 "Photo: Coleman Morefield")
During an open forum about the legal drinking age Thursday, two advocates on different sides of the issue agreed lowering the age is a question that needs to be addressed but disagreed on how it should happen and whether the United States is ready for the change.
Following the European example and lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18 in the United States was the topic of the debate between speakers John McCardell and William Dejong at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Allen Theatre.
McCardell, founder of the group Choose Responsibility, said changes need to be made to reflect the nation’s issues now and not those of 1984 when the age limit was set at 21.
The main problem that people should focus on is binge drinking, he said.
“The problem in 1984 was drinking and driving, the solution was to raise the drinking age,” McCardell said. “Sixty percent of deaths related to underage drinking now are off the highways, that’s what we need to focus on.”
Dejong, a professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, said the time for lowering the legal age was not now because the nation still is far from being ready to face the issue.
“Major policy reform needs to be done first, then we can look at lowering the age,” he said. “There will be some increase in deaths and injuries, but it will be a level of increase that we can tolerate. To lower the age limit right now would be a disaster.”
McCardell also said individual states should be allowed to make decisions about the drinking age.
“If a law is not being observed and respected, I think we should look at it if it’s a bad law,” McCardell said. “I believe that this should be allowed of the states, let them look at the situation, and I think that we would see a variety of approaches at a solution.”
Dejong said it would create “blood boundaries” between states if they were allowed to limit the drinking age individually, meaning those underage in one state would be able to go to another state where they are of legal age to drink.
“I believe in state experimentation,” he said. “Not in this case though. I think there is great wisdom in gradual progression.”
Alex Lake, a sophomore electrical engineering major from Spring Branch, said he believes change needs to be made now rather than later.
“There will always be someone unhappy,” he said. “But if we can’t even open up the stage for debate, then how do we find a solution and a balance?”
Although the law should prevent under-age people from buying alcohol, Lake said students have friends who can purchase the alcohol for them, which only will be made easier with the availability of alcohol in city limits.
If a limit was set, he said, it would be best to provide education for those who would then be allowed to purchase alcohol.
Both of the speakers also said they believe an education course should be required.
“If we were ever to contemplate lowering the drinking age, we better make damn sure that those that are of age know better than to provide those that aren’t with alcohol,” Dejong said. “It is a mistake to look the other way. We need to direct them to make responsible decisions.”
2 comments
People argue about responsibility as a function of age at which it should be legal to drink. This is another stupid and useless waste of time. Those people are on the Wrong Track!If we want to avoid binge drinking, drunk driving, fake IDs and all the problems that go with them, then the solution is very simple: Take the STIGMA and SIN out of the act of drinking and make "drinking" a NORMAL activity, rather than romanticize it with all the trappings of "coming of age." It is forbidden by law to engage in sex before the age of 18, yet, virtually EVERY attractive girl loses her virginity at approximately the age of 16, and sometimes even younger. There are very few attractive virgins still available at 18! There are certain things you just can't legislate, and using Fire and Brimstone as a fear factor only destroys credibility.In order to avoid the problems with alcohol, begin an education and practice of alcohol in the home at an early age. Include a glass, or partial glass of wine, as a normal and optional part of having dinner with the family. Give wine the same status as a glass of milk, instead of the forbidden and sinful fruit, to be avoided at all costs until one turns 21. Forbidding alcoholic beverages only makes the desire for an alcoholic beverage that much more desirable, ultimately leading to abuse and binge drinking when the individual leaves home and falls under the influence of the older, "cooler" classmates.