Prohibition: It Still Doesn't Work

In 2016, India's very populous state of Bihar (130 million people) embarked on the modern world's largest alcohol prohibition experiment to date, following the lead of the three other "dry" Indian states.  Now in the mid-2020s, the proverbial dust has settled, and the results are in.

By 2023, it became clear that many of the women who strongly supported the prohibition law initially (primarily in the hopes of reducing male drunken violence against women, especially domestic violence) ended up greatly regretting it.  Not only did prohibition wreck livelihoods and lead to harms from more dangerous and questionable black market alcohol (and alcohol substitutes), but such violence against women has also apparently come back with a vengeance as well after a short-term reduction.

Of course, such observations are anecdotal, so what about the statistics then?  Well, a study was done in 2024 using household survey data going up to 2020, and attempting to control for other variables.  And no matter how much the authors tried to make things look good, the results were not nearly as rosy as they made them seem.  We see a modest, likely short-term, improvement on some measures of health and domestic violence but not others, and and such surveys clearly have their limitations from reporting bias and undercounting.  Besides, in the case of violence, alcohol is generally NOT a root cause, but rather merely a potential accelerant with both individually and culturally-dependent effects, and is more likely a vain and frankly pathetic excuse for otherwise unacceptable behavior.  The real root causes of such go much, much deeper, such as most notably patriarchy in the case of intimate partner violence.

(This largely dovetails with an earlier study that compared different Indian states with and without prohibition and with varying legal drinking ages, with older data from long before Bihar went dry.  Basically, possible short term and often inconsistent benefits at best, but beyond that, prohibition is useless or worse than useless.)

In other words, the crude and blunt sledgehammer of prohibition (total or otherwise) essentially acts as a sort of "tourniquet" for excessive drinking and related problems.  But using any sort of tourniquet willy-nilly and/or leaving it on too long clearly does far more harm than good, whether such a tourniquet is literal or metaphorical.  The very same lessons can be drawn from using mass incarceration to fight crime, or worse, using lockdowns to fight a pandemic.

And in 2025, the black market for alcohol remains rampant in Bihar, killing people in the process.  That is true despite it being as vigorously enforced as is possible for such a law.  Prohibition clearly casts a long, dark shadow indeed.

Of course, all anyone considering such a law should have done was Google the history of the American experience with Prohibition to see why this was not exactly the wisest move.  I believe there is a name for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

Alternate History Of The Legal Drinking Age

Lately I had been thinking a lot about alternate histories and alternate universes in regards to the 21 drinking age.  That is what would have happened if X, Y, or Z had changed but leaving everything else constant?  Here is what I came up with:

Michigan, as we know, was the first state (and therefore the most influential one) to raise the drinking age back to 21, in 1978.  They did it by a constitutional amendment ballot initiative on November 7, 1978, effective December 22, 1978, just in time for the holidays of course.  Earlier that same year, the state legislature had grudgingly passed, and Governor Milliken grudgingly signed, a bill to raise the drinking age to 19 for a three year trial period to study its effects, and then sunset it back to 18.  That would have taken at least some of the wind out of the sails of the still-nascent movement to raise the drinking age further, that is, had the ballot initiative not passed.  But that initiative got only 57% of the vote, which was hardly a landslide.  And while that particular initiative only required a simple majority to pass (a pitifully low bar to literally change the constitution at all, let alone to do so in a way that abridges civil rights), it is not that unusual for various states to require a higher supermajority threshold (such as 60%) to alter a state constitution by popular vote.

So one way to have stopped that very first domino from falling would have been to somehow raise the threshold for altering Michigan's constitution by ballot initiative to 60%.  Alternatively, had Michigan stuck with their original 1933 law to set the drinking age at 18 for beer and 21 for wine and hard liquor, and not raised it to 21 across the board in 1937 like they did, they would have been more like their neighbor Wisconsin, who eventually lowered it to 18 across the board in 1972 when they lowered the age of majority.  Just like Michigan would have done either way in 1972.  Thus, because of their history, there would have been far less appetite among Michiganders to raise it to 21 in 1978 had that been the case, and would probably have fallen short of even a 50%-plus-one threshold in that case.  Either way, the 1978 attempt to raise the drinking age to 21 would have flopped.

