Study: The Debate Is Over - Higher

Drinking Age Saves Lives

The case is closed in the debate over whether the government should lower the legal drinking
age, as research consistently reports the law helps save lives, rather than encourage underage
drinking, according to a new study

William DeJong, a professor at Boston University's School of Public Health, conducted a

literature review of research published since 2006, when the advocacy group Choose
Responsibility made the controversial claim that the drinking age of 21 was counterproductive
and pushed to lower it.

But DeJong says there is no such evidence to support that claim, and nearly all research
conducted on drinking-age laws proves the opposite. According to his study, research has
shown the higher drinking age saves an estimated 900 lives annually, due to fewer
alcohol-related traffic fatalities among underage drivers.

"There is very extensive literature on the drinking motives of young people, and in many
respects theyre not all that different from the motives of older drinkers," DeJong says. "It's to
bond with a social group, it's to reduce anxiety, to make them more comfortable in a social
situation. There are just lots of motives like that that drive the drinking, and sticking it to the man
is not really something that shows up."

Choose Responsibility is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007, several years after its
founder John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College, penned a bold op-ed in The
New York Times, in which he claimed, among other things, that the 21-year-old drinking age "is
bad social policy and a terrible law." McCardell later received funding to create Choose
Responsibility.
But DeJong says other countries serve as tales of caution for what would happen if the United
States was to reverse its stance on a higher drinking age. New Zealand, DeJong says, lowered
the drinking age from 20 to 18 in 1999.

"Once they did that they saw an immediate uptick in alcohol-related traffic crashes and other
alcohol problems," DeJong says. Throughout the country, there were more alcohol-related
driving incidents involving individuals aged 16 through 19, DeJong says.

"In addition to our own national experience with the law at the state level going back and forth
between 18 and 21, we have a very recent example of a country doing exactly what this group
proposed and there were clear consequences," DeJong says.

Before 1984, the minimum legal drinking age varied from state to state. Many states lowered
their drinking ages to 18, 19 or 20 during the Vietnam War era, and subsequently reversed them
after they saw increases in alcohol-related traffic incidents. Still, some states had lower drinking
ages and underage individuals often would cross state lines to drink legally, the report says.

With strong support from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Parent Teacher
Association and other groups, Congress in 1984 passed a law that gave states a financial
incentive to adopt a higher drinking age. Otherwise, they risked losing a percentage of highway
funds.

Still, McCardell and 100 other college presidents joined together in 2008 urging legislators to
reconsider the drinking age.

"It is astonishing that college students have thus far acquiesced in so egregious an abridgment
of the age of majority," McCardell wrote in his 2004 opinion piece. "Unfortunately, this
acquiescence has taken the form of binge drinking. Campuses have become, depending on the
enthusiasm of local law enforcement, either arms of the law or havens from the law."

Should Congress repeal the 21-year-old drinking age provision, states that chose to lower their
drinking ages, under the Choose Responsibility proposal, would have to require fulfillment of an
educational course on alcohol that would then allow them to have a license to drink in that state.
That provision would prevent individuals from crossing state borders to drink legally in another
state, Barrett Seaman, president of Choose Responsibility, tells U.S. News in a statement.

The research reviewed in DeJong's study, he says, is "asking the wrong question, which is, has
MLDA21 played a role in reducing drunken driving?"

"The answer to that is, of course; how could barring an entire cohort of young people from
buying or consuming alcohol not work to suppress drunken driving by members of this age
group?" Seaman says.

Research should instead focus on answering the question of whether having a higher drinking
age is an effective way to reduce drunken driving deaths and promote "a healthy approach to
alcohol consumption."

"In most of the rest of the world, the answer to that question would be 'no;' what works is
tougher enforcement of drunken driving laws for all ages of drivers," Seaman says. "It has
certainly worked in Europe."

Seaman also points to a 2002 study that shows Canada saw a reduction in drunken driving
fatalities similar to that of the United States after the 1984 law was passed, but without lowering
drinking age, which is 18 or 19, depending on the province.

But the idea that alcohol is a "forbidden fruit" for underage individuals is not supported in
research, DeJong says. He says research shows when college students are asked how more
strictly enforced alcohol policies would affect their drinking habits, many more are likely to say
they would drink less.

"Yes, there's always going to be a small number of young people who will do something out of
defiance, but there are a lot more who will make the more rational decision to obey the policy,
knowing that it's tougher and more strictly enforced," DeJong says.

If it really were the case that a higher drinking age encourages more binge drinking among
underage individuals, countries in Europe should serve as an example, DeJong argues.
But according to the 2003 European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs
(EPAD), which DeJong cites in his study, most countries have a higher percentage of high
school-aged students who report heavy alcohol use than the U.S. Other similar surveys have
shown that lifetime prevalence rates are lower in the U.S. In 2011, for example, 36 percent of
United States high school sophomores said they had been drunk in their lifetime, compared with
47 percent of European students of the same age.

"The fact is they have worse problems in Europe with a lower drinking age," DeJong says. "You
increase the availability of alcohol to younger people through a younger drinking age, and you'll
have more drinking. It's really just that simple."