Lowering the Drinking Age Won't Work but Abolishing It Will
With the Amethyst Initiative, several U.S. college presidents have banded together to propose lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. They are concerned about binge drinking, and they believe that by lowering the drinking age, alcohol consumption among college-age youth will decrease. The reasoning behind the proposal is if it is no longer illegal to drink, the attraction to drink won’t be there.
The presidents are right.
While drinking will decrease among 18-20 year olds, however, it will increase among those 16-17. Think about it. Pushing the market from one age group to another is not going to get rid of the problem of binge drinking, it’s just going to lower the median age of those who engage in that activity.
The solution to the problem of binge drinking is to get rid of the minimum drinking age altogether. If children are brought up educated about alcohol and its effects rather than censored from it, they will learn to treat alcohol with respect and will not use it improperly.
