<p>One thing lowering the drinking age would do is take away the concern that contacting authorities when a problem arises will result in punishment and possible expulsion. Indiana has a law that if you contact authorities to help someone you can’t be convicted of underage drinking. How many students think about that when they are unsure if someone is alright I don’t know but it may be a factor in some of the deaths. Secondly it could be a contributing factor in problems related to alcohol not being reported. Violence, sexual impropriety get ignored because contacting an adult could potentially cause trouble. </p>
<p>I agree with the drinking and driving enforcement. I think one of the reasons the age hasn’t been lowered is because so many people under 21 are not college students (and therefore in an environment where they are less likely to be drinking and driving) and are much more likely to be both intoxicated and inexperienced drivers.</p>
<p>Statistically, lowering the drinking age would increase the number of alcohol related deaths. That was the whole reason why the age was raised. There is an alarming spike of alcohol related deaths between the ages of 18-21. All of this is documented in any number of studies. </p>
<p>I am stating this even as a proponent of lowering the legal drinking age to 18. It makes no sense to me to have someone become an adult in just about every way yet not permitted to have a beer. But it does save lives even with the binge drinking. </p>
<p>I don’t see how to cut down on the binge drinking. Getting rid of the frats is a start and also having LE jump on those serving and selling alcohol without checking ID would make it a bit more difficult. Most state have made DWI, DUI serious infractions to the point that those getting cited get jailtime and permanent consequences. That has cut drinking and driving down from what it used to be. But to regulate HOW people are drinking, I can’t see how. It’s not just those who are under 21 who are doing the binge drinking either. </p>
<p>I’ve had alcohol related issues with some of mine, and they all happened after age 21. So with a number of peers. It’s not just the younger end of the spectrum that are drinking recklessly. Many young people don’t get it that just because it’s legal for them to drink, that they still have to be careful in drinking alcohol. </p>
<p>We are going through this right now. I don’t like discussing something that is illegal for my child to do, however, since they’re talking about their experiences I think it is important to have those discussions. I put it into the same category of discussing sex with your children, neither of you is likely completely comfortable discussing the subject but it should be discussed and with as little judgement as possible. </p>
<p>I don’t know what mom2collegekids means by saying that “we tried lowering the drinking age . . . it didn’t work.” I grew up in a world where generally the drinking age was 18, and there was a lot of binge drinking, but not necessarily more than there is now. California, back then, had a 21 drinking age, and what it meant was that kids from California were much, much more likely to be heavy marijuana users than kids from New York. (Although kids from California drank plenty, and grass was hardly unknown in New York.) I would say that we tried raising the drinking age, and it didn’t work.</p>
<p>Actually, we have been running a pretty good controlled experiment on this question for a couple of decades, but I haven’t seen any reports of the comparative data. Ontario and British Columbia have a legal drinking age of 19, and Quebec’s is 18. Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are not terribly different from cities in the US, and there are plenty of US students at UBC, UToronto, and McGill. So we really ought to know something about comparative public health effects of the different systems. Do we?</p>
<p>I looked at stats on this myself, as I am a proponent of lowering the drinking age. Yes, it save lives and in a proportion more than just from having few kids legal to drink. I wish mini were here to join in the discussion, as he worked with this sort of data, and he came up with the same thing. It saves lives. Bottom line it does.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that binge drinking became a trend in last several years which it was not, in my day, except in fewer situations. Now it’s become a neat thing to do. Just like tattoos, and piercings became in, so has binge drinking. Just as certain drugs have become more commonly used, so has binge drinking. That the age has been raised is not necessarily a reason. </p>
<p>As for lower ages in other places, the numbers did not look good for Europe.Did not see any data for Canada. </p>
<p>I think school’s policies can help. I think that “zero-tolerance, drinking gets punished” policies lead to more binge drinking than more lenient policies. One school I know of has an alcohol philosophy which in essence says “so long as you are not endangering yourself or the community, we will not punish you.” They go onto explain what types of activities violate the community norms.</p>
<p>In New York State, it is legal for a parent to serve his/her own child age 14 or over. My offspring didn’t attend college in NYS, but if they had I would have been the one buying beer for the dorm fridge. </p>
<p>Yes, upping the age of drinking has cut the # of traffic fatalities and I admit that’s a good thing. If we raised the age to 30, it would probably cut it further, but I don’t think anyone would suggest that. </p>
