Science Finally Shows When (Cognitive) Adulthood Begins

No, this is NOT the usual "teen brain" junk science that we have quite frankly gotten tired of debunking.  This is the real deal, so listen up and pay very close attention. 

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh recently published a new, large, and groundbreaking study in Nature Communications that examined nearly two dozen laboratory measures of "executive function" of a whopping 10,000 participants (ages 8 through 35) across four different datasets.  And the results dovetail nicely with what we at Twenty-One Debunked have been generally saying all along, and we quote (emphasis added):

"The resulting analysis showed a common dynamic of executive function maturation that was shared between both sexes: a rapid burst of executive function development in late childhood to mid-adolescence (10-15 years old), followed by small but significant changes through mid-adolescence (15-18) that stabilized to adult-level performance by late adolescence (18-20)."

"Other important behavioral factors that complement executive function, such as the ability to control one's own emotions, can change with age. The ability to use executive function reliably improves with age and, at least in a laboratory setting, matures by 18 years of age."

In other words, 18-20 year olds are in fact adults, not only biologically, but also neurologically and cognitively as well.  And the data show that even 15-17 year olds are actually pretty darn close as well.  Thus, there is really no scientific reason to set the age of majority (or any related age limit for that matter) any higher than 18, period.  In fact, one can even justify setting some age limits a bit lower than that based on this research (after all, it's not binary like flicking a light switch, but rather a gradual process).

So why have so many other, flashier studies seemed to have suggested otherwise?  Well, the brain technically does continue developing to some extent well beyond 18, of course, but that apparent development has been known for over a decade now to continue well into the 30s, 40s, and likely even beyond that as well.  Clearly, any development that does occur from 18 to 21 or 25 is on the very same spectrum as the development that continues beyond that as well.  A brain that continues to change and develop throughout life does not lend itself to simplistic explanations of a magical age of neurological adulthood based on its superficial appearance on a brain scan.  Rather, the real question becomes when the brain is no longer developing on a critical or fundamental level, and when one can achieve an adult level cognitive capacity and performance.  And the University of Pittsburgh study above answers that question far better than just about any other study has so far to date.

So basically, we as a society have three choices on what to do given these findings:  1) radically redefine adulthood, 2) radically redefine adolescence, or 3) simply accept 18-20 year olds as adults, in every way, period.  Occam's Razor would clearly agree with the third option, as would any serious consideration of liberty and justice for all.

To argue otherwise is, at this point, nothing short of warmed-over phrenology at best, if not full-blown political Lysenkoism that will ultimately go down in history as the epitome of bigoted crank science.

UPDATE:  Much to the chagrin of some purists, this study is also the strongest hard evidence to date that adolescence does in fact exist as a distinct life stage that is not entirely socially constructed.  Adolescence appears to be no more socially constructed than adulthood is, in fact.  And to that we say, so what?  Glibly denying all group differences and/or attempting to erase adolescence entirely does not do young people any favors either, and it plays right into the hands of the biological determinist bigots and cranks.  That said, the study finds no scientific support for the specious idea of "emerging adulthood" as a life stage somehow distinct from young adulthood, and we really should simply jettison the term "emerging adulthood" from our collective vocabulary. 

In any case, there is nothing magical about turning 21, 25, or any other age north of 18 for that matter.  And while even 18 is hardly magical either, it is arguably the least arbitrary place to draw the default line where once you are an adult, you are an adult, period.

The Abysmal Failure of "Peer Review"

There is an excellent Substack article by Adam Mastroianni, that dives fairly deep into why "peer review" in science is not only useless, but often worse than useless.  Continuing in the tradition of the legendary John Ioannidis, he notes how this process, which should really be called "pal review" or "gatekeeping", not only does NOT keep even glaring junk science findings from published, but actually ends up rigging the game in favor of the rich and powerful, and propping up mainstream narratives above the truth. Peer review as we know it is really only about six decades old, and it can be considered a failed experiment.  The scientific method has clearly NOT improved since then, to say the very least.

