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Outside The Classroom is pleased to announce the 2008-2009 Student Voices on Alcohol bloggers. Each week this year, four of the winners from the essay division of the 2007-2008 AlcoholEdu Media Competition will post new thoughts on the culture of campus drinking. Check back each week to read the latest posting!
**Student Voices is now over for the summer. Check back in the fall for a new class of bloggers.**
April 28, 2009
Austin Piech
We live in an age of villainy. Paper tigers arise from every angle and yet we are as helpless as King Canute holding back the sea. We are hunted down by addictions, destroyed by their existence. The problem lies with their appeal, not with our inability to deny them.
In the end, isn't that why we pass laws to make intoxicants illegal? It's not because the human will is too weak; it's because their attractiveness is too strong. We cannot be trusted to control ourselves in the presence of these seductive substances. Disregard the fact that both man and beast are driven by a desire to ingest psychoactive materials, we must outlaw wants to protect ourselves from ourselves.
A common theme presented in the news lately has been the legalization of drugs to help lower the crime rate and to help raise tax revenues. From bills introduced in the California state legislature to the cover of the Wall Street Journal, the idea of authorized Acapulco gold and sanctioned sinsemilla has slowly been creeping onto the fringe of social acceptability. But how foolish are we to try and legalize a substance that can only be smoked in specialty coffee shops in even the most liberal of countries when a suspect class of adults is denied access to a substance that is legal in all but five nations?
I'm not comparing the campaign to lower the drinking age with the quest to codify chartered cannabis. But I think it is misguided to focus on such a divisive issue when we still have great unresolved matters in the realm of alcohol. A recent Wall Street Journal health poll showed that over three-quarters of those interviewed have no problem with the drinking age being lowered to 18. It was originally raised to 21 to "save" those who were at risk from drunk drivers.
What's especially scary though is that raising the drinking age may have actually harmed us more than helping us. Those who defend the switch point out that at age 21, the brain is still developing and that an 18 year old's grey matter is different than a 21 year old's. We allow proper growth and change by not consuming alcohol. They say that increasing the drinking age has led to 25,000 fewer deaths from drunk driving. But our brains are always changing, a 24 year old's mind is going to be different than a 27 year old's and a 61 year old is going to have a different brain than a 64 year old. To say that the decrease in fatalities is the result of a raised drinking age is to ignore that multitude of car safety advancements that have occurred since 1984, the year that the 21 year old limit became national.
Even worse, a study by Columbia University revealed that since the law has been passed, the rate of substance addiction to alcohol among students had risen to 1 in 4. Binge drinking is at an all time high, much higher than the levels found in northern Canadian neighbors, where the drinking age is 19. By raising the drinking age, our government did not save lives. It created a generation where 25% of all students qualify as alcoholics, a number unseen at any point in our history. Another study actually shows a correlation between lower drinking ages and lower instances of alcohol related injuries.
Every month, 10.4 million underage Americans drink and 6.1 million drink to excess. In fact, more than one in three out of every wine cooler consumed is drunk by an underage American. With those who can drink, the highest percentage of alcohol related fatal crashes (27%) belonged to those 21-24, once again hearkening back to a point I mentioned in a previous post that raising the drinking age only shifted the curve for alcohol related crashes.
Drinking laws were passed because Congress feared the allure of alcohol would be too great for teenagers to deny. Unfortunately, by adding a sense of rebellion to consumption, they only made it more appealing. We attacked the product and not the culture around it. In the end, I conclude exactly where I began: perplexed about the idiotic nature of our laws. I have no doubt that the drinking age will one day be lowered to a more reasonable number. But until then, our society has created a culture of fear and mystique about alcohol and we must wonder who is truly to blame when an underaged teen decides to overindulge.
Works Cited:
Wall Street Journal Poll
Columbia University study
Information that suggests lowering the drinking age will result in fewer injuries
Statistics from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence
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**Please note: The opinions expressed by the Student Voices on Alcohol writers are their sole opinions and do not represent the opinions of Outside The Classroom or any of its employees.
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