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Lessons From
The Drinking Age Experiment
For 600 years of English common law and throughout most of U.S. legal history, the age of 21 was regarded as the age of full adult status. Until 1971 the legal minimum voting age was 21 and many states maintained age 21 as their legal drinking age. It was not until the Vietnam War with the unpopular, forcible draft of disenfranchised 18-year-olds, that the age to vote in the U.S. was shifted downward to 18 by the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
During that period 25 states also moved to reduce the age to purchase and consume alcoholic beverages. The result was a dramatic increase in highway crashes, injuries and deaths caused by intoxicated drivers in the 16 to 20 age group. These increases, and the disparities in alcohol-related injuries between states that maintained a 21 drinking age and those with lower ages, resulted in 1984 federal action initiated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) under President Reagan. By 1988, all U.S. states had moved to raise their legal drinking age to 21. NHTSA estimates that this policy prevents more than 1,000 deaths annually from highway crashes involving intoxicated young drivers.
Importantly, total drinking by high school seniors dropped by 38% and binge drinking fell by a similar amount. Daily drinking fell by half. Enforcement remains spotty and drinking by teenagers remains a serious problem, but those gains persist even today among teens. Most significantly, today's thirty year-olds drink at a significantly lower rate than those of a generation ago. Clearly, not all of this effect was due to increasing the legal drinking age. Many other forces were also at work. However, a study examining just those states where the legal drinking age was raised shows a significant effect. 12 One can only speculate what better enforcement might achieve, especially combined with well-funded media campaigns, diminished industry advertising and higher prices.
Why 21 Works When 18 Did Not
The unfortunate social experiment with America's drinking age laws lends insight into the possible effect that raising the LMSAT may have. The substantial drop in adolescent consumption of alcohol occurred in the absence of increased enforcement. Also, it is important to recognize that adolescents obtain alcohol differently than tobacco, and this difference may enhance the preventive effect of a higher age for access to tobacco products.
In the case of adolescents and tobacco, most regular users purchase it directly from a retailer (see chart) whereas the majority of underage alcohol users tend to avoid retailers and instead obtain alcohol from those over 21. Often, these older individuals have incentives to buy alcohol for younger people in order to induce a party atmosphere or sexual compliance, and these incentives may not exist for tobacco.13
In addition, alcohol is used differently than tobacco. Only a minority of alcohol users consumes it daily or in sufficient quantity to warrant a daily purchase, whereas most tobacco users maintain an active, incessant addiction. Addicted smokers generally smoke a minimum of 10 cigarettes per day. For many adolescents who may have limited cash reserves, this may mean seeking to obtain a pack (20 cigarettes) on a daily or every-other-day basis. The differences in the way youths access and use these two substances suggest that raising tobacco access to age 21 may have even more powerful impact than was achieved by raising the alcohol access age.14
Increasing the LMSAT to 21 also raises the bar on access to younger teens. A study of retail sales to youth demonstrated that teens older than 16 (within two years of the current LMSAT) were able to successfully complete an illegal purchase at nearly twice the rate of those younger than 16.15
Thus if access is raised to age 21, teens younger than 18 will face increased scrutiny from sales clerks, further inhibiting their chance of ever starting or impeding their progression to established addiction. A merchant may make a case for selling tobacco illegally to someone only a year or two younger than the minimum age, but 5 or 6 years would be difficult to explain. In addition, most states have changed their drivers' licenses to more clearly indicate if the driver is under age 21 and many efforts are underway to make it more difficult to manufacture and obtain false identification. Most tobacco retailers also sell alcohol and this would allow for a simpler unified solution to ID checking for all.
Public Support for 21
Successful lawsuits and public health campaigns have placed anti-smoking sentiments at the forefront of American culture. The groundswell of public support for raising the LMSAT to 21 is real as the statistics below prove. Two statewide telephone polls of Ohio registered voters showed:
Without any advertising, public debate or further information more than 60 percent of the registered voters sampled supported raising the LMSAT to 21.
Majorities in virtually every demographic category favored age 21, including self-identified liberals, moderates and conservatives. 16
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