Woe, you mean that turning science into little more than a popularity contest at best, and a pay-to-play at worst, has not made science objectively any better, and likely made it worse?  Gee, I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!  Who could have seen that coming?

And while he doesn't discuss the utter abomination that passes for research on the 21 drinking age, we at Twenty-One Debunked note that this is probably the most salient example of the failure of peer review.  The pro-21 crowd basically has their own "citation mill" of the same old MADD affiliates and fellow travelers to prop up their faulty narrative, constantly moving the goalposts when eventually debunked, while anything that contradicts their narrative is censored or delayed for publication in mainstream journals.  It was truly a miracle that Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), Asch and Levy (1987 and 1990), Mike Males (1986 and 2008), and literally anything by Darren Grant ever even got published at all, and Dee and Evans (2001) probably only got published by "nerfing" their findings a bit first.  And forget most meta-analysis and reviews, as those (except for Darren Grant in 2011) have been hopelessly rigged, padded, and cherry-picked beyond all recognition.

And then they have the GALL to call the anti-21 researchers "merchants of doubt" or (usually falsely) claim that they are funded by Big Alcohol.  Riiiiight. 

It's time to end this utterly failed experiment. 

The Smoking Gun? Not Exactly

A recent preliminary study from earlier this year by Catherine Orr et al. seems to be stirring the pot, so to speak.  Adding fuel to the already volatile tinderbox of moral panic around teen cannabis use, this study using brain scans appears to find brain changes in 14 year olds who have used cannabis only once or twice, compared with those who have never used it.  Specifically, those who had used it once or twice showed increased gray matter in various brain regions relative to those who did not, which, counterintuitively, suggests a disruption of the normal "pruning" process that occurs during adolescence (or something).  And of course, the MSM predictably just took it and ran with it.

Of course, correlation is not the same as causation, and there are still reasons to be skeptical of the findings and practical significance:

• The sample size was small:  46 people in each group.  Thus, very sensitive to potential selection bias, reporting bias, and confounding.  (Apparently from a larger brain study of over 2000 people, they could only find 47 individuals who had only tried cannabis once or twice by that age, and one had an inconclusive scan.)
• Another way that size matters is "effect size".  And while the numbers are difficult to interpret, they are also on the small side.
• Some underreporting of cannabis (and other substance) use is always very likely, and can skew results in either direction depending on what is being underreported and by whom.
• Temporality of the initial findings remains unclear (i.e. which occurred first?).
• No other study has ever found long-lasting brain changes from a single dose or two of cannabis, at least not in humans.  And no one has ever replicated these findings yet.
• Previous studies have been quite inconsistent in terms of the effects (or lack thereof) of cannabis use, even regular use, on brain structure, function, and cognition.  Some studies found increases in gray matter, others decreases, still others null.  Ditto for white matter as well.
• Given how the participants were European, it is particularly difficult to disentangle cannabis and tobacco use as the two substances are customarily mixed.  This is important because nicotine is a known neurotoxin to which the early adolescent brain appears to be exquisitely sensitive.
• The study apparently did not look at the brain effects of those who used cannabis but did not initiate until age 15 or older, so even if the effects are real, they may not necessarily be generalizable to people over 15.
• The practical significance of the findings is clear as mud right now.  Even the researchers aren't entirely sure what they mean.  Is it actually bad to have more gray matter, and compared to what exactly?  Is it disrupted brain development, or simply stimulated and enhanced neurogenesis?
• While greater gray matter in the study was correlated with differences in psychomotor performance contemporaneously for whatever reason, the only bad thing correlated with it two years later was generalized anxiety.  No other measures of psychopathology or performance were correlated at baseline or two years later.
• Come to think of it, if these 14 year olds were followed up two years later, why were their brains not scanned again a second time at 16, especially since there admittedly were many who were cannabis-naive at 14 who went on to use it two years later?
• And frankly, it really doesn't even pass the straight face test that a mere single dose or two of such a relatively mild psychoactive substance would be enough cause a long-lasting disruption to brain development, a process that occurs over several years.  To quote Paracelsus, "the dose makes the poison".  That, and Occam's Razor too.

