By Ian Barry
Staff Columnist
It’s no secret that in the past two weeks, many freshmen have had their first experience with alcohol. For some of them, it probably isn’t the first time. I am in no way endorsing this behavior, but practically speaking, the drinking age doesn’t seem to present much of an obstacle. In an ideal world where impractical laws were addressed and remedied, you might ask, “Why is the drinking age 21? Oughtn’t we keep it that way?”
As it happens, the minimum drinking age was set across the nation in 1984 by the aptly-named National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Prior to this act, drinking ages were set by individual states, though many were already 21 anyway, as that was the age of majority at the time Prohibition was repealed. Eventually, the age of legal adulthood was lowered, but the drinking age stuck.
So an 18-year-old in the U.S. can vote, drive, enroll in the Army, get married, smoke, and own a house, car, and long guns, but can’t buy and consume alcohol.
I can’t know the thought processes of the lawmakers, but I’ll hazard a guess: alcohol is a dangerous substance. Which is hardly a unique property; water is poisonous if you drink too much, Fluffy pillows can be used to smother people, and bricks aren’t too constructive if applied directly to the forehead.
But the benefits and dangers of alcohol are inseparable from each other. On one hand, you’re relaxed, warm, and happy (with a side order of ‘reduced risk of cardiovascular disease’); on the other, nausea, vomiting, increased risk of addiction, injury, death, liver damage, cancer, lighter wallet, and a whole host of other conditions I don’t have the word count to list. A Center of Disease Control report estimated alcohol overuse as the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death in the U.S. From a cost-benefit perspective, it doesn’t seem worth it.
So if it’s so bad for us, why do we still keep drinking it? Perhaps most people don’t conduct strict cost-benefit analyses of their beverage habits. But we’re aware of the dangers. We all had to complete AlcoholEdu, and many of us didn’t get through high school without a lecture on the evils of alcohol and being shown the picture of the liver with cirrhosis.
I think it’s because we live in a culture steeped in alcohol. It’s glamorized to an almost excessive degree in our media. Our media examples are all able to drink scotch and vodka and martinis then shoot a zillion bad guys. Characters who don’t or won’t drink are portrayed as immature, childish, or just “off” in some way.
Of course, no stereotypical college experience is complete without drinking until you pass out. In a sense, alcohol use is portrayed as a sign of maturity and adulthood. Our culture promotes indiscriminate use of a substance that affects judgment and inhibition. And use of that substance is heavy among the age groups whose judgment capabilities are already not fully developed. Not a great combination.
So what should we do? Assuming we want to minimize the negative effects of alcohol consumption on a national scale, the drinking age doesn’t seem to be doing much.
Raising the age would be pretty much a token effort unless enforcement and punishment became more stringent. We’ve already received an object lesson that complete prohibition is ineffective.
I don’t think this is a problem that can be solved by legislation. Our problems with alcohol are inseparable from our culture, and changing the drinking age will do nothing to solve that. Perhaps we need to begin deconstructing the unrealistic positive associations we possess with alcohol.
Legislation, laws and bills won’t fix really deep rooted and messed up cultural problems.