OK, so what would have happened next, had that fateful ballot initiative failed in November 1978?  Well, here are what things I think would have been most likely to occur, per the domino theory:

Michigan's drinking age hike to 19 would have gone into effect as planned in December 1978, and then three years later in December 1981, it would have reverted back to 18.  The same decline in traffic fatalities would have most likely occurred either way due to factors other than the drinking age (including the bottle deposit and liquor tax hikes raising the prices of beer and liquor, respectively).

Disheartened by their failure in Michigan, the nascent movement to raise the drinking age to 21 would have lost momentum very quickly.  Thus, at least the other three of the first four states to raise it back to 21 would have most likely relented and not done so, and ditto for those after that. And no further states would have raised it to 20 either.

Massachusetts would have chosen the "Michigan Model" and raised it to 19 in 1979, with a sunset clause after a few years, instead of 20.  And since they wouldn't raise it to 20, New Hampshire doesn't do so either.  They either keep it 18 or raise it to 19.  And while Rhode Island raises it to 19 in 1980, they do not raise it further in the alternate history.

New Jersey still raises it to 19 in 1979 (effective January 1, 1980), but in this version of events, they add a three-year sunset clause, inspired by Michigan.  (More on NJ later, we will get back to this soon as this is highly significant later on).

Illinois would have instead kept it at 19 for beer/wine and 21 for liquor, instead of raising it to 21 effective in 1980.

Pennsylvania's otherwise ill-fated attempt at lowering it from 21 to 19 in 1978 does NOT die in the legislature in November, but continues to be debated on and is finally voted on sometime in 1979, when inspired by Michigan and New Jersey, narrowly votes yes and lowers it to 19.  This was the last chance while the zeitgiest still remained relatively permissible, before it switched to restrictive.

Meanwhile, out west, at least some of the states that had kept it 21 since the end of Prohibition, especially California and Nevada, decided to lower it to 19 by the end of 1979, following PA's lead, and also "study" its effects for a few years.  There already seems to be a convergence towards 19.  And we aren't even out of the 1970s yet.

"Give 19 a chance!" become the new slogan.  And of course, Ontario, Canada also raises it to 19 as well in 1979, in both versions of events.

The Overton Window has clearly shifted.

Next, several other states that would have raised to 19 in 1979-1981, such as Florida, either keep it 18 or or raise it to 19 with a sunset clause.  Texas definitely keeps it 18, as no one tells Texas what to do!  Florida is cool with 19 though, since Spring Break tourists are nearly all over 19 anyway.

Virginia, in both versions of events, passes a compromise bill to raise it to 19 for off-premise purchases but keep it 18 for on-premise purchases in July 1981.  Their neighbor Maryland, who otherwise would have raised it to 21 in 1982, decides to "give 19 a chance" and adopt the "Virginia Model".  After all, since the Michigan and Illinois failed to raise it to 21 in this alternate history, Maryland never works up the appetite to do so themselves.  That's now three dominoes averted so far.

By 1982, other states start to think that Virginia has nailed the best compromise thus far.  And Minnesota, the very first state to raise their drinking age to 19 (in 1976) is the very next to adopt the "Virginia Model".

In 1982, New York narrowly decides against raising their drinking age to 19 in the alternate history.  The appetite to raise it simply was not there in the alternate version of events.  Especially since their drinking age has been 18 since 1934, and thus the status quo bias was strong.  