<p>There have been some side effects I don’t think we consider enough. LOTS of college kids have phony IDs. Many of them get them from unsavory sources–often an internet site. The $ from some of those sites goes into the pocket of career criminals.Prohibition in the 1920s and '30s was a boon to organized crime–and so is prohibition for college kids. Additionally–and more importantly to me–it gets a lot of kids who otherwise wouldn’t break the law to do so. As a result, they view breaking the law as something that “everybody does” and that spills over into lack of respect for the law in other areas. Of course, some kids end up with criminal records, especially when a 21 year old gets caught buying beers for underage friends. </p>
<p>Moreover, when you make drinking illegal for those between 18 and 21, you do two other things. You promote “pregaming”—drinking in private before going to the college party. Pregaming often involves hard liquor and it’s prevalence means many people arrive at parties drunk–which sets young women up for rape. You also divide the social world between drinkers and non-drinkers. At colleges where the rules are strictly enforced, non-drinkers don’t party with drinkers. When you remove all the non-drinkers from a party, the amount of drinking the kids who are “social drinkers” imbibe increases substantially. The non-drinkers aren’t happy because they feel socially isolated.</p>
<p>I think a compromise would be to make it legal to drink wine and beer, but not hard liquor, between 18 and 21. I also think any establishment that sold beer and wine to this age group would have to serve food. You might even go so far as to have a law that you can only buy beer or wine if you also buy food. Having kids sit around watching a football game and drinking beer while eating pizza or wings seems to me a lot healthier than having them sit in a dorm room downing vodka shots on an empty stomach before heading off to a party. And if it were legal, some of the kids watching the game would be drinking coke instead of beer and their presence would make it easier for someone else to switch to coke after a couple of beers. </p>
<p>But why not kick out all the kids caught drinking out of colleges with a mark on their transcript that would make it impossible for them to get into another college? Wouldn’t that solve the college binge drinking problem?</p>
<p>“Yes, upping the age of drinking has cut the # of traffic fatalities and I admit that’s a good thing. If we raised the age to 30, it would probably cut it further, but I don’t think anyone would suggest that.”</p>
<p>The stats I have seen take into account that simply upping the ages would reduce fatalities. The stats show a sharp peek between the ages of 18-21, that does not occur in any other similar age brackets. Absolutely, if we up the age to 22, we might reduce some more fatalities, but the the gains are not over the average. I think that the combo of being inexperienced drives, just getting independence from parents and other factors make the 18-21 age range particularly vulnerable to alcohol related deaths. The binge drinking fad has escalated this risk, IMO both in series of illlegal and possible legal drinkers. As I’ve said, I feel that age should be raised, but the evidence of lives saved is sobering to me, and so it makes me pause. </p>
<p>When my kids were of the age where they’d be exposed to underaged drinking situations (parties, etc), I told them that:</p>
<p>I would pay for a taxi or come get them at any time, no questions asked…and I would still do that even tho they are over 21. In fact, my son called me during the summer (3am) and told me that they had played some beer-pong and knew he shouldn’t drive…so in the car we happily went. </p>
<p>I also told them that it’s important that they go to any situation like this with a full tummy of food. I know how easily even one drink can affect a person on an empty stomach…particularly one poured at a nice restaurant where the bartenders “free pour” and are quite “generous.” I once felt light-headed after drinking half of a drink at restaurant so I knew that I couldn’t drive at that point. </p>
<p>I’m not naive enough to think that they would have never drank under-age. But, in the end, the age isn’t the real issue…drinking and driving is…and that’s a problem no matter how old the person is. </p>
<p>We did not look for colleges that behaved as surrogate parents.
After all both my kids were adults when they attended college, they could monitor their own behavior or live with the consequences.
Not sure why that concept seems out of reach for some.
If students aren’t ready to go to college, then they shouldnt.
It’s not a legal requirement.</p>
<p>Kicking out kids who get drunk while in college will enforce that. College often have codes of conduct that prohibit drinking. Shouldn’t the colleges start to enforce their own code of conduct?</p>
<p>i attended college in the very last years of 18-year-olds legally drinking. I truly believe it helped…I remember people being drunk…i don’t recall <em>deaths</em> and I do hear of that fairly often now…</p>
<p>i’m sickened by the idea of my younger kid going to college & being drawn into a culture of drinking until blacking out…and yet i am clueless as to what college is not dealing with this issue. </p>
<p>Kicking out kids who get drunk while in college will enforce that. College often have codes of conduct that prohibit drinking. Shouldn’t the colleges start to enforce their own code of conduct?*</p>
<p>If they have a strict code of conduct and they aren’t following it, I agree that they need to back up their words with action.
However, a case by case basis seems more prudent.</p>
<p>Unless a crime was committed while they were intoxicated, I don’t think feeling the affects of one, two or three beers is enough to warrant expulsion except at schools where that is clearly stated in the code of conduct.
If a family wants that structure for their child, those schools are certainly out there.</p>
<p>I think part of the problem is that liquor is strong. I don’t know about hard liquor, but I know that both wine and beer- especially the popular microbrews, have a high alcohol content.
