<p>There is no question that alcohol-related traffic fatalities among 18-21 year olds has dropped since the drinking age went back to 21. The number frequently cited is 900 fewer deaths a year.</p>
<p>And in a recent study at Wash U, men who grew up in states with lower drinking ages were more likely to binge drink later in life, which goes against the common wisdom that persons who start out drinking early are less likely to view alcohol as a “forbidden fruit” and engage in binge drinking.</p>
<p>So in other words when the old gang got together at the campus pub back in the day, they were not learning how to drink responsibly – they were learning how to binge drink.</p>
<p>@Snugapug - A friend of mine is a professor at a small LAC here. She said a lot of college student personnel would like to see the drinking age go back to 18, so that it would be out in the open and colleges would find it easier to set limits and gain a modicum of control over the whole thing.</p>
<p>Most students do not attend a residential college. Sorry that the drinking age makes a LAC professor’s job a bit harder, but her students are in no way representative of the broader 18-20 age group whose binge drinking rates have plummeted. By the way, binge drinking rates at residential colleges are pretty much the same as they were when the 1984 law went into effect so I wonder how much control over student drinking habits her LAC could actually enact.</p>
<ul>
<li>Historically black schools.</li>
<li>Women’s schools.</li>
<li>Less/no fraternity/sorority presence.</li>
<li>Less athletic presence.</li>
<li>Two year schools (versus four year schools).</li>
<li>Substance free residence halls.</li>
<li>Commuter schools.</li>
<li>Larger schools.</li>
<li>Location other than northeast or north central (those regions have higher drinking and binge drinking rates).</li>
<li>Non-rural schools.</li>
</ul>
<p>It seems like most kids at college are passably smart. Maybe they just need to be communicated the facts in such a way that they can decide for themselves what level of risk they’re willing to assume?</p>
<p>For instance, let’s say the LD50 for alcohol is somewhere around 0.45%. For the sake of argument, let’s say that a statistically negligible fraction of the population dies at 0.08%; this is our LD00. We can play it safe and do a linear interpolation between these to get that LD(x) = (0.08%) + (0.0074%)x. In reality, the curve is probably concave up to at least around LD(50), but let’s ignore that. Also, this assumes that kids with a brain won’t knowingly drink enough to kill themselves with 50% likelihood, unless they’re willing, or they want, to die.</p>
<p>Now, based on that, you can go to BloodAlcoholCalculator.org and develop some guidelines for how much you can drink and in what time span. One could even create a calculator that does the planning for you, by asking about the people who are going to be there, their risk tolerance, the duration of the function and their beverage preferences. Friends could create drinking profiles with this information, and even use it to record their drinking history. Who knows, Facebook could probably do it, maybe there’s already an app.</p>
<p>I suppose my point is that there are plenty of people who drink a lot and who don’t particularly regret doing so. At the same time, it is pretty sad that some people are unlucky and end up dead. Rather than blame alcohol and the drinking culture, however, it might be more genuine to blame the culture that has stigmatized drinking, and criminalized it, and made it something you can’t talk to your parents about or act responsibly about without sounding like a square. Tell kids “drink and you’re going to die”, and they’re going to ignore you and drink. Tell kids “drink 10 shots per hour for 2 hours and there’s a 50% chance you will be dead afterwards”, and somehow I think they will probably drink fewer than 10 shots for 2 hours.</p>
<p>^^^I think education works to some extent, but the ability to rationalize is compromised under the influence. Are they really counting their shots after the first 2 or 3? </p>
<p>I’m surprised how many people argue against increased enforcement on college campuses with the excuse that “they’ll do it anyway”. Do we get rid of highway speed limits because people exceed them routinely? Stop enforcing the speed limit?</p>
<p>Cars are also MUCH safer passively than they were in the 70s no matter what the state of the driver. Hard to parse out what was the real cause of fewer deaths. Also states that had lower age may just be culturally more given to drinking than the others so there was more political support for the lower age.</p>
<p>Also from the study</p>
<p>"The study shows that people who lived in states with lower minimum drinking ages weren’t more likely to consume more alcohol overall or to drink more frequently than those from states where the drinking age was 21, but when they did drink, they were more likely to drink heavily. </p>
<p>The effect was most pronounced among men who did not attend college. And the researchers say the findings should be a warning to those who advocate lowering the minimum drinking age."</p>
<p>However, many people are not particularly good at judging risk, and many do not behave particularly rationally (which is why there is so much social science research in areas like behavioral economics). Of course, people behave even less rationally after a drink or few.</p>
<p>Okay, my mistake. The Lehigh incident was one week not two weeks ago. anad she was in an off-campus apartment, but 30% of undergrads (about half of the student body) live off campus (Check CDS) so I hardly think there is much of a difference - this could easily have happened at a dorm too. I realize the conclusions have not been released, but the circumstantial evidence certainly points to excessive drinking.</p>
<p>And LurkerDad, I do agree that traffic related alcohol deaths have probably declined. Due to better information about drinking and driving and/or better auto standards. But what about deaths from drinking in and of itself. Does anyone have any stats on the rates of death from alcohol poisoning over the years?</p>
<p>Because banning things we don’t like is un-American and usually the unintended consequences are worse than the behavior you’re trying to curb.</p>
<p>I’ll use my motorcycle example- I can’t stand them. Even more analogously, irresponsible users of this luxury good create massive dangers for everyone else on the road. However, I would never, ever petition the government to force everyone else to stop using them however they see fit. I honestly don’t understand this sentiment and why so many people want to use the government as a social dictator(both sides of the aisle).</p>
<p>I think saddling kids with extra costs and possibly legal troubles for having fun is beyond ridiculous as well.</p>
<p>According to the Harvard study, less than 1% of students required medical assistance after drinking.