Meanwhile, New Jersey decides to let the 19 drinking age lapse and revert back to 18 on January 1, 1983.  In the version of events that actually happened, of course, NJ raises it to 21 effective on that same date.  This was probably the most important domino of them all to avert, as most of the loudest voices for the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, such as Senator Frank Lautenberg who wrote it, were from.....wait for it....New Jersey.  Thus, even more wind taken out of the sails of the pro-21 movement and the windbags in charge of it.  And the gambling age in Atlantic City remains at 18 (the only reason they raised it to 21 in the current version of events a few months later in 1983 was because it would have been extremely difficult to enforce the new drinking age of 21).  And not coincidentally, the number and extent of "blood borders" began to greatly shrink, as opposed to grow like it does in the current version of events.

Later in 1983, Oklahoma and Alaska thus decide to NOT raise it to 21 and keep it at 18 and 19, respectively.  And when Alaska hikes their beer tax dramatically that same year, which happens in both versions of events, traffic fatalities plummet either way.  That influences other states (and the feds too) to raise their alcohol taxes in 1984-1985 and beyond, to a greater extent in the alternate version of events (since the non-existent drinking age hike obviously couldn't speciously take credit for the drop in crash deaths in Alaska).

OK, so what about MADD?  Well, they start out the same way in 1980, and briefly advocate for raising the drinking age to 21 starting in 1982-1983.  But since the appetite for it just isn't there anymore by then, they grudgingly and quietly put that issue the back burner where it has been simmering ever since, and basically become more akin to MADD Canada in that regard.  Founder Candy Lightner still has a falling out with MADD in the mid-1980s, and is thus forced to resign in either version of events, for reasons unrelated to the drinking age.

Having NOT been swayed, the other major anti-drunk driving group, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID), in the alternate history does NOT end up supporting the 21 drinking age, preferring to focus solely on drunk driving, for all ages, period.  

In New York, no attempt to raise the drinking age higher than 18 (where it remains to this day) ever succeeds in the alternate version of events.  NONE.  Not in 1982, not in 1985, not ever.  Capisce?  But their legendary STOP-DWI program of drunk driving enforcement (later expanded to include ALL forms of reckless and dangerous driving as well) continues to successfully target the actual problem, and thus becomes a model for the nation.

New Jersey decides to follow New York's lead, and also makes their road test much more difficult as well.  The whole "Jersey Driver" thing ultimately becomes a thing of the past, at least for the most part.  And when future generations hear such jokes about them being such horrible drivers, the most common response is, "I don't get it".

More and more states pass tougher DUI laws, faster and tougher in the alternate version of events, and crack down harder on drunk driving for all ages.  Alcohol-related traffic casualties plummet as a result, even faster than they did in the current version of events.

In 1984-1985, the feds decide to not only NOT coerce states to raise their drinking ages to 21, but after reading the studies by Colon and Cutter (1983) and Colon (1984), actually does the opposite and uses positive reinforcement to nudge states with higher age limits to reduce them to 18 or 19 to reduce or eliminate any remaining "blood borders".  That is, give states an extra 10% of federal highway funding per year for ten years for reducing (or maintaining) their drinking ages to 18, or 5% per year for five years for reducing (or maintaining) it to 19.  And if the 12 states that didn't lower it from 21 in the 1970s didn't end up lowering it by then, they sure would after that!  Yes, even Utah grudgingly lowers it to 19 for 3.2 beer at least.

(The feds also decide to make drunk driving across state lines a federal crime as well.  Initially, the BAC limit is set at 0.10%, but is quickly lowered to 0.08%.  States that lower their limits to 0.08% are soon rewarded with extra highway funding.  And thus, that becomes the standard in every state much, much sooner in the alternate version of events than in the current version.)

The legendary Peter Asch and David Levy's groundbreaking 1987 study also further confirms what the anti-21 folks have known all along:  the 21 drinking age is useless at best, and more like worse than useless.  The anti-21 side is fully vindicated now, and the pro-21 side is thoroughly discredited.

And by the end of the decade, all states are either 18 or 19 depending on the state, much like Canada.  And it remains that way from then onwards.  And eventually, 18 becomes more common than 19.  The remnants of the pro-21 crowd keep trying to raise it for a while into the 1990s, but they eventually give up and swallow their pride, along with their beer when they are done crying in it.