Of course, the cliche that "more research is needed" certainly applies here, and the researchers indeed say as much.  They also plan to do a follow-up study as well in the near future.  Though if history is any indication, we should not hold our breath waiting for these results to be replicated.

Keep in mind that the infamous 2012 study that reportedly found persistently reduced IQs among adults who used cannabis before age 18, was debunked by 2014 study that found no correlation between adolescent cannabis use and IQ or exam performance (though heavy use beginning before age 15 was associated with slightly poorer exam results at age 16).  This latter study did control for tobacco, alcohol, and a host of other factors.  So it is very likely that soon another study will come a long and refute the first study discussed in this article, or perhaps find that any such effects are limited to the heaviest users, particularly those who began before age 15 or 16.  In fact, a 2018 systematic review of 69 studies of adolescent and young adult cannabis use and cognitive functioning found that reported adverse effects were much smaller in size than the prohibitionists like to claim, and generally tend to be temporary rather than permanent, even for frequent and/or heavy use.  And interestingly, no correlation with age of onset, though the mean age of study participants in these 69 studies was significantly higher than in the aforementioned Montreal study.

Other studies as well cast serious doubt on the scary claims of cannabis neurotoxicity as well, and most studies find weed safer than alcohol.

So what is the best takeaway from such studies?  It would seem that while occasional or moderate cannabis use is basically a non-problem, heavy and/or daily/near-daily use (unless medically necessary) should probably be avoided at any age, but particularly for people under 18 and especially under 15.  And while delaying the onset of use, or at least regular use, for as long as possible is probably wise for people under 18 and especially under 15, there is no hard scientific evidence that cannabis is any more harmful at 18 than it is as 21, 25, or even 30 for that matter.  Thus, there is no good reason to keep it illegal or set the age limit any higher than 18.  And even for people well under 18, the criminal law is still far too harsh a tool to apply to something like this that more likely than not turns out to be a non-problem.

The prohibitionist "scientists" and their pal-reviewers really seem to be grasping at straws now.  Apparently they think if they move the goalposts enough, they will score a touchdown.  But as we all know, that is not how science really works.

How About We NOT "Raise The Age" For Juvenile Injustice Beyond 18?

For the record, Twenty-One Debunked does NOT support any attempt raise the age for the juvenile injustice system any higher than 18.  Period.

Until recently, no one really took seriously the idea of raising the juvenile injustice age any higher than 18.  In fact, we would often half-jokingly use this idea as an intellectual checkmate against the 21 drinking age and similar illiberal and ageist laws.  But the idea is apparently now really catching on since last year.  Make no mistake, this will NOT make young adults (or anyone) any better off, but it is a Trojan horse that will later be used as an excuse to revoke ALL civil rights from 18-24 year olds, just like people under 18 today.  After all, "you can't have adult rights without adult responsibilities", they say, without even the slightest hint of nuance (or irony), of course.

I mean, we can kinda understand raising the age for the "juvenile" injustice system to 18, only because it is unfair that as long as the age of majority remains 18 and the juvenile age limit is lower than 18, people under that age are hypocritically treated as children when they are good and adults when they are bad.  A few states currently still set the age limit at 16 or 17 to this day, and they should probably raise it to 18 given what we know now about youth development.  But any higher than that is really asking for trouble, and will do far more harm than good.  If they honestly want to make the adult criminal injustice system more rehabilitative and restorative for all ages, fine.  But they really don't, and raising the age limit is both over and under inclusive, and highly counterproductive to both justice and youth rights.

