Lower the Drinking Age; An Argument

The summer I turned fourteen years old, I lived on Sand Key in Clearwater, Florida.  Sand Key is now a busy part of Clearwater Beach, but in the early 80’s there was nothing on Sand Key but condominiums, one restaurant with a lounge (and my favorite cigarette machine) and a Sheraton… the Sheraton where televangelist Jim Bakker would commit his infamous indiscretions.  If you were old enough to drink, drive or sleep with your church secretary, Sand Key was a secluded paradise.  At fourteen, Sand Key was the Chateau d’If, less the handy priest.

That summer there were two other prisoners on the island with me.  It would be inaccurate to call them friends (later that year, one of them would give me the worst beating of my life while the other one watched) but we had our isolation in common, and that was enough to bond us together in an imitation of friendship.  The three of us, our entertainment options limited as they were, spent a lot of time fishing off of the small concrete pier behind my building; we even fished at night.  One morning, as the daily fishing ritual began, one of them, I’ll call him George, was telling us a story about how one of his cousins had managed to steal some beer the last time George had gone for a visit, and what a great time they’d had.  The other con, Lennie (as he was the violent one and is now, as it happens, dead), was unimpressed by George’s tale of common beer drinking.  Lennie was new to our Alcatraz, and hoping to ingratiate himself, promised to bring us a bottle of liquor for our fishing that night, so that we would see how he liked to have a good time.  Neither George nor I (Does this make me Curley?  Curley’s wife?  The rabbit?  Let’s not dwell on that, shall we?) believed a word of it, and told him so.  Lennie was not the sort to have his machismo questioned.  That evening, as promised, the new kid arrived at the pier with a half-gallon of Jim Beam tucked inside his empty bait bucket.

It’s a pity no one was videotaping us.  Every few minutes we would abandon our fishing poles at the end of the pier, walk nonchalantly down to the beach and then disappear beneath the pier where we’d hidden the bottle among the barnacle-encrusted pilings.  A few seconds later, we would reappear, laughing and a little wobblier each time.  The only way we could have been more obvious is if we’d been wearing black clothes and ski masks.

At the end of the night, the bottle empty–we had a little help from a couple of older guys who joined us later on—we headed home as quietly as three very drunk fourteen-year-olds could.  George and Lennie lived in the next building over, so I had a moment alone in the elevator to compose myself before facing my parents.  I walked into the condo, put my head around the living room corner and launched into the, “I’m really tired, I’m going straight to bed” maneuver.  My parents, having no reason to believe otherwise, each called out a “goodnight” and I slipped off to bed, my getaway accomplished… until the phone rang an hour later.

It was George’s grandmother, at the top of her already shrill voice, demanding to know from my father, who was caught completely unawares of course, what exactly I had done to her grandson.  It wasn’t long before my parents became curious about the evening’s events.  I have only a vague recollection of the light coming on in my room that night.  A brief interrogation followed, but in my condition, I was in no shape to answer with any eloquence… or honesty.  I was warned to expect a bad day and released to unconsciousness.

The next morning I heard what happened to George and Lennie after we’d separated the night before.  George had failed to make it past the pool deck by his building, and was discovered, vomit encrusted and incoherent, by his grandparents, with whom he was staying.  Lennie, sensing a bad situation, had long since abandoned him to the night.  George’s grandmother, not having any idea that Lennie existed, of course blamed me for her Georgie’s condition.

I was in real trouble.  My parents were furious with me, but not because I had been drinking… well, yes, because I’d been drinking… but worse, because I had acted irresponsibly, abandoned an incapacitated friend, and then lied about it.  My parents believed it was their job to teach me to drink responsibly, something they’d already started by allowing me the occasional drink with the family.  My parents were right.

Parents are responsible for their children’s education.  Every teacher will tell you that, without parental support, students have very little chance of success.  Education goes beyond what is taught in schools and churches.  Parents must teach their children about everyday life, their place in society, and what behavior is expected from them in social situations.  Responsible alcohol consumption is, like it or not, a part of everyone’s social education.  Why then have we taken the power to educate children about alcohol away from parents?

The legal drinking age in the United States is twenty-one.  How many of you believe that no one under 21 drinks?  Under 18?  Under 16?  None of you; because you aren’t naïve.  Kids drink.  Why are we lying to ourselves about it?  We are making parents afraid to teach their children about responsible alcohol consumption.  You’ve read the stories about parents being arrested for letting kids drink at home.  This is counter-productive.  It is time to accept that a minimum legal drinking (MLDA) of 21 is unenforceable.

It’s also time to stop piling on additional unenforceable laws.  For example; a few years ago, in an effort to curb college age drinking, New Hampshire established a law that allows under-21 drinkers to be prosecuted for “internal possession”, that is, the possession of alcohol within their bodies.  Suspects don’t have to display any disorderly behavior; they don’t have to be behind the wheel of a car; they merely have to appear as though they have consumed alcohol in order to draw the attention of law enforcement.  This is absurd.  Laws like this deter no one.  They serve simply to make our children into criminals.

The primary argument against lowering the drinking age has to do with drinking and driving.  According to drinkingage.procon.org, raising the MLDA from 18 to 21 “has decreased the percentage of fatal traffic accidents for those between 18 and 20 by 13% and has saved approximately 21,887 lives from 1975-2002.”  I suggest that the founding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1980, whose work has led to the drastic strengthening of drunk driving laws, provided a major contribution to lowering the number of alcohol related fatalities (though MADD has since gone a bit off the rails).  Drunk driving now has serious consequences, whereas before 1980, drunken driving violations often carried minimal penalties.  Does anyone else remember their parents driving to a restaurant with a drink in their hand so they wouldn’t have to pay bar prices for their pre-dinner cocktail?  MADD stopped that.

Another factor in reducing alcohol related fatalities, and in fact all automobile fatalities, is the advent of mandatory seat belt laws.  Beginning in the early 1980’s, states began to require that automobile operators and passengers wear seatbelts.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 13,000 lives were saved by seatbelts in 2008 alone.  And lets not forget about airbags… and head restraints… and new lighter materials… and mandatory car seats for children… and crumple zones… all implemented in the last thirty years.

Turning 21 has become a right of passage, not because it is the end of adolescence, but because of the drinking age.  21 is no longer the age when young adults begin to accept responsibility.  21 is now the age when kids can finally have (what they think is) real fun.  Binge drinking is up across college campuses in the U.S.  Alcohol poisoning deaths are on the rise.  21 for 21 (that’s 21 drinks on your 21^st birthday) has become a popular birthday celebration.

There are other factors to consider as well… like how European nations have managed to reduce alcohol related fatalities without lowering drinking ages… or how we have soldiers fighting overseas who aren’t old enough to wind down with a beer… or how 18-year-olds are responsible enough to vote and serve on a jury but not responsible enough to have a glass of wine with dinner.

It is time to lower the MLDA to 16.  I recognize that seems low, but 16 is an honest, if not conservative, estimate of when kids actually start drinking.  I can’t state this clearly enough.  At 16, kids are drinking; it serves no purpose to pretend that they aren’t.  With the MLDA at 16, parents will have the opportunity to properly instruct their children in alcohol responsibility without fear of prosecution.