at least $2.63, which again suggests a role for government intervention to deal with this externality. These estimates clearly suggest that lowering the drinking age will lead to an increase in harms that is very likely larger than the value that people put on the additional drinking.

Our focus here has been on predicting the effects of lowering the minimum drinking age, but of course, a lower drinking age might be combined with other age, but of course, a lower drinking age might be combined with other policies like mandatory alcohol licensing (similar to driver licensing) and relevant, reality-based alcohol education, both of which are advocated by the Choose Responsibility group. Although the research summarized here convinces us that an earlier drinking age alone would increase alcohol-related harms, we do not think there is enough evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of alcohol education and alcohol licensing, either in isolation or in combination with a lower minimum drinking age. While we are certainly not opposed to experimentation with alternative policies for encouraging responsible alcohol consumption, the evidence strongly suggests that setting the minimum legal drinking age at 21 is better from a cost and benefit perspective than setting it at 18 and that any proposal to reduce the drinking age should face a very high burden of proof.

Acknowledgments

We thank David Autor, Chad Jones, John List, Justin Marion, and Timothy Taylor for very useful comments and suggestions. We gratefully acknowledge grant funding from NIHNIAAA R01 AA017302-01.

1 Other possible interventions have received attention in the economics literature. For example, age-targeted drunk driving laws and graduated licensing programs set very low legal blood alcohol content limits for young adult drivers and have been shown to reduce youth drinking and related harms (for example, Carpenter, 2004a ; Voas, Tippetts, and Fell, 2003 ). Increases in sanctions and/or enforcement of age-targeted drunk driving laws might further reduce youth alcohol consumption and its related harms ( Kenkel, 1993a ). Kenkel (1993b) explores the theoretical possibility of a “teen tax” that could be levied only on young adults, though there is no consensus on the effectiveness of state beer excise taxes on youth drinking and related harms (for example, Dee, 1999 ; Cook and Moore, 2001 ). Finally, public health education about the risks of alcohol use has been widely mentioned as an alternative strategy to reduce alcohol-related harms among youths, although we are not aware of economic evaluations of such policies. We focus here on the minimum legal drinking age due to recent high-profile attention garnered by the Amethyst Initiative and related organizations such as Choose Responsibility.

2 This fixed effects panel approach was introduced to this literature by Cook and Tauchen (1982) , who examined the effects of alcohol taxes on death rates from liver cirrhosis; it has now become standard in evaluations of this type. Note that this model cannot support inclusion of a full set of state-by-time fixed effects, because these would also absorb almost all of the variation in the minimum legal drinking age variable.

3 Our parameterization of the minimum legal drinking age variable—that is, the proportion of 18–20 year-olds in the state who are legal to drink beer—is slightly different from most previous work on this topic, which often includes separate controls for age-18, age-19, and age-20 state drinking ages. This choice has no substantive effect on the results and is only done to facilitate a more natural comparison with the regression discontinuity approach we describe below.

4 We assign deaths in the Vital Statistics data to the state of residence of the decedent. In the Fatality Analysis Reporting System analyses we assigned deaths to the state of occurrence because of incomplete information on state of residence. We also calculated Vital Statistics panel estimates by state of occurrence, and these models returned larger effects of the minimum legal drinking age. This is consistent with the idea that different drinking ages across states created “blood borders” ( Lovenheim and Slemrod, 2010 ).

5 For consistency with the panel regression evidence presented above, we estimate the regression discontinuity models of the effect of the minimum legal drinking age on mortality rates as opposed to mortality counts, though the latter are preferred as the population estimates used to create the rates reduces the precision of the estimates. This is the cause of the slight difference in the magnitude of the estimates from our previously published work ( Carpenter and Dobkin, 2009 ).

6 Some research has examined the relationship between the minimum legal drinking age and risky sexual behavior, though we are not aware of any that uses the regression discontinuity approach. Note that the pharmacological effects of alcohol on sociability and disinhibition could lead drinkers to engage in unplanned sexual behavior or riskier sex than they would have had in the absence of alcohol. Dee (2001) estimates panel regressions of teen childbearing for youths in the age groups affected by the changes in the minimum legal drinking age. He finds that the drinking age is related to childbearing rates among black teens, suggesting a causal effect of alcohol use on sexual activity leading to childbirth. Fertig and Watson (2009) also study state drinking-age policies and fertility outcomes in a fixed-effects framework, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths and Vital Statistics birth records. They find that exposure to more permissive drinking ages increased poor birth outcomes for young women, especially black mothers, and they find suggestive evidence that this is due to an increase in unplanned pregnancies. Finally, Carpenter (2005b) uses a similar panel approach to examine an alternative risky sexual outcome: rates of sexually transmitted infections. He finds suggestive evidence that a higher drinking age reduced gonorrhea rates for whites, but not for blacks.