As for the idea of having separate young-adult prisons for 18-24 or 18-25 year olds while still trying and sentencing them as adults, we have no problem with that.  The UK has done that for a while, and now Connecticut is experimenting with this idea as well.  It does make sense to not put those who are young enough still have a chance (however slim) to be rehabilitated in the same facility with older, more hardened criminals who will be a very bad influence on them.  Believe it or not, us youth rights activists actually are capable of nuance.  But trying and sentencing them as anything less than the adults that they are is really taking things too far in that regard.

Indeed, slopes are a LOT slipperier than they appear.  One of the very first things to do to fight this trend is to jettison the term "emerging adult" from our vocabulary, at least in regards to 18-24 year olds.  "Young adult" is the longstanding and preferred term for that age range as well as also 25-34 year olds, and there is no need for neologisms that further divide the youth or young adult demographics.  Language is very powerful, and recategorizing people with neologisms is the first step towards second-class citizenship (i.e. not REAL adults, because REASONS, or something).

And of course, we must recognize and expose the junk neuroscience behind this latest Trojan horse for what it is, as it is literally the same junk neuroscience used to justify abridging the civil rights of 18-24 year olds (to say nothing of those under 18 as well, a fortiori.)

So let's NOT give the ageists any more ammunition by taking the bait here.  Seriously, not even in jest.

Latest Regression Discontinuity Study Only Confirms Powder Keg Theory (Again)

As we have noted before back in 2016, the latest type of drinking age studies, i.e. "regression discontinuity" (RD) studies, superficially appear to support the 21 drinking age, but upon closer examination actually kind of imply the opposite, namely 1) there is really nothing magical about 21, and 2) delaying legal access to alcohol to 21 compared with 18 only creates an even larger ticking time-bomb and powder keg that goes off at 21, with no real net benefit.

In 2016, pro-21 researchers Kitt Carpenter and Carlos Dobkin were at it once again.  As you may recall, we at Twenty-One Debunked have critiqued much of their previous work, particularly their use of the "regression discontinuity" approach.  The researchers found a significant jump in statistical death rates, arrests, and stuff like that immediately after young people turn 21 compared with before.  And their latest study seems to be more of the same, this time looking at non-fatal injuries as measured by both ER visits and inpatient hospital admissions.

Oddly, these researchers actually (and without even a hint of irony) claim that these studies show that the 21 drinking age is effective in saving lives and reducing alcohol-related harm!  But we at Twenty-One Debunked see it rather differently--if anything, it shows that there is nothing at all magical about turning 21 that makes one invulnerable to the deleterious effects of excessive alcohol consumption.  And setting the drinking age at such an arbitrarily high age only sets a powder keg (pun intended) that goes off when young people reach that age.  The higher the drinking age, the larger the powder keg, it seems.  And it also shows that the Law of Eristic Escalation (i.e. imposition of order leads to escalation of chaos) is correct, as well as Fenderson's Amendment (the tighter the order is maintained, the longer it takes for the chaos to escalate, but the more it does when it does).  Hardly a ringing endorsement for the 21 drinking age!

Of course, Carpenter and Dobkin also find evidence of a jump in both drinking and alcohol-related deaths among Canadians upon reaching their MLDA (18 or 19, depending on the province), particularly among males, and the increase in mortality seems to be due to a sudden jump in "extreme" binge drinking.  It seems there is always a risk of increased alcohol-related harm in the short-run after suddenly turning legal, regardless of age.  But as much other research shows, there is good reason to believe that such an effect is worse and longer-lasting when the the legal drinking age is higher rather than lower.  And furthermore, a recent study in Australia (where the drinking age is 18 and DUI laws are tougher) found essentially no link between being able to drink legally and motor vehicle accidents of any type in the state of New South Wales.  Food for thought indeed.

