2008 Woodie Awards
18-year-olds are adults in every other way, just let them drink
Jim Elliott
Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Opinions
Originally published: 4/24/08 at 3:27 PM EST
Last update: 4/24/08 at 4:25 PM EST
When it comes to lowering the legal drinking age to 18, I imagine there are some people out there who argue against it due to visions of young people running wild in the streets, liquored up, belligerent - a possible threat to public safety and public decency.
Others who would argue against it may have the more reasonable view that 18-year-olds just lack the capacity for good judgment when it comes to using alcohol because of their lack of experience with it - the worry being that they're really more of a danger to themselves than to others.
While both of these arguments may have some truth to them, neither one really acknowledges the reality that many 18, 19 and 20-year-olds are going to drink and continue to drink regardless of what the legal drinking age is. This is especially true for college students because drinking is such a huge part of the college.
So, if you have 18, 19 and 20-year-olds who are drinking with a total disregard for the legal drinking age, this creates a situation where all of these young adults are forced to hide their drinking to avoid getting into trouble. This means that those who are drinking are doing so at parties where they're most likely surrounded by their peers - who are probably around the same maturity level and have the same amount of experience with alcohol.
In an environment where only young people, who are probably inexperienced with alcohol, are drinking together, it's easy to imagine how the drinking could quickly get out of control and result in any number of problems. On the other hand, if these same young adults were drinking in a bar they would at least have bar owners, bartenders, and bouncers making sure things did not get as out of control by telling people when they've had enough and cutting them off if necessary.
And aside from the problems resulting from driving underage drinking underground where it can't monitored, I have to point out the hypocrisy in why we as a society keep the legal drinking age at 21 when so many of our other social standards declare that 18 is the age of adulthood.
Others who would argue against it may have the more reasonable view that 18-year-olds just lack the capacity for good judgment when it comes to using alcohol because of their lack of experience with it - the worry being that they're really more of a danger to themselves than to others.
While both of these arguments may have some truth to them, neither one really acknowledges the reality that many 18, 19 and 20-year-olds are going to drink and continue to drink regardless of what the legal drinking age is. This is especially true for college students because drinking is such a huge part of the college.
So, if you have 18, 19 and 20-year-olds who are drinking with a total disregard for the legal drinking age, this creates a situation where all of these young adults are forced to hide their drinking to avoid getting into trouble. This means that those who are drinking are doing so at parties where they're most likely surrounded by their peers - who are probably around the same maturity level and have the same amount of experience with alcohol.
In an environment where only young people, who are probably inexperienced with alcohol, are drinking together, it's easy to imagine how the drinking could quickly get out of control and result in any number of problems. On the other hand, if these same young adults were drinking in a bar they would at least have bar owners, bartenders, and bouncers making sure things did not get as out of control by telling people when they've had enough and cutting them off if necessary.
And aside from the problems resulting from driving underage drinking underground where it can't monitored, I have to point out the hypocrisy in why we as a society keep the legal drinking age at 21 when so many of our other social standards declare that 18 is the age of adulthood.
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