And like Canada and Australia, drunk driving laws and enforcement continues to get tougher over time, and casualties continue to fall.  As for Zero Tolerance laws for DUI, starting in the 1990s, many of the same laws are passed in both versions of events.  Some are based on age, like Puerto Rico, some Canadian provinces, and some countries, while others are based on how long one has had their driver's license, like other Canadian provinces and Australian states.  And some are based on both.  The most common such laws in the alternate version of events are 0.00 to 0.02 BAC for the first three years of licensed driving or until 21, whichever is longer.  But the stated purpose is now different:  it's not because "it's illegal!", but rather because people should gain more experience with both driving as well as drinking before being allowed to mix the two, even in small amounts.  The goal is to separate drinking from driving entirely.

And while only Utah ultimately lowers their criminal BAC limit down to 0.05% from 0.08%, that doesn't stop many states from experimenting with Canadian-style brief administrative license suspensions and brief vehicle impoundments for drivers above 0.05%, albeit as a traffic violation. 

And while truly "random breath testing" (RBT) still remains unconstitutional to this day in the USA in both versions of events, that really just means that enforcement needs to be a bit more creative with sobriety checkpoints and roving/saturation patrols to approximate its effect.  The tools already exist (at least in the states that choose to allow them).  The real key is for such enforcement to be sustained, and create the perception of swift and certain punishment.  And in the alternate version of events, that is precisely what happens.

They even make a popular reality TV show out of it!  Called "Operation Rovin' Eyes", and complete with ride-alongs, it was an instant success.  It's birthplace was (where else?) New York, the ultimate pioneering state against drunk driving, and it has expanded to many other states from there. Legend has it, it was inspired by the Australian reality show "RBT", but it most likely pre-dated that show.

"Rovin' Eyes....are watching YOU!!!"

Alcohol taxes are raised more frequently and to a greater extent in the alternate version of events, albeit still not quite as high as Canada or Australia. 

Enforcement of the 18 (or 19, or mixed, depending on the state) drinking age over time has evolved to be quite strict, but primarily targeting the sellers of alcohol.  And underage drinking is decriminalized to a parking-style or traffic-style ticket offense, with no jail and no criminal record.

Hawaii's meth epidemic in the 1990s, while it still happens unfortunately, is at least somewhat blunted by keeping the drinking age at 18.  

In the alternate version of events, research, science, public policy, politics, and culture all remain far less warped than they would have become in the current version of events.  And states truly remain "laboratories of democracy," while being careful to avoid "tyranny of the majority" or mob rule as well (like what almost happened in Michigan in 1978!)

Fast forward to the 2020s:

"Tobacco 21?  What's that?  Never heard of it." (In other words, smoking and vaping ages remain 18, or in a tiny few states and localities, 19.  Needham, MA doesn't even bother.)

It literally never even occurs to Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York to raise the smoking age to 21, especially since his father gave up after failing to the get the drinking age raised any higher than 18.  Similarly, Mayors Mike Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio of NYC never bothered to do so either.

Cannabis is legalized in much the same way as in the current version of events, but with one crucial detail different:  all states that legalize it choose 18 or 19 as their toking ages instead of 21, typically choosing to match their drinking and/or tobacco smoking ages.  And also, a greater number of states legalize it in the alternate version, including Hawaii after finally calling off their abominable Operation Green Harvest eradication and  interdiction program, and ultimately the federal government does the same.  Even Florida ends up doing so.

As for other countries, some differences can be seen there as well due to America's influence.  Take Canada, for example.  Ontario, shortly after abolishing 13th grade in 2003, decides to lower their drinking age from 19 back to 18, and when they legalize weed in 2018, they choose 18 for that as well.  Prince Edward Island never raises their drinking age from 18 to 19, and never adopts a Tobacco 21 law.  Quebec keeps their age limit for cannabis at its original 18, and never raises it to 21.  Otherwise, Canada remains the same in both versions of events.