On the plus side, one should also note that another recent study using a regression-discontinuity approach found that being able to drink legally reduced the consumption and initiation of hard drugs (cocaine, heroin, meth, etc.) among young people, with no effect on tobacco use.  And still another RD study finds that when alcohol retreats, cannabis advances (and vice-versa).  These findings blow yet another big hole in the junk science that is the roundly-debunked "gateway" theory of drugs.

Fast forward to 2018, when another researcher, UW-Madison Professor Jason Fletcher, conducted yet another regression discontinuity study in the USA, this time looking at previously unexplored risk behaviors and consequences relating to drinking.  In addition to replicating the results of the aforementioned previous studies, these novel measures included self-reports of drunk driving, boozy and risky sex, interpersonal troubles, violence, and of course, hangovers.  And not surprisingly, these effects also jumped at 21 as well, with larger effects on males than females.  And again, this is simply further confirmation of the powder keg theory.

So what do we call it when you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results?

UPDATE: A later study in Austria, where the drinking age is 16, also dovetails with this same theory as well.

Which Ancillary Laws Actually Work to Reduce Teen Drinking? (Spoiler Alert: Almost None)

The legal drinking age (at least in terms of purchase and public possession) has been 21 in all 50 states and DC since 1988 (notwithstanding the Louisiana Loophole through 1995), but states and localities have differed since then on the "ancillary" laws that are used to prop up the 21 drinking age.  These laws include, among others:

• Laws against private possession and/or consumption 
• Internal possession laws
• Laws against furnishing alcohol to people under 21
• Dram shop liability laws
• Social host liability laws (civil or criminal)
• Keg registration 
• Use alcohol and lose your license ("use and lose" laws)
• Zero-tolerance laws for DUI
• Fake ID laws and ID scanner laws
• Age limits for serving alcohol

Most if not all of these laws have been studied to some extent, with mixed results and even some serious plot twists.  Most of these studies have been conducted by MADD-affiliated researchers such as James C. Fell, Robert Voas, and Ralph Hingson, so they should probably be taken with at least a grain of salt, if not a whole pound.  But even with this potentially significant bias, most of these laws were found to have either no effect, inconsistent effects, very small effects, or even perverse effects in terms of "alcohol-related" traffic fatalities among young people.

If these laws (and by extension, the 21 drinking age itself) did work as intended, one would expect the effectiveness of these laws to show up not only in traffic fatality statistics (which are the tip of a very large iceberg), but also in surveys of teen drinking as well, especially when recent data are studied.  A 2014 study done by Vanessa H. Sacks et al. of Child Trends examined the relationship between 14 different ancillary laws (and alcohol taxes) and both current drinking (any in the past 30 days) and "binge" drinking (5+ drinks "within a couple of hours") among high school students from 2005-2011 as reported on the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) of those years.  The 14 laws studied were the following:

• Laws against consumption of alcohol by people under 21
• Exceptions to possession laws
• Exceptions to furnishing laws
• Social host liability laws 
• BAC limits for people under 21 (i.e. zero-tolerance laws)
• Use-and-lose laws (strength measured in three different ways)
• ID scanners in retail locations
• Keg registration
• Age limits for serving alcohol 
• Beer excise taxes in 2005
• Distilled spirits excise taxes in 2005

And the results?  All but three such laws had no significant or even perceptible effect individually on either current drinking or "binge" drinking rates.  The only three that did have any statistically significant correlation were:

• Beer taxes were significantly and negatively associated with both current drinking and "binge" drinking rates.  No surprise there, as this dovetails nicely with the reams of evidence that have found similar results.  (Distilled spirits taxes showed no correlation either way, but that apparently null result is likely due to multicollinearity since beer and liquor taxes are highly correlated with each other).
• Keg registration laws were significantly and negatively correlated with current drinking, but not "binge" drinking, in one of two models.  This result should probably be interpreted with caution though, given how multiple other studies have found a positive correlation between keg registration and "alcohol-related" youth traffic fatalities.
• Use-and-lose laws (i.e. driver's license penalties for mere possession or consumption of alcohol) showed a positive correlation with current drinking, that is, such laws seemed to perversely increase teen drinking.
• And the real kicker: after controlling for drinking rates in previous years and the number of ancillary laws in previous years, states with a greater total number of such policies perversely had higher rates of both current and "binge" drinking.  But drinking rates in previous years did not predict the number of policies in place in later years, thus ruling out the possibility of reverse causation.