7 In Carpenter and Dobkin (2009) , we examine the possibility that there is a discrete change in the probability of underreporting alcohol consumption at age 21, and we do not find much evidence that this change is large in magnitude.

8 Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) make this type of argument by showing that there is heterogeneity in the effects of the minimum legal drinking age according to when states raised their drinking age. Specifically, they document that earlier adopters saw larger reductions in youth fatalities than late adopters and argue that factors other than the drinking age were responsible for the reductions in youth fatalities when drinking ages increased back to 21. These types of biases are not likely to affect regression discontinuity estimates of the minimum legal drinking age, which (as we show above) provided estimates very similar to the panel fixed-effects design, which in turn suggests that other unobserved policies and preferences are unlikely to account for the robust relationship between drinking ages and youth fatalities repeatedly documented in the fixed-effects approach (including in Miron and Tetelbaum, 2009 ). Of course, other types of heterogeneity may be important, such as variation across states in enforcement of the minimum legal drinking age. This is an important area for future research.

9 The panel analysis finds a very low rate of death due to alcohol overdose and no evidence of an increase; the regression discontinuity design, however, finds a much higher rate of alcohol overdoses and a large increase. Given that the alcohol consumption among 18–20 year-olds has dropped rather than increased in the last 30 years, these difference are probably due to coding changes for International Classification of Diseases and for death certificates, as well as a slight difference in our own coding of the information on death certificates between Tables 2 and ​ and3 3 (see notes under these tables).

10 There is, of course, a plausible range of estimates if one were to use different figures for the value of a statistical life, and indeed recent studies have returned lower estimates (see, for example, Ashenfelter and Greenstone, 2004 ). Viscusi and Aldi's (2003) study reports that most credible studies return estimates for the value of a statistical life of between 3.8 and 9 million in 2000 U.S. dollars (or 4.73 to 11.2 million in 2009 U.S. dollars), and the 8.72 million figure we report above is the median reported across 32 studies. Using 4.73 million as the value of a statistical life, for example, reduces the per-drink estimate to $8.30 ($4.73 million * 8 deaths / 4.56 million drinks). If self-reported alcohol consumption is underreported by 50 percent on average (i.e., within the range as suggested by Rehm, 1998 ) then we are overestimating the cost per drink by a factor of two (i.e., the correct per-drink estimate is closer to $7.65 (8.72 million * 8 deaths / 9.12 million drinks).

11 The list charges for a hospital admission by a 21 year-old with a mention of alcohol on the medical record are $33,059, and the list charges for an emergency department visit with a mention of alcohol on the medical record are $8,912 (both measured in 2009 U.S. dollars). Given that hospitals are typically only paid 38 percent of list charges, the costs passed on to consumers are $12,562 and $3,387 for hospital admissions and emergency department visits, respectively ( Reinhardt, 2006 ).

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Legal Drinking Age Of 21 Saves Lives, Even Though It's Flouted

Maanvi Singh

Students drink outside the Rose Bowl during the NCAA BCS national championship game in January. Gregory Bull/AP hide caption

Eighty percent of college students say they drink, despite laws making it illegal for anyone under 21 to drink alcohol. Critics of that drinking age say that lowering it would reduce binge drinking and alcohol-related deaths.

But that might be wishful thinking, a study says. Researchers from Boston University reviewed scientific literature published since 2006 and concluded keeping the legal drinking age at 21 reduces rates of drunk driving and crashes, and reduces rates of underage drinking.

The paper, published Monday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs , even goes so far as to say "case closed" — the minimum drinking age saves lives.

"If we choose to decrease the legal drinking age, there will be consequences," says William DeJong , the study's lead author and a professor of community health sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health.

People may find it difficult to justify a law that is mostly ignored, DeJong tells Shots, but "The weight of the evidence suggests that even though t the law is widely disobeyed, it does have a protective effect."

The review also looked at drinking habits in other countries, paying special attention to New Zealand, which lowered its drinking age from 20 to 18 in 1999. Several studies found a spike in alcohol-related car crashes and increased drinking there among still-underage 16- and 17-year -olds.

Shots - Health News

15-plus drinks a night: teenagers binge at dangerous heights.

The conclusion of this latest study isn't too surprising, according to Dr. Donald Vereen , director of the University of Michigan's Substance Abuse Research Center. "Magic bullets do not work for any problem or issue involving human beings," he tells Shots. And lowering the drinking age isn't going to stop underage drinking, he says.

