Binge drinking is a deadly problem on college campuses, but there’s little evidence that lowering the legal drinking age would help solve it.
A group of 100 or college presidents, including Duke University’s Richard Brodhead, is urging legislators to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, arguing that the current limit contributes to a culture of “dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking.” The group doesn’t prescribe “a particular policy change,” but it does call for a national debate about a law that “is not working as well as the public may think” and is not in line with “current realities.”
The current reality is pretty grim. It’s estimated that 1,700 college students die each year from alcohol-related causes. That doesn’t include those who survive their youthful binges only to battle lifelong addiction. Nor does it include the risky behaviors, ranging from unprotected sex to drunken midnight swims to rape, that are more likely to occur in alcohol-fueled settings.
There’s no debate about the need to lessen the allure of excessive drinking. There should be considerable debate, however, about the wisdom of lowering the drinking age. Since 1984, when Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (which reduced highway funds for any state setting its drinking age lower than 21), studies done by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have concluded that raising the drinking age lowers drunk-driving deaths. A study published last month in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention found that the higher age limit had led to an 11 percent drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths among youth. It also found that states with strong laws against fake IDs had significantly lower alcohol-related fatalities among young drivers ó a good argument for the new North Carolina law that alters the format of licenses for under-21 drivers to make them more easily identifiable.
Since peer pressure is a significant factor in underage drinking, it stands to reason that reducing the drinking age will remove one good reason that teens have for not drinking ó it can get them in serious trouble with the law. If 18-year-olds can legally buy booze, it also stands to reason that alcohol will be more accessible to the next group of underage drinkers ó 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds.
Rather than stemming from careful consideration of such consequences, the college presidents’ suggestion appears to be more of a white-flag acknowledgment that they can’t control drinking on campus. While they define it as a “clandestine” affair, the portrayal in the mass media is that it’s anything but. Binge drinking is an open secret, and some students brazenly post their exploits on personal Web pages or social networking sites.
Alcohol abuse among the young isn’t limited to college students, by any means. It’s neither realistic nor fair to think that college campuses are the root cause of the problem or can provide a unilateral solution. Rather than lobby to change the law, however, colleges can do more to enforce it. They also can continue to educate students about the dangers of alcohol abuse and encourage groups that steer students toward healthier behaviors. That can help dispel the myth that binge drinking is somehow the “norm” for college students, when in reality it’s a deviant behavior that can ó and too often does ó result in injury or death.