Thus, while the researchers caution that these results alone are not definitive enough to establish causation, it is quite clear that such results certainly cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of such laws, and by extension the 21 drinking age itself, in reducing teen drinking and related problems.  With the notable exception of alcohol taxes, the effects of such laws are most likely negligible or even perverse overall.  That, of course, dovetails rather nicely with Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), who found that raising the drinking age to 21 seems to have had "only a minor impact on teen drinking".  And we couldn't agree more.

Have We Got the "Teen Brain" All Wrong?

One thing that is commonly accepted as a truism in the USA is that crime, especially violent crime, is a young person's (and especially a young man's) vice.  It typically rises rapidly in the mid-teens and peaks around the late teens and very early twenties before rapidly and then gradually declining from then on, and it is often said that "the best cure for crime is a 30th birthday."  The statistics do indeed bear this out, but it is often accepted without question that the causes of this phenomenon are biological (particularly neurological and/or hormonal) as opposed to cultural ones.

Well, a new study by researchers at Penn State seems to put the lie to the biological determinist theory.    While previous studies tended to look only at Western cultures (which all show a similar age pattern for crime), this one compared the USA to Taiwan instead.  If brain development (or lack thereof) is the cause, then the age pattern for crime should be pretty much the same worldwide, but it turns out that this was not the case for Taiwan.  Over there, crime peaked in the late twenties and early thirties, roughly a decade later than in the USA.  Thus, the researchers concluded, that cultural factors, not biological/neurological ones, are primarly responsible for the crime patterns by age.   Notably, this is true even though the drinking age in Taiwan is 18, compared to 21 in the USA.

It is rare that a single study can overturn such an apparent mountain of evidence.  Unless, of course, that "mountain" turned out to be a molehill all along--and a rather shaky one at that.

Case Closed? Not So Fast

A new study by William DeJong claims that the debate on the 21 drinking is over, and that the evidence is overwhelming that the policy saves lives and reduces teen and young adult drinking.  His literature review, titled Case Closed:  Research Evidence on the Positive Public Health Impact of the Age 21 MLDA in the United States, looks at research conducted mostly from 2006 to the present.  While on the surface DeJong's paper appears to be decently written, upon closer examination one can see several flaws that undermine his thesis.

First and foremost, his treatment of Miron and Tetelbaum's groundbreaking 2009 study (which thoroughly debunked the supposed lifesaving effect) is sorely lacking.  He literally devotes a mere two sentences to casually mentioning and blithely dismissing its results.  DeJong seems to think that the reason that the coerced states saw no significant effect while the voluntary-adopting states did was due to enforcement differences and/or cohort or other differences between the two groups of states.  That's very funny considering how Miron and Tetelbaum took great pains to control for just about every conceivable variable that would likely have a significant effect, in addition to state and year fixed effects.  Additionally, even if the handful of voluntary adopters did enforce the 21 drinking age to a greater extent, even they saw that their fairly weak lifesaving effect lasted no more than a year or two following the law change (while it actually seemed to throw gasoline on the fire in many of the coerced states).  Miron and Tetelbaum also found that the effect of raising the drinking age on high school drinking was fairly small, likely due to reporting bias, and basically confined to the voluntary-adopting states.  All of which puts a massive hole in DeJong's theory to say the least.  Strike one.