Japan lowers their drinking age to 18 when they lower their age of majority to 18 in 2022.

And Lithuania keeps their drinking age at 18, refusing to raise it to 20 in 2018.  Ditto for Sri Lanka, who keeps it at 18 instead of raising it to 21 in 2006.

Can you say, "Butterfly Effect?"

Oh, and by the way:  alcohol-related death rates, both on and off the highways, are really not very different between the two versions of events, at least in the long run.  In fact, they are most likely lower in the alternate version of events.  Ditto for alcohol-related problems in general as well.

UPDATE:  Another pathway to this alternate timeline could have been if Minnesota had decided NOT to raise the drinking age from 18 to 19 in 1976.  They were the very first state to raise it from 18, so they likely influenced other states after that.  Alternatively, as their stated goal was simply to keep alcohol out of the high schools, they could have chosen to do something similar to what Virginia did five years later, namely, raise only the off-premise purchase age to 19 and keep it 18 otherwise.  Additionally, another pathway could have been if at least some of the 12 states that kept it 21 throughout had decided to lower it to 18 or 19 in the early 1970s along with the age of majority, especially the highly influential states of California and Pennsylvania.

What The Feds Should Have Done, And Still Should Do, About "Blood Borders"

When the infamous National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed, coercing all states to raise their legal drinking ages to 21 or else lose 10% of their federal highway funding, one of the specious arguments in favor of it was that by establishing a uniform minimum drinking age, it would eliminate the problem of "blood borders".  That is, it would end the perverse incentive of young people from states with a higher drinking age from driving to neighboring states with lower drinking ages to drink, then driving back drunk.  And, rightly or wrongly, that was one of the biggest selling points of the new law.  

But there was always more than one way to skin that particular...well, you know.  States' rights arguments aside, while a uniform minimum drinking age would indeed eliminate that particular perverse incentive to drive drunk (and to drive a longer distance drunk at that), that age limit need not be 21.  After all, 21 is completely arbitrary, and as we have seen from numerous studies including, but not limited to, the ones below, it is not really backed by sound science.

Naor and Nashold (1975)
Colon and Cutter (1983)
Colon (1984)
Males (1986)
Asch and Levy (1987)
Asch and Levy (1990)
Dee and Evans (2001)
Males (2008)
Miron and Tetelbaum (2009)
Grant (2011)
Dirscherl (2011)

Boes and Stillman (NZ) (2013)

Boes and Stillman (NZ) (2017/2024)

Dasgupta et al. (NZ) (2022)

Thus, a uniform legal drinking age of 18 would have made far more sense, and would would not only have eliminated the "blood borders" issue between states, but also largely for our very long international borders with Canada (18 or 19, depending on province) and Mexico (18) as well (which the federal 21 drinking age only exacerbated).  But even then, the states' rights issue comes up once again.  So how to resolve that?

It turns out, even that could have been resolved without such undue federal coercion.  Instead, here is what the feds should have done then, and should still do today:

• Encourage all states with higher drinking ages to lower their drinking ages to 18 via positive reinforcement.  That is, reward states that lower their drinking ages to (or maintain their drinking ages at) 18 with 10% extra highway funding per year above what the funding formula normally entitles them to, for at least ten years.  Think carrots, not sticks.
• And for states that lower it to (or maintain it at) 19, make the reward half that amount, 5% per year for five years.  States that lower it to 19 and then subsequently lower further it to 18 should then get the full 10% retroactively to when they lowered it to 19 if they do it in a timely fashion afterwards.
• Make drunk driving across state lines a federal crime.
• And last but not least, raise the federal alcohol taxes as well.  That is probably the most important policy lever that the federal government has against drunk driving and alcohol-related problems in general, and is the lowest-hanging fruit there is in that regard.

Problem solved.  After all, the "blood borders" problem was really no worse in practice that what happens when dry counties are located adjacent to wet counties.  And in such cases, we sure as hell don't blame it on the wet counties!

