(This is a public service announcement)
It is that time of year again when the holidays are upon us, and many of
us Americans (and around the world) will be celebrating with alcohol
and/or other substances. We at Twenty-One Debunked would like to remind
everyone to be safe and celebrate responsibly. There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.
We cannot stress this enough. It's very simple--if you plan to drive,
don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive. It's really not rocket science, folks. And there are
numerous ways to avoid mixing the two. Designate a sober driver, take a
cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you
have to. Or stay home and celebrate there. Or don't drink--nobody's
got a gun to your head. Seriously. And the same goes for other psychoactive substances as well, and a fortiori when combined with alcohol.
ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!! If you plan to drink, don't forget to think! The life you save may very well be your own.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Drink Nothing Day Cancelled This Year
Due to the disaster that was the 2016 election and the fact that this is the last holiday season before President Trump (shudder!) takes over, I will not be observing Drink Nothing Day this year. I will be enjoying the festivities as any other holiday.
So eat, drink, and be merry, folks! But please do so responsibly in any case. Arrive alive, don't drink and drive!
So eat, drink, and be merry, folks! But please do so responsibly in any case. Arrive alive, don't drink and drive!
Saturday, November 12, 2016
California Dreaming Has Finally Become A Reality
It seems that there was one silver lining to an otherwise disappointing election: California, Nevada, Massachusetts, and Maine legalized cannabis for recreational use, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and DC, while a few other states such as Florida joined the already numerous states in which medical use is currently legal. And it is only a matter of time before it becomes legal nationwide.
We at Twenty-One Debunked have mixed feelings about the legalization initiatives, primarily since all of them set the age limit at 21 rather than 18, among other flaws. But those flaws can be ironed out after the fact. And cannabis legalization is LONG overdue, so Twenty-One Debunked grudgingly supports these initiatives, as they probably would not have passed otherwise. Going forward, we will work to get the age limit lowered to 18.
We at Twenty-One Debunked have mixed feelings about the legalization initiatives, primarily since all of them set the age limit at 21 rather than 18, among other flaws. But those flaws can be ironed out after the fact. And cannabis legalization is LONG overdue, so Twenty-One Debunked grudgingly supports these initiatives, as they probably would not have passed otherwise. Going forward, we will work to get the age limit lowered to 18.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Let's Finish The Job Already
In a previous post, we at Twenty-One Debunked noted how successful Australia has been at reducing the perennial scourge of drunk driving casualties since the early 1980s. In fact, they have been much more successful than the USA has been despite (or more likely, because of) Australia keeping the drinking age at 18 combined with tougher DUI laws and enforcement. This is true even though the Land Down Under is an avid car culture where binge drinking is known to be quite the art form (and more so than the USA), so that really says something!
Canada, with a drinking age of 18 or 19 depending on the province, has also seen more success overall than the USA, though not quite as much as Australia has. Like the USA, they had been slacking a bit from the mid-1990s through the 2000s, though recently some provinces like Alberta and British Columbia have toughened up and resumed their previous decades of progress. And in the past decade the USA has stepped up enforcement a bit as well. But truly there is much more room for improvement in the USA, which out of all "developed" nations has generally seen the least amount of overall progress in reducing traffic deaths despite (or perhaps because of) raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s.
So what does Twenty-One Debunked recommend that we do to "finish the job", aside from lowering the drinking age to 18 and raising the alcohol excise taxes? Well, for starters, we could:
Another idea, loosely borrowed from UCLA researcher Mark Kleiman, would be the "blacklist". To wit, if someone is convicted of drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk vandalism, or repeated drunk and disorderly conduct, they would be banned from purchasing alcohol or entering a bar for at least a year or until 21, whichever is longer. Subsequent offenses would be two or more years. Ditto for anyone who buys or furnishes alcohol to anyone under 18 (other than one's own child) or any adult who has been blacklisted thusly. Driver licenses or ID cards to blacklisted individuals would read "do not serve alcohol under penalty of law". Additionally, we can allow problem drinkers without convictions to opt-in voluntarily to be blacklisted as well for up to five years, much like they have for casino gambling in some states. We could call such a program "86 Me" or something along those lines, and that looks very promising indeed.
It's 2016, and time to finish the job already. The question is, do our leaders have the intestinal fortitude to do so?