Secondly, while DeJong does talk a bit about Europe and New Zealand, he does not devote a single word to Canada.  As Twenty-One Debunked has noted repeatedly, Canada saw a similar or faster decline in alcohol-related traffic deaths as the USA despite NOT raising the drinking age to 21.  And while young Canadians do tend to drink a bit more than their American counterparts on average, the rates of "binge" drinking in Canada are roughly equivalent to the demographically and geographically similar US states that they share a border with or are otherwise fairly close to.  Canada also boasts a lower alcohol-related death rate than the USA as well as less crime and violence, and the alcoholism rates in the two countries are roughly equivalent.  That's another huge hole in his theory that cannot be easily explained away.  As for New Zealand, note that we have already debunked the fairly outdated studies that DeJong refers to.  Strike two.

But probably DeJong's biggest flaw of all is his logic or lack thereof.  He claims that the evidence to date supports the idea that not only should we not lower the drinking age, but that enforcement should be toughened.  Leaving aside all the studies that debunk the supposed benefits of the 21 drinking age, his logic is based on shaky ground.  He takes various outdated correlations and presumes them to be causation, he blithely dismisses any evidence to the contrary, and essentially denies that there is any good alternative policy aside from tougher enforcement.  Which is very funny considering how much research (including some of DeJong's own previous research) finds that social norms marketing techniques are at least as effective in reducing high-risk drinking among college students as tougher drinking age enforcement is.  Strike three, yer out!

Unfortunately, DeJong does appear to be right about one thing.  The movement to lower the drinking age to 18 has been losing a great deal of momentum over the past few years, and since about 2011 is now essentially on the back burner once again compared to other, more pressing issues like the economy and of course cannabis legalization.  Scratch that, the movement is now on life support, and the coroner is just waiting to be called.  So we need to redouble our efforts, like yesterday.  And let's hope that DeJong's declaring the debate to be over actually has the opposite effect and re-ignites the drinking age debate once again.  Now let's get to work!

Let America be America again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

Baby Boomers are Not the Best Model for Today's Youth

Essentially all American studies of the effects of raising or lowering the legal drinking age were based on a single generation:  the Baby Boomers.  And the latest junk science study is no exception.  Remember, many states lowered their drinking ages in the early 1970s and raised them to 21 in the 1980s, so that was the generation most affected by such changes.  But there is a fundamental question that is rarely asked, especially by the pro-21 crowd:  Could the Baby Boomers (i.e. those born from 1946 to 1964) have been an exceptional generation that was actually affected perversely by the changes in the drinking age?  That is, could the effects that some studies found actually be the opposite of what would have happened for other generations?

We at Twenty-One Debunked believe that the answer is yes, that they are a unique generation that was likely affected differently (if at all) by the changes in the drinking age, and that studies that only look at them are outdated and obsolete for determining the supposed effects of lowering the drinking age in 2013.   There are several reasons for this:

• Baby Boomers came of age at a time when America's drinking culture was very different, a fact that was true regardless of the drinking age.
• Baby Boomers (and early Gen-X) were more affected by lead poisoning that any other generation that is still alive today, thanks to the leaded gasoline (and paint) that was used when they were children.  Lead is a neurotoxin that causes serious and often permanent damage to the developing brain, resulting in reduced intelligence, increased impulsivity, and arrested development.  And changes in crime statistics and standardized test scores verify this fact.
• Baby Boomers were exposed to numerous other developmental toxins as well:  mercury, PCBs, DDT, dioxins, fluoride, and many others.   And they did lots of drugs as well.
• Baby Boomers, for whatever reason, were apparently raised to be rather narcissistic and self-important as a rule.
• Baby Boomers, regardless of the drinking age in their home states when they were growing up, succeeded in becoming the drunkest and druggiest generation in American history (at least since the Founding Fathers), yet they have the audacity and hubris to overwhelmingly support the 21 drinking age and other anti-youth laws.
• And most ironically of all, the Baby Boomers also became the wealthiest generation in American history despite screwing up the economy for everyone else (to say nothing about what is happening to our planet).