Students who drank at schools where liquor was banned drank just as much as students at other schools, which I found interesting.
I dont believe that adult students need to be policed but if parents dont feel their kids are ready to behave responsibly unsupervised perhaps they should encourage their kids to hold off on college until they can.( or hire minders, which is apparently what some parents feel is needed for their adult children)
<a href=“Archive-It - Center for the History of Medicine”>Archive-It - Center for the History of Medicine;
<p>Varies by school. Duke University Medical Center reported (about five years) that 12% of students had suffered an alcohol-related blackout in the previous year. Destroyed lots of brain cells. </p>
<p>“Students who drank at schools where liquor was banned drank just as much as students at other schools, which I found interesting.”</p>
<p>The key to this sentence is “students who drank”. Far, far fewer students drank. But there is this thing called alcoholism…</p>
<p>There are so many practices that work on college campuses. The number of academic papers published on these every year is in the dozens. Do they prevent drinking? No. But some of them have major impacts, on the amount of drinking, the amount of bingeing, the percentage of students who drink, and the number of students who require medical attention for their drinking. Enforcement works - and many students (who otherwise would be drinking heavily) are thankful for it. (They really needed an excuse not to drink.)</p>
<p>“Also states that had lower age may just be culturally more given to drinking than the others so there was more political support for the lower age.”</p>
<p>Lots of PH.ds were earned on this question. Basically, they would take new neighboring communities across state lines, match them and standardize the samples based on demographic characteristics. Since the drinking ages changed in different years, there were able to track people from both communities and drinking habits and patterns. These were not difficult studies to do, and universally they found the same thing: changing the drinking ages worked.</p>
<p>The major change was that high students were no longer giving alcohol to 14 year olds.</p>
<p>It might be an artifact of wealth (average family income), but I’m not sure. Alcohol use generally speaking is higher in the northeast and the upper midwest. Also, lower percentages of Asian, Hispanic, and African-American students, all of whom have lower (and sometimes much lower) drinking and bingeing rates.</p>
<p>Thanks for the verification that the mid-1970s were he highest ( oh, a pun!) for drinking. There were keg parties EVERY weekend in our dorms. It just rotated from floor to floor to floor. A dorm floor would host the party and hire a DJ as well. A good time was had by all.</p>
<p>As a student and somebody living in the Northeast, I can tell you that yes, alcohol is prevalent. However, it is the students choice to drink. It’s ignorant to assume that your child won’t. That being said, its also their choice to stop drinking. If they aren’t strong enough to either say no or decide when they have had enough, they probably are not mature enough to handle the party scene. </p>
<p>Also, weed is crazy popular in the South West and California (due to cheapness, my AZ friend says its easier and cheaper than alc). So its not as if by avoiding the Northeast you are avoiding this issue of illicit substances. </p>
<p>The best thing to do is have them drink a tiny bit in high school, go out and learn their limits. Personally I think the drinking age should be 18 or 16 like in Europe. This way kids would understand its power at a younger age while still under the guidance of their parents. Mothers Against Drunk Driving is the only reason why this hasn’t changed. Too be honest, I think we would have fewer drunk driving incidents with a lower drinking age. Inexperienced drivers aren’t the problem, inexperienced drinkers are.</p>
<p><quote> These two tragic deaths are just the ones I have heard about because they are in the local news. I wonder nationwide, how many more similar scenarios there are? <unquote>
Perhaps if these stories weren’t considered just local news, and were reported more widely, it would help to make more students aware of the dangers. It surprises me, some of what does seem to be reported as national news.</unquote></quote></p>
</p>