(Mic drop)

Yet Another Myth Bites The Dust

One of our earliest posts in 2009 was one criticizing a study that attempted to link the 21 drinking age to improved birth outcomes (and conversely, lower drinking ages with worse birth outcomes) among young pregnant people.  We thought we debunked it fairly well even back then, as that study had many flaws.  Then, in 2015, another study came out that further weakened that older study's conclusions to the point of virtual irrelevance, but the authors still seemed to cling to the idea that there may still be some benefits to the 21 drinking age in that regard, because reasons.

More recently, in 2024, yet another study came out that really thoroughly debunked the idea of the 21 drinking age improving birth outcomes at all among young pregnant people.  In contrast, alcohol policies that target the general population regardless of age do seem to be beneficial.

In any case, regardless, any attempt to justify the 21 drinking age in that regard is pure mission creep and grasping at straws on the part of the pro-21 side.  Even if such benefits were true, such a sledgehammer approach is both over- and under-inclusive, grossly outdated, and worst of all, is a gross violation of civil and human rights.

So consider this one debunked as well.

(Mic drop)

What Australia Gets Right (Updated)

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.  For all age groups.  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 in every state except Utah) and they have random breath testing (RBT), which has been effectively ruled unconstitutional in the USA, and even Canada only began doing it in 2018.  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 quasi-randomly pull people over for trivial reasons as a pretext and use that as an excuse to test drivers, and the initial effectiveness of RBT in Australia seems to decay over time to converge to the still-significant level of effectiveness demonstrated by American-style sobriety checkpoints (in 38 states) and/or roving/saturation patrols (in all states).   So America can indeed do what Australia does, we just need to be more creative about it.  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 truly 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!

(They also have zero tolerance BAC laws as well, albeit for the first three years of licensed driving regardless of age.)

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.

UPDATE:  We should clarify that we do NOT support Australia's zero tolerance per se policy for driving with cannabis.  Since THC is fat-soluble, the pharmacokinetics of cannabis are far too complex, and thus do NOT lend themselves to any sort of per se limits, let alone zero tolerance.  If there must be any official limit, is should be "permissible inference" or "prima facie" instead, and of course significantly greater than zero.  After all, merely testing positive at a too-low cutoff days or longer after last use should NOT be seen as evidence of current impairment.

The Pitfalls Of "Ersatz 21"

We at Twenty-One Debunked have always supported fully lowering the drinking age to 18, across the board, full stop.  Such advocacy has been primarily on deontological or rights-based rather than utilitarian grounds, though there is clearly some of the latter as well.  And while we have grudgingly advocated some short-term compromises in our proposal and in several posts for the sake of moving the Overton window in our favor just to get the lower drinking age passed at all, we have done so with the very greatest reluctance.  Because if we are not careful, such compromises can actually work against us, and thus become an "own goal" in both senses of the term.  Especially if we start actually believing too hard in such "safeguards".

We recently came up with a name for this phenomenon:  "Ersatz 21".  Because at base, each and every one of the following compromises and concessions to the other side (some we support for the short term, some we don't) can be considered as a way to appease the other side and retain at least some of the alleged (and that is the appropriate word!) public health and safety "benefits" of the 21 drinking age, as at least a partial substitute for it.  For example:

• Keeping the Zero Tolerance DUI Law age limit at 21, and/or for the first X number of years of having a license.  (Puerto Rico, many Canadian provinces, Germany, and many other countries currently do so despite a drinking age of 18 or even lower.)
• Strictly enforcing the new, lowered drinking age of 18, especially against vendors and those who otherwise furnish alcohol to people under 18.
• Keeping the purchase age at 19, 20, or 21 for kegs, cases, handles of liquor, and other large quantities, and/or limiting the quantities and number of transactions per day for people aged 18-20.
• Having shorter trading hours for people under 21.
• Lowering the drinking or purchase age to 18 for beer and/or wine, but keeping it 20 or 21 for hard liquor.
• Lowering the general drinking age to 18, and the and purchase age to 18 for on-premise sales (bars and restaurants), but keeping the purchase age at 21 (or 20 or 19 perhaps) for off-premise sales from stores.  Or allowing off-premise sales to 18 year olds only if one is with someone over the higher age.
• Lowering the general drinking or purchase age to 19 or 20, but waiting longer to lower it all the way to 18.
• Having exceptions to the any of the higher drinking or purchase ages for those with a college or military ID.
• For on-premise sales, not accepting out of state IDs from people under a neighboring state's drinking age if within X number of miles from the border.
• Requiring a "drinking license" for 18-20 year olds similar to that advocated by Choose Responsibility.