Canada, with a drinking age of 18 or 19 depending on the province, has also seen more success overall than the USA, though not quite as much as Australia has. Like the USA, they had been slacking a bit from the mid-1990s through the 2000s, though recently some provinces like Alberta and British Columbia have toughened up and resumed their previous decades of progress. And in the past decade the USA has stepped up enforcement a bit as well. But truly there is much more room for improvement in the USA, which out of all "developed" nations has generally seen the least amount of overall progress in reducing traffic deaths despite (or perhaps because of) raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s.
So what does Twenty-One Debunked recommend that we do to "finish the job", aside from lowering the drinking age to 18 and raising the alcohol excise taxes? Well, for starters, we could:
- Lower the BAC limit to 0.05, with graduated penalties that rise dramatically with BAC.
- Increase the use and frequency of sobriety checkpoints and/or roving patrols to catch drunk drivers.
- Impose administrative sanctions, such as license suspensions and vehicle impoundment, including for drivers of with BAC of 0.05-0.08. (British Columbia and Alberta are good models to follow in that regard)
- Require alcohol ignition interlocks for all impaired driving offenders (and make it a standard feature on all new vehicles as well).
Another idea, loosely borrowed from UCLA researcher Mark Kleiman, would be the "blacklist". To wit, if someone is convicted of drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk vandalism, or repeated drunk and disorderly conduct, they would be banned from purchasing alcohol or entering a bar for at least a year or until 21, whichever is longer. Subsequent offenses would be two or more years. Ditto for anyone who buys or furnishes alcohol to anyone under 18 (other than one's own child) or any adult who has been blacklisted thusly. Driver licenses or ID cards to blacklisted individuals would read "do not serve alcohol under penalty of law". Additionally, we can allow problem drinkers without convictions to opt-in voluntarily to be blacklisted as well for up to five years, much like they have for casino gambling in some states. We could call such a program "86 Me" or something along those lines, and that looks very promising indeed.
It's 2016, and time to finish the job already. The question is, do our leaders have the intestinal fortitude to do so?
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
What Australia Gets Right
One thing our movement has a habit of doing is comparing the USA to Europe for the purpose of ascertaining what the effects of a lower drinking age would be like. While there is some truth to such a comparison, the pro-21 side routinely calls us out on the important differences between here and there. For example, they have much better public transportation than we do, they are more urbanized, driving licenses are much more difficult to obtain, gas prices are much higher, and thus they are much, much less of a car culture that we are. All of which would dramatically affect traffic fatalities and skew any comparisons. As a result, Twenty-One Debunked typically prefers to make comparisons to Canada instead, which is also a car culture that is the most similar to the USA. And they have seen a similar or faster drop in traffic deaths than the USA despite NOT raising the drinking age to 21, and their traffic death rates have been consistently lower than the USA. But there is also another major car culture as well with a drinking age of 18--Australia.
In the Land Down Under, they have in fact seen a faster drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths than the USA and even Canada since 1982 despite keeping the drinking age at 18. Not only that, a recent study in Australia found essentially no link between being able to drink legally and motor vehicle accidents of any type, at least not in the state that was being studied, New South Wales. Using a regression discontinuity design similar to the sort that pro-21 researchers have been doing lately, they found no discontinuous jump in such deaths or injuries in young people upon turning 18. This stands in stark contrast to the USA, in which various pro-21 researchers have found a significant jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries among young Americans upon turning 21, an increase that in many cases lingers well beyond one's 21st birthday.
Of course, such a phenomenon is not unique to the USA, as a jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries has also been observed in Canada at their own respective MLDA (18 or 19, depending on the province), albeit of a shorter duration than in the USA and limited primarily to males who participate in "extreme" binge drinking. It would seem that a powder-keg effect is unfortunately an almost inevitable consequence of the very concept of a drinking age, regardless of what it is. So what does Australia do right that seems to defuse the powder keg?