The national minimum drinking age was established in 1984, when Congress passed a law penalizing states that allowed anyone younger than 21 to buy alcohol. Several studies included in this review compared binge drinking and drunk driving accidents before and after states increased the drinking age in the 1980s.

French Lessons: Why Letting Kids Drink At Home Isn't 'Tres Bien'

In 2004, a group of over 100 college presidents and chancellors formed an initiative to have the minimum drinking age reduced, saying that if undergraduates could legally drink, colleges would be able to better oversee their drinking and help them rein in the habit.

Many advocates of lowering the drinking age point to the European model of legal drinking at age 18 or below. But Vereen says the comparison is misguided. "In Germany, beer is just a part of the meal," he says. "It's not in the American culture to do that." The Boston University review also points to research that European teens aren't immune to the appeal of binge drinking.

"These kids are not interested in single malt scotches," Vereen adds. Teaching kids how to drink responsibly is a big process, he says, and should start at a young age. But lowering the drinking age won't do much to help.

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Should the Legal Drinking Age be Increased to 25

As of right now, the legal drinking age in the United States is 21 and is 18 in some other countries. Should this number be increased? That’s a question that is hotly debated among various populations. There is evidence that supports the proposition, but is it something that anyone will see happening soon? You’ll have to decide what side of the issue you’re on and take a stand to change the age or not.

Why Increase the Age?

According to research, a person doesn’t reach physical maturity until the age of 25. That means that the brain and nervous system aren’t fully developed until that age. Because the body is still growing and changing, the effects of alcohol can be more pronounced and more dangerous than in a fully mature person. Of course, changing the legal drinking age to 25 probably won’t stop all young people from drinking, but it would make them aware of the risk they are taking by doing so.

In addition, research also shows that a higher drinking age saves lives. This is because there are fewer alcohol related traffic accidents resulting in death among young people. According to U.S. News and World Report, when New Zealand lowered its drinking age from 20 to 18, the number of fatalities due to drinking and driving went up dramatically.

Why Not Increase the Age?

Of course, the biggest drawback of raising the drinking age is that it could encourage underage drinking, especially for people who are 21 and are currently allowed to drink legally. Though some experts refute this, college kids are a prime example of populations who acquire alcohol illegally. Should one state raise their drinking age and another not, people would likely cross state lines to drink, which could lead to the risk of drunk driving and other crime.

There are also those who argue that drinking age has nothing to do with responsibility. People can vote, serve in the military, buy a house, get married and change their citizenship at the age of 18 so it seems ludicrous to tell those same people that they can’t legally buy or drink alcohol. Others say that better control of alcohol in the United States would help solve some of the problems that could arise in response to the drinking age.

What’s the Answer

Clearly, there is no good answer for the question of whether the drinking age should be increased to 25. There are strong arguments on both sides of the issue and both arguments make sense in many ways. More research is needed to link drinking age with physical maturity and how it relates to the rate of drunk driving deaths. However, one thing the experts do agree on is that people should be educated about the risks of drinking alcohol as they near the drinking age, whatever that happens to be. By helping young people understand the responsibility that goes with legal drinking and the dangers of abusing alcohol, they are better prepared to make the right choices regarding alcohol, whether legal or not.

There is no way to ensure that people under the legal drinking age are not going to drink, but there are many ways that governments, both state and federal, can help educate its citizens so that the most people possible will make the right choices and use alcohol responsibly, no matter what is finally decided about whether or not the drinking age should be increased to 25. Now it’s up to you to pick a side and help make the changes required to uphold your stance on the issue.

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At 18, Is It Time for a Drink? Argumentative Essay

An American teenager who is eighteen years old is allowed to do several things, such as vote, join the military, and get married; however, drinking is not allowed until he or she is twenty-one years old.

The officially permitted drinking age in the U.S. was raised from eighteen to twenty-one in 1988 due to the National Minimum Age Drinking Act that had been signed into law four years earlier by President Ronald Reagan.

The main reason was maturity; that is, at eighteen one is not mature enough to drink responsibly (Kiesbye, 2). However, I agree with the verdict of the group of university and college presidents that the drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one to eighteen.

Opponents of lowering the legal drinking age usually refer to the dangers of binge drinking. They say that the practice is increasing and that any person who is below eighteen is simply not responsible enough to have an alcoholic beverage.

This type of drinking most of the time occurs in the underground and hidden places where the teenagers cannot be discovered. However, although binge drinking is a problem in America, the root cause is the high drinking age that our lawmakers have instituted ignoring certain realities.