That is not to say that all Baby Boomers are reflected in these facts, since a rather large number of them defied these trends.  But enough of them were so as to call into question the wisdom of using that generation as a model for the effects of policy changes on today's youth.  And we certainly should not continue punishing today's youth for the sins of their Boomer parents.  Perhaps some generations can indeed handle freedom better than others--and the best statistics are indeed more on the side of today's generation of young people.

Let America be America again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

If It Smells Like Junk Science, It Probably Is

The news of the latest study about the 21 drinking age now appears to be going viral.   According to this study, which is now available (only to subscribers) online ahead of print, folks who were young adults in states that allowed them to drink legally before age 21 at that time were statistically more likely to become more frequent "binge" drinkers later in life compared to those who were not allowed to drink legally until age 21.  The research, which used data from surveys in 1992 and 2002 taken by those who were born between 1949 and 1972 (i.e. were young adults in the 1970s and 1980s), interestingly found no difference in overall alcohol consumption or frequency between the two groups, but apparently found that those allowed to drink before 21 had more "binge" days and fewer "non-binge" days per month compared to those who were not allowed to drink until 21.  The former were 19% more likely to "binge" more than once per month compared with the latter, and the differences were largely (if not entirely) driven by men and those who never attended college.  So what should we make of this study, which is not yet available for the general public to read?

First of all, we at Twenty-One Debunked always put the term "binge drinking" in scare quotes when we are referring to the 5+ or 5/4+ drinks definitions, as we believe that such definitions are grossly inaccurate measures of the very real problem of truly dangerous drinking, and can potentially mask actual trends in the latter.  (More information about this issue can be found in our previous posts here and here)  And we know based on the article's summary that a 5+ drinks threshold is the one used in this study, as is the case in virtually every other pro-21 study out there.  Strike one.

Secondly, no information is provided about which, if any, confounding factors are controlled for.  This is crucial because there are numerous other differences between people who grew up in different parts of the country and/or at different times.  One should also note that the effect size is fairly small as well, with a relative risk (or odds ratio) of 1.19 overall (1.31 for men who never attended college).  In epidemiological research, relative risks below 2.0 are especially likely to be due to a combination of chance, bias, and/or confounding, and thus should be taken with at least a grain of salt (if not a whole pound).  Strike two.

Finally, the study really adds nothing else new to the scientific literature beyond what was mentioned above.  Zip, zilch, nada.  And nothing about whether there were any between-group differences in actual problem drinking.  The authors (as well as MADD member Ralph Hingson) refer to other past studies (including a 2009 study which we had debunked years ago) by other authors in an attempt to connect the dots.  But given enough dots, one can pretty much connect them any way to form any picture one chooses.  Strike three, you're out!

Thus, our preliminary analysis of the study (to which we were unable to gain full access--stay tuned for updates!) suggests that the study reeks of junk science, and clearly should not be used to set public policy.  However, let us be clear that even if it (and the 2009 study about increased risk of alcoholism) somehow were 100% true, which we seriously doubt, we at Twenty-One Debunked would still support lowering the drinking age to 18.  Why?  The 21 drinking age is nothing less than a hate crime against young people, plain and simple.  In our society we know, for example, that certain ethnic groups are statistically more prone to alcoholism than others, yet we do not arrest, jail, revoke privileges, or publicly humiliate members of such groups for the simple act of drinking alcohol in the name of "public health."   That, of course, would be illegal discrimination since it violates the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the law, and no amount of "scientific" research can justify it.  And even known alcoholics over 21 are not jailed simply for being alcoholics--they simply hold too much political power for that.  But 18-20 year old men and women, despite being legal adults in virtually every other way, are apparently a much more acceptable target for "public health" fascism run amok, no matter how responsibly they drink.

The injustice must end NOW.  Let America be America again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.