Most importantly, Australia has tougher DUI laws, and tougher and more frequent enforcement of such laws. For example, not only are penalties tougher, but the BAC limit is 0.05 (as opposed to 0.08 in the USA) and they have random breath testing (RBT), which is unconstitutional in both the USA and Canada. Though one could argue that nowadays the USA effectively practices a form of "de-facto RBT" via a combination of "no-refusal" laws (i.e. the police often have a judge on speed-dial to issue a telewarrant to compel those who refuse to be tested) and often pull people over for trivial reasons and use that as an excuse to test drivers, and the initial effectiveness of RBT in Australia seems to decay over time to the level of effectiveness demonstrated by American-style sobriety checkpoints and/or roving patrols. Additionally, driver's licenses are harder to get and easier to lose over there than in the USA, and the road test there is significantly more difficult as well. Alcohol excise taxes are also higher in Australia as well. But the biggest and most salient difference is the seriousness with which they take the issue of drunk driving. You really do NOT want to get busted for DUI in the Land Down Under!
Of course, the picture down under is not entirely rosy. Australia's drinking culture is quite extreme even by American, Canadian, and British standards (though tame by New Zealand standards), and binge drinking is quite the art form over there. Indeed, even the aforementioned study found that while traffic deaths and injuries do not increase discontinuously at 18 when they become legal to drink, there is still a discontinuous increase in hospital visits and admissions for alcohol poisoning and injuries from assault at 18. But the fact that, even in a country with a more Anglo-Celtic, drink-to-get-drunk culture than the USA, it is nonetheless possible to break the link between drinking and drunk driving casualties, really speaks volumes indeed.
In other words, lowering the drinking age in the USA should really not be something to fear. But we also need to get tougher on drunk driving if we wish to continue the progress of decades past.
In the Land Down Under, they have in fact seen a faster drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths than the USA and even Canada since 1982 despite keeping the drinking age at 18. Not only that, a recent study in Australia found essentially no link between being able to drink legally and motor vehicle accidents of any type, at least not in the state that was being studied, New South Wales. Using a regression discontinuity design similar to the sort that pro-21 researchers have been doing lately, they found no discontinuous jump in such deaths or injuries in young people upon turning 18. This stands in stark contrast to the USA, in which various pro-21 researchers have found a significant jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries among young Americans upon turning 21, an increase that in many cases lingers well beyond one's 21st birthday.
Of course, such a phenomenon is not unique to the USA, as a jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries has also been observed in Canada at their own respective MLDA (18 or 19, depending on the province), albeit of a shorter duration than in the USA and limited primarily to males who participate in "extreme" binge drinking. It would seem that a powder-keg effect is unfortunately an almost inevitable consequence of the very concept of a drinking age, regardless of what it is. So what does Australia do right that seems to defuse the powder keg?
Most importantly, Australia has tougher DUI laws, and tougher and more frequent enforcement of such laws. For example, not only are penalties tougher, but the BAC limit is 0.05 (as opposed to 0.08 in the USA) and they have random breath testing (RBT), which is unconstitutional in both the USA and Canada. Though one could argue that nowadays the USA effectively practices a form of "de-facto RBT" via a combination of "no-refusal" laws (i.e. the police often have a judge on speed-dial to issue a telewarrant to compel those who refuse to be tested) and often pull people over for trivial reasons and use that as an excuse to test drivers, and the initial effectiveness of RBT in Australia seems to decay over time to the level of effectiveness demonstrated by American-style sobriety checkpoints and/or roving patrols. Additionally, driver's licenses are harder to get and easier to lose over there than in the USA, and the road test there is significantly more difficult as well. Alcohol excise taxes are also higher in Australia as well. But the biggest and most salient difference is the seriousness with which they take the issue of drunk driving. You really do NOT want to get busted for DUI in the Land Down Under!
Of course, the picture down under is not entirely rosy. Australia's drinking culture is quite extreme even by American, Canadian, and British standards (though tame by New Zealand standards), and binge drinking is quite the art form over there. Indeed, even the aforementioned study found that while traffic deaths and injuries do not increase discontinuously at 18 when they become legal to drink, there is still a discontinuous increase in hospital visits and admissions for alcohol poisoning and injuries from assault at 18. But the fact that, even in a country with a more Anglo-Celtic, drink-to-get-drunk culture than the USA, it is nonetheless possible to break the link between drinking and drunk driving casualties, really speaks volumes indeed.
In other words, lowering the drinking age in the USA should really not be something to fear. But we also need to get tougher on drunk driving if we wish to continue the progress of decades past.
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