Let us face the reality: if a person wants to drink, he or she will definitely find a way to do that. And since legal adults (those over eighteen) are unable to get hold of alcohol themselves, they will inevitably go to hidden places and drink excessively without any supervision or guidance.

When the drinking age is lowered, teenagers can drink responsibly without having to hide themselves. Therefore, “the current limit ignores the reality of drinking during college years and drives it underground, making binge drinking more dangerous and students less likely to seek help in an emergency” (Gordon and Holland, para. 2).

I think it is of essence to question this law: why is it that the age of twenty-one is the “magical’ age that a person is considered as intelligent and mature enough to drink alcohol? Truly, some adults consume alcohol irresponsibly. On the other hand, some young people are able to drink responsibly.

At eighteen, Americans are regarded as adults. It may seem odd to allow those above eighteen years to marry, drive their own cars, and do other sorts of things, and yet to be prevented by the same law from taking a glass of wine in a café or even a glass of champagne at their own wedding party. I feel that it does not make sense to have a limit that is higher than the legally recognized age of maturity.

Young people look at alcoholic beverages as something exciting (Bishop, 19). They consider it an activity preserved for the adults; however, young people want to be adults As Soon As Possible. Therefore, as is the case in most institutions, they usually carry fake identity cards to drinking dens; thus, leading to more problems, or steal the drinks from their parents’ drink cupboard.

Maintaining the drinking age at twenty-one does not encourage responsible drinking. In addition, when the opportunity to take alcohol arises, “Let us compensate for the lost time” attitude crops in resulting in binge drinking, which leads to results that are even more disastrous.

By reducing the legal drinking age, it would inevitably water down some of the temptation to take alcohol since the young people often say that it is more fun when it is illegal.

And, more so, in most cases, young people tend to engage in illicit activities. Therefore, lowering the age will reduce this tendency. In reality, increasing the drinking age is even worse than not doing anything at all simply because most individuals would want to get drunk as a sign of rebellion to the authority. “Not much can be done to control student drinking.

Americans younger than 21 casually defy the law by secretly drinking. If the law was changed, the practice can take place in the open, where it could be better monitored and moderated” (Snelgrove, para. 22). I think that the obsession of wanting to consume alcohol would lose its appeal if drinking were not regarded as purely an adult thing.

As pointed out by the article, “At 18, is it time for a drink?” teen drinking is longstanding problem, which has affected the American society and the drinking age limit has not done enough to cut short.

The American society does not care to instruct the teenagers’ on limits or responsibilities; however, they apparently assume that the teenagers will know their limits and be responsible consumers of alcoholic beverages upon attaining the lawful “magical age” of twenty-one.

A number of developed countries in Europe, such as France, Belgium, and Italy, have established a legal minimum drinking age at sixteen years. It is interesting to note that in those countries one is allowed to drive at eighteen years of age.

If the American society can focus more on educating the youth on responsible drinking habits rather than restriction, then several problems can be prevented (Gordon and Holland, para.16). The youth in the U.S., unlike their counterparts in Europe, are not able to learn how to consume alcohol and other substances gradually, safely and with caution.

Even though the average daily consumption of alcohol in some European nations such as France and Spain is higher than in the United States, the percentage of alcoholism and irresponsible drinking is much lower due to education on safe drinking habits and enforcement of gradual drinking behavior.

Supporters of the legal drinking age often cite possible increase in car accidents as a reason to maintain the drinking age. However, they fail to realize that individuals of all ages get into car crashes, teenagers and adults, when they abuse alcohol.

Educating the public on the dangers of this vice can be more beneficial than simply giving restrictions. In most countries in Europe, teenagers are permitted to drive at eighteen years of age, and also to drink responsibly at the same age.

Therefore, they are able to learn early about the dangers of drinking alcohol and practice good drinking habits. I think that lowering the drinking age would be able to reduce the number of car crashes that are related to excessive consumption of alcohol.

Restrictions can be put to prevent the teenagers from drinking, but can they really be stopped? No one was there to stop the over ten million American teens aged twelve to twenty who have already drunk an alcoholic beverage at present. Out of this number, it is astonishing that about half of them are engaging in binge drinking.

To put more facts on the table, it is estimated that about eighty percent of students in grade nine through twelve will have tasted at least one drink of an alcoholic beverage in their lifetime and about fifty percent of these students have tasted at least one drink of alcohol in the last one month.

So, tell me, are restrictions stopping them from pursing their illicit courses? Abuse of alcohol among the teens is a real problem that we should not ignore the way we are doing now through unfair restrictions.