I think that this won’t be such a problem as more states legalize marijuana for those over 18.</p>
<p>I believe if all colleges started kicking out kids for getting drunk pretty soon the public hysteria over drunk kids would subside and parents would be all too eager to lower the drinking age to 18. Next steps would be to have all K-12 schools starting to kick out kids for getting drunk. Then I believe parents will start to teach the kids how to drink responsibly starting at a much earlier age that 18 and dropping the legal age for alcohol consumption to below 18. Which overall I think will be a good thing as the nonsensical Just say No will stop. If abstinence preaching doesn’t work why do we believe Just say No to drugs/alcohol will work?</p>
<p>This link shows that most of the world has a drinking age of 18. We are in small company with only 6 other countries who have it set at 21, and it isn’t working. Instead of being able to have beers at the campus bars, 18 to 20 year old students turn to cars and off campus parties, preferring hard liquor which is easier to conceal. Then they drink as much as they can while they can. I have lived in one country with a 16 year old drinking age and one with an 18 year old drinking age, I did not see the student drinking problems that we see in the U.S.
<a href=“http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/LegalDrinkingAge.html#.VJSbDf_YE”>http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/LegalDrinkingAge.html#.VJSbDf_YE</a></p>
<p>Whoa- folks. It is not the academic institution’s job to prevent their students from underage and/or binge drinking. They can offer education and help, but they are not supposed to act as parents of children.</p>
<p>Colleges can’t overcome a drinking culture. Wisconsin has a history of a large German and other European ethnic groups with a drinking culture. No school can change the mindset a majority of students come to college with. WI had an 18 year old beer allowed culture which switched to all at 18 then to none before 18. The logic of 21 vs 18 is in keeping access from HS students limited. The 18 for everything logic had to do with the draft and the Vietnam war. Likewise how the age of adulthood and voting became 18 instead of 21. I still remember the times and issues.</p>
<p>One factor in college binge drinking is the new freedom to indulge and experience drinking. I’ll bet most parents whose children have finished college find their drinking habits are mellowed by learning curves, the loss of novelty and being legal.</p>
<p>The question becomes- how can our society change the drinking culture. Religion is not the answer- it has to become an intrinsic locus of control, not something from authorities one may disagree with. Would having NO restrictions on drinking help? Learning to drink at home without the need to finish the booze perhaps. But that isn’t helped by those older adults who routinely drink at least a six pack at one sitting.</p>
<p>Why do people ask colleges to take on roles they do not request of employers? No one is insisting that those who employ 18 year olds full time to monitor their outside of work behavior. It is the parents who raised the children to adulthood’s responsibility. Parents can take their quest to their high schools. Parents can teach their children to not yield to bad peer pressure. Etc. </p>
<p>Society has chosen 18 as the age of adult status. This means that colleges and universities have no right to play parental roles they may have generations ago (they certainly didn’t/couldn’t as far back as the late 1960’s early 1970’s- when young adults were no longer compliant).</p>
<p>Drinking is a learned skill. So the only question is when/how the learning is going to take place.</p>
<p>I did a good bit of my HS drinking in a local bar that was notorious for not carding underage kids. That was actually a pretty good/safe place to learn. In college, I did lots of drinking at the pub at the student union since the legal age at that time was 18. That was also a pretty good place to learn. It was also a good place to have the inevitable bad night.</p>
<p>Six beers require you to consume 72 ounces of fluid to injest 3.6 ounces of alcohol. Or you can pre-game 9 ounces of 80 proof vodka to get the same 3.6 ounces of alcohol. If you consume that vodka in a much shorter period of time (which is how the pre-game works), the intoxication effects are amplified. </p>
<p>Seems a lot better to let the kids learn legally, out in the open with low proof beverages (training wheels; learners permit). Chugging a handle of vodka in private doesn’t seem like a good learning environment.</p>
<p>Let kids be legal beer drinkers as of the September 1 of the year in which they turn 18. So basically all college kids are legal and all HS kids are not legal. Make booze 21 (and seriously enforce that). Or restrict under 21 booze consumption to on premises licensed bars. </p>
<p>I recall my college dean saying the following at my freshman orientation session. “College is a great time in your life. Because you spend your time reading books and drinking beer, often in the company of girls.” I think that is a totally healthy attitude. That statement created no stir in the room when the Dean said that. Today, that Dean would be fired.</p>
<p>I agree with northwesty’s observation that drinking in public matters. I grew up in a real drinking culture, in which I was very infrequently denied service in bars after I turned 16. A weekend night in 11th and 12th grade was a visit (on foot) to three or four bars, where I would encounter probably 3/4ths of my class. Drinking in public made people aware of their social context, and constrained behavior. I am not going to say no one (including myself) ever got drunk or sloppy, but not that often thanks to the social constraints.</p>