Since more and more teens are destroying their lives, I suggest that we try something different, something that can ultimately bear fruits since the high drinking age seems to be taking us nowhere. Therefore, I strongly believe that lowering the drinking age and then educating the teenagers on the dangers of alcohol consumption can reduce this problem.

We should all recognize that America has a huge problem with teen drinking. The only way to find a solution to this problem is by stopping to ignore it. “It’s time we look at the issue afresh and see whether there are better solutions than we currently have in place because, after all, we haven’t solved the problem” (Gordon and Holland, para. 8).

The American teenagers should get more education about the effects of alcohol, rather than giving them punishment. The legal drinking age should be restored to eighteen since the current age at twenty-one lacks any real basis. A lowered drinking age will bring us to reality and institute better ways of curbing the vice. Consequently, fewer problems would arise.

Works Cited

Bishop, Bruce. Effects of lowering the drinking age . Salem, Or. : Legislative Research, 1979. Print.

Gordon, Larry, and Holland, Gale. “ At 18, is it time for a drink? ” Los Angels Times . 2008. Web.

Kiesbye, Stefan. Should the legal drinking age be lowered? Detroit : Greenhaven Press, 2008. Print.

Snelgrove, Erin. “18 or 21? Drinking age debate heats up.” Yakima-herald . 2008. Web.

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Should Drinking Age Be Raised To 21 Essay

Show More Ho Yan Cheung Topic: The drinking age should be raised to 21 Opening/Attention: Good afternoon everyone! Canada is facing a serious problem of people drink and drive. People like drinking alcohol to “relax” but at the same time, it can take away one’s life. Lots of activities have ages initiation. At 16, a person can start driving; at 18, a person can marry without parental consent and so on. I think the drinking age should be raised to 21 is because teenagers get drunk twice as fast as adults, yet they have less self-awareness to stop. They more than often have “drink and drive” problems than adults. Alcohol causes to related accidents, family breakdown of one’s death and health problems. Spoken Link/Transition: Unfortunately, the accident happened to my family few years ago as victim Emotion/Story: My aunt passed away in China few years ago, because she was hit by underage drinking man. …show more content… Even though Ontario ‘s drinking age is 19. (Canada Safety Council, 2008). c) According Centers for Disease and Prevention, “85% of teens in high school who report drinking and driving in 2012”. Alcohol is classified as a sedative, which means that slows the central nervous system-leading to ambiguity, shaky action, mental disorder and even slow response. Spoken Link/Transition: Some people may say, “Rebuttal”: a) Raising the drinking age to 21 not only doesn’t help decreasing related accidents yet it will increase the number of underage drinking. As they will always have their way to the alcohol from their family or friends. It is not safer than maintaining the drinking to 19 in Ontario. It will make people break the laws. b) At 18, people are considered as adults, so they should take the responsible whether they are drinking alcohol or not. c) Raising the drinking age to 21actually makes alcohol more attractive to

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Essay On Why The Drinking Age Should Be Raised To 21

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Unfortunately, more than a third of these drinkers are unable to remember what happened the night of a big drinking session. The youth particularly, are vulnerable to the effects of heavy drinking. Harms include an increased risk of traffic accidents, injuries from violence, death, health problems, and some studies suggest suicide. If the legal drinking age is raised to 21 then at least one will have finished the major part of their education. Therefore if people start drinking later in life, they may be more likely to drink in moderation and not get addicted at an early

Essay about Keeping the Drinking Age at 21

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When it comes to the subject of drinking and teenagers, what is the first thing that comes to mind? To me it's the legal age limit of when teens should be able to drink. Having it lowered is controversial because according to prior experiences, data shows that younger age drinking is well known for its fatalities. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), "on one of the most popular prom nights in 1999, as many as 62 percent of the traffic deaths were alcohol-related" (). The most important question is whether or not the drinking age anywhere in the United States should be lowered, raised or if it should stay the same. Statistics prove that the legal drinking age should remain at the age of twenty-one in the United States.

Essay On Raising The Drinking Age

One last reason why the legal drinking age should begin at the age of 25 years old because it also leads up to underage drinking, in which they think it’s something cool to do. But nobody considers the danger that comes along with irresponsible drinking. Most people do not educate their selves when it comes to drinking and driving, drinking and mixing medications is dangerous as well. Drinking is a risk factor, no matter if it’s among yourself or out in the public of others. It’s understandable that everybody feel that once they become an adult or even the legal drinking age that they can do whatever they want. Drinking is a volunteer choice preference people make regardless the consequences that can result from bad judgment once under the influence from drinking. Drinking can affect your vision, your speech to speak clearly, and your actions to things that could have been avoided.

Essay about Why the Drinking Age Should Be Lowered to 18

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Lowering the drinking age to 18 would make a lot of sense in the world. Lowering the drinking age to 18 would make more sense. It would be better for the teens that drink on college campus. The drinking age should be lowered to 18 because you can vote at eighteen, buy tobacco, it’ll reduce the thrill of breaking the law, evidence supports that early introduction of drinking is the safest way to reduce juvenile alcohol abuse, and college people that are not 21 drink also.

The Drinking Age Should Stay At 21 Persuasive Essay

Drinking age should remain at 21 or should it be lowered. I believe that the drinking age should stay at 21 because you are a full adult and you brain is fully developed. Personally, I don’t not dislike people that drink more than people that don’t drink or even the young ones that enjoy breaking the law. Yes, I’m sure it happens everywhere but I’m nit for that binge drinking or waking up with a massive headache maybe not even remembering the night.

Essay On Lowering The Drinking Age To 18

This is a proven fact. According to LiveScience.com, “"The brain of an 18-year-old college freshman is still far from resembling the brain of someone in their mid-twenties," said Craig Bennett” (Than). Eighteen year olds do not know how to control themselves when it comes to alcohol. They drink very irresponsibly, never knowing when to stop. At twenty-one most people have gone through it enough, that they know their limits and when to stop. Teenagers are not mature enough to make good decisions about alcohol. When one is at the age of eighteen, the brain is still developing and growing. When at the age of twenty-one the brain is pretty much done developing. Most eighteen year olds are either in high school about to graduate or already out. The majority of eighteen year olds go to college and since it is their first year, they usually go to a lot of parties and try to enjoy themselves. At twenty-one, the majority of people are in college and trying to get an education to make a career out of it. They usually have already done the whole party scene and are settling down and getting serious. Some eighteen year olds are still in high school, this would make it easier for younger high school kids to access alcohol. This would be dangerous not only for the kids but the eighteen year olds as well. This could get them in a lot of trouble with the law. This proves that twenty-one year olds are more mature than eighteen year

The drinking age should be lowered to eighteen because there has been many problems that have caused life threatening dangers to these teens. The age eighteen is where you start to become an adult so people should have the right to drink when they turn eighteen (“Drinking Age”). It also should be allowed

Essay on Lowering the Drinking Age

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Every year, thousands of deaths occur as a result of drunk driving, and every day people are facing the consequences of irresponsible drinking. Because of the issues caused by irresponsible drinking, the US government passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984 which raised the minimum drinking age to twenty-one to prevent drinking-related accidents and violence. Despite the intent of its passing, it was a counterproductive decision. Because of the higher age restriction, high school upperclassmen and college underclassmen see drinking as an exciting, rebellious act. Consequentially, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act resulted in an increase in dangerous and irresponsible drinking which continues to this day. Not only does the

Lowering The Drinking Age Essay

On July 1, 1971 the 26th amendment was passed which lowered the minimum age to vote from twenty one to eighteen years old. Shortly after the amendment was passed twenty nine states across America started lowering the drinking age from 21 to either 18,19, or 20 years old. This new freedom for young adults only lasted for a brief time by 1984 the Uniform Drinking Age Act was passed. The Uniform Drinking Age Act forced states to change the drinking age back to twenty one years old; by reducing the federal transportation funding, for each state that did not have a minimum drinking age of21. This act has caused controversy for years, there even is group of 136 college presidents called Amethyst Initiative that support a lower minimum legal

Essay about The Drinking Age Should Stay at 21 Outline

I. Introduction: Starting in 1970 21 states reduced the minimum drinking age to 18. Another 8 reduced it to 19 or 20. However, these states noticed increases in alcohol-related fatalities among teenagers and young adults. As a result, of the 29 states that had lowered their drinking age, 24 raised the age again between 1976 and 1984. By 1984, only three states allowed 18-year-olds to drink all types of alcoholic liquor. The enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 prompted states to raise their legal age for purchase or public possession of alcohol to 21 or risk losing millions in federal highway funds. The states who raised it were given highway funding by the

Lowering The Drinking Age To 18 Essay

Turning 18 years means that a person has become a responsible adult. Thus one receives the rights and responsibilities of an adult which includes; taking responsible of life and death, be prosecuted as an adult, can join the army, sign contracts and the right to vote amongst others. All these shows that at 18 a person can do all the things that a 21 years person can

The Drinking Age Should Not Be Lowered Essay

Today, people are aware that the law does not stop underage drinking, as illustrated by the thousands of deaths resulting from excessive alcohol consumption by people below the age of 21. A group called the Amethyst Initiative is now pushing for the lowering of the drinking age to 18. Should the drinking age be lowered from 21 to 18, or would this have the same catastrophic results as in the 1970s?

Essay about Lower the Drinking Age To 18

The drinking age in the United States is a contradiction. At the age of eighteen, one can drive a car, vote in an election, get married, serve in the military and buy tobacco products. In the United States you are legally an adult at eighteen. An eighteen-year-old, however, cannot purchase alcoholic beverages. The minimum drinking age should be lowered from twenty-one in the United States.

Essay On Keeping The Drinking Age

Without a doubt, the United States has been facing serious national problems with underage drinking. Depending on personal ideologies, some people might not agree that the current minimum drinking age of twenty-one is based on scientific facts rather then ideology of prohibitionism. For example, since 1975 over seventeen thousand lives have been saved since the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) was changed to age twenty-one (Balkin 167). This shows that even over a short amount of time, a higher MLDA helps decrease the risk of teen suicides, accidents and overdose deaths. However, this widely debated topic has inevitably brought attention to the plethora of supporting and opposing viewpoints. The minimum legal drinking age of twenty-one

Should the Drinking Age Be Lowered to 18? Essay

A very controversial argument amongst Americans is determining that the current legal drinking age which is 21 should be lowered to eighteen or not. Researching the following propaganda made me understand the dangers to the youth and people in America if the drinking age were to lower. Therefore i will argue with whoever disagrees with me that the drinking age should be lowered.

Essay on Arguments for and against Lowering the Drinking Age

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The controversy on the proper drinking age is one that has been repeatedly discussed and researched over the years. Its common to hear the argument “If someone is old enough to take a bullet for their country, they should be allowed to drink alcohol.” But is that enough justification? Some would say no. “According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) it is estimated that in 2004 there were more than 1,700 student deaths, 599,000 injuries, and 696,000 assaults annually associated with excessive drinking” (Fennell 247). Given these numbers, would lowering the drinking age really be the best thing for America’s youth?

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Most countries and cultures across the world experience these issues with 83% of the world population being allowed to drink at the age of 18, and the remaining 17% of the world population are legally allowed to consume alcohol over the age of 18-years-old. (International Center for Alcohol Policies, 2002). Australia is one of many countries unable to control this growing problem and is researching ways to reduce this behavior in its youth.…

Should The Drinking Age Be Changed To 18

We believe that the drinking age across the United States should stay at 21 years of age. Several states are currently petitioning that the drinking age be lowered; however, we find this to be dangerous and extremely unnecessary.…

Persuasive essay- Maintaining the Drinking Age

One argument brought up for lowering the drinking age is that we mature based on experience rather than time, and that there may be little difference between ages 18 and 21, so why not just lower the age to 18. Although that is a good point, take this into consideration. Are freshman in college really as experienced and mature as students ready to graduate? Maybe some are, but "some" means there are exceptions. Do you really want those "exceptions" to be exposed to drinking if they are not ready for it? Because those same "exceptions" will be the ones causing accidents that could have been avoided. If we allow these people to drink, we are not allowing them to mature at their rate. Instead of taking chances, why don't we make sure we give everyone in this age group a chance to "grow up" and reach their full potential???…

Lowering the Drinking Age

“’Drinking is Fun’ and ‘There’s Nothing You Can Do About It’: The Problem With the 21-Year-Old Minimum Drinking Age” an essay by Dr. Reginald Fennell, found in the Journal of American College Health, focuses on the effects of the minimum drinking age on college students. Fennell explains the benefits of lowering the drinking and gives alternatives to the current law. This article is of interest to readers since society seems to have a strong opinion of whether the drinking age should remain the same or be lowered. When a teenager turns eighteen, they have all the legal rights of an adult with the exception of consuming and purchasing alcohol. The author feels strong about his opinion. Fennell is not only an editor for the Journal of American College Heath, but he is also a professor at Miami University in Ohio where he teaches health classes. By speaking to his college students, and also having been a student himself, Fennell knows first-hand the experiences and actions of students on college campuses.…

Drinking Age

The drinking age was moved from 18 to 21 for a reason. The higher drinking age of 21 has saved many lives, helped reduce the amount of underage drinking, and therefore should not be lowered. Many studies from a large variety of sources have proven higher drinking ages have a positive effect on society.…

Lower the U.S. Drinking Age

• I believe that the legal drinking age in the United States should be lowered to the ages of 18 or 19. The reason it should be lowered is because college students will drink at least once during their first year of college. Legally, at the age of eighteen we are granted the rights of adults. And finally, by forbidding teens to not drink that forces them to drink in unsafe places.…

The Possible Compromise for the Drinking Age

Many argue that the drinking age should be lowered to age 18. At this age students are still in High School, where it would be very inappropriate for students to show up with alcohol in their systems or having a hangover from the night before. At age 19, however, students are out of High School and the majority of them are independent, and moved away from home. People of the age 19 are just as responsible at the…

Drinking age has become one of the most debated issues among adults and teenagers in the United States. Majority of teenagers would say that there are many cons to the drinking age being set at 21 but for every con there is a pro.…

Why Should The Drinking Age Be 18

The problem is the people question why the drinking age is 21 and not 18 when can you buy tabaco legally at the age of 18 and you can’t buy alcohol at 18 too. I believe the drinking age should be 21 because teen’s brains are not done growing at the age of 18 and they could be damaged. My first reason is that when the law was moved to 21 the drunk driving dropped. My second reason is that when teens start drinking at such a young age they can have several health problems when they get older so by making it 21 it will lower the risk of having health problems when you get older. My third reason is that teens could become violent or have destructive behaviors.…

Not Lowering the Drinking Age

Many teenage deaths in the United States are caused in some way by the influence of alcohol; however, many people still believe that the legal drinking age should be reduced to eighteen. This issue has been going on for years, but the law has not been changed since the change to twenty-one in 1980. States have become stricter about preventing under-age drinking, but teenagers have no problem getting alcohol. There are many arguments in favor of changing the drinking age back to eighteen. The facts show that drinking alcohol is too large of a responsibility for an eighteen-year-old to handle. In 1980 the government raised the drinking age to twenty-one because the number of drunk driving accidents was causing many teen-age deaths. The young adults of America considered this law a second prohibition.…

Many young people get a thrill out of doing something that they have no business doing because it gives them a rebellious feeling. So with the drinking age being 21, everyone 18-20 is trying to get that thrill of breaking the law and doing something illegal so trying to get a bottle of liquor is fun to them. According to the article “normalizing alcohol consumption as something done responsibly in moderation will make drinking alcohol less of a taboo for young adults entering college and the workforce.” Lowering the drinking age would give younger adults less of a reason to go out looking to intentionally break the law.…

Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Drinking Age

The pros of lowering the drinking age are just as many as there are bad. Lowering the drinking age to 18 is only fair since you already have the right to vote, smoke cigarettes, serve on juries, get married, sign contracts, be prosecuted as adults, and join the military. Permitting 18- should 20-year-olds to drink liquor over controlled situations for supervision might diminish perilous drinking movement. Bringing down the drinking age from 21 to 18 would decrease the thrill of breaking the law to get a drink. The drinking age now is ineffective since the majority of teens still consume alcohol. Many law enforcement agencies ignore most underage drinking. And lastly if the drinking age was lowered it would be good for the economy.…

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Lowering The Drinking Age

One national study of laws stated that raising the drinking age to 21 indicated that persons who grew up in United States with a drinking age of 21, compared to those who grew up in United States with lower legal drinking ages, drank less not only when they were under the age of 21 years of age but also when they were between 21 to 25 years of age. 149 I understand why some people would like the drinking age changed from 21 to 19. But when you look at the statistics and the facts about the mortality rate and the negative effects of underage drinking, waiting two more years is definitely worth…

Keeping the Drinking Age at 21

Since 1987 the decrease of drinking and driving problems have gone down. If they did lower the drinking age to 18 or 19 the more health related problems the young adults would deal with once they get older. On the other hand the current law of the minimum drinking age at 21 leads to problems behind the scenes. The amount of students at colleges under the age 21 are more likely to be binge drinkers, which means they have more than five drinks in a row. This can be very dangerous to the body. Many also argue that if a person is old enough to fight for the country they should be old enough to have a beer. Also if a people are expected to be able responsible and live on their own at eighteen they should be able to be responsible enough to drink on their own. There are many pros and cons to lowering the drinking age, but the most important reason not to lower the drinking age is to protect the lives of young adults.…

Lowering the Drinking Age to 18

The legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one and older. Some states have been pushing to lower the age to eighteen. Some say that lowering the age would make it more dangerous, but that is not the case. This would be beneficial to the government and to the public. Lowering the drinking age to eighteen would increase in restuarant and bar revenue, make drinking safer, and if we are considered a "legal" adult at the age of eighteen, we should be able to drink.…

Related Topics

• Drinking culture
• Alcoholic beverage
• Alcohol intoxication