All but the very last item on this list we would support to one degree or another for the short term to get the drinking age lowered, with as few such items as possible to get it passed, and a sunset clause for most of them.  We do NOT support Choose Responsibility's proposal, as it is way too quixotic and milquetoast, and as we have seen, utterly failed to win over the other side.  And of course, anything stricter than this list we will vehemently oppose, as that would defeat the purpose of lowering the drinking age to 18.

(Note that we absolutely DO fully support general things like raising the alcohol taxes, cracking down harder on drunk driving, and having tougher DUI laws in general, but those are not on the above list of "Ersatz 21" policies, as none of those things are age-specific.  Those things will of course take some of the wind out of the sails of the pro-21 side.)

And certainly, we should NEVER start out with a compromised position!  Validating the other side in ANY way, as we have seen, only works against us.

The Law Of Eristic Escalation Revisited

Or, "Politics In One Lesson"

There is an eternal law of nature that at once explains just about everything, and even makes politics possible to finally understand. It is called The Law of Eristic Escalation:

Imposition of Order = Escalation of Chaos

By that, it pertains to any arbitrary or coercive imposition of order, which at least in the long run, actually causes disorder (chaos) to escalate.  Fenderson's Amendment further adds that "the tighter the order in question is maintained, the longer the consequent chaos takes to escalate, BUT the more it does when it does."  Finally, the Thudthwacker Addendum still further adds that this relationship is nonlinear, thus rendering the resulting escalation of chaos completely unpredictable in terms of the original imposition of order.

We see the real world consequences of this in everything from Prohibition to the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs to zero tolerance policies to Covid lockdowns to sexual repression and so much more.  And, of course, especially in the ageist abomination that is the 21 drinking age.  Any short-term benefits that these arbitrary and coercive impositions of order may provide is entirely outweighed when they inevitably backfire in the long run.  Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), Asch and Levy (1987 and 1990), and Males (1986), etc. illustrate this very nicely in the case of the 21 drinking age.

Perhaps that is why most bans on various things have historically had a track record that is quite lackluster at best.  Ironically, bans tend to give more power to the very things that they seek to ban.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, you finally understand politics.

P.S.  The Dutch seem to understand this better.  They even have a proverb:  "when you permit, you control", which is the antithesis of the American proverb, "when you permit, you promote".  Carl Jung would also likely have a field day with that as well.

OK You Win. You Have Convinced Us.

(NOTE:  Read this to the very end!)

Well, after doing some deep thinking and soul-searching, it looks like the pro-21 crowd was right all along for the most part.  And thus we have decided to join them in their long and noble fight to save lives and protect the next generations.  We have even decided to attempt to join MADD, if only they would have the mercy to forgive us for our decades of obstinate contumacy against them. 

Our recent "come to MADD moment" hit us like a ton of bricks the other day:  the science on the 21 drinking age is at least as settled as the science on climate change, if not even more settled.  Therefore, those who deny it are just as bad as climate deniers.  That is true not only for its effect on drunk driving, but also the state-of-the-art findings about the adolescent brain from some of the finest neuroscientists in the world as well.  Like C.S. Lewis in regards to Christianity, we've been spending decades trying to debunk and disprove the truth, only to end up discovering the truth all along.

As corny as it sounds, if it saves even ONE life, it's worth it.

Our ONLY gripe with MADD today is that they still refuse to welcome their founder, Candy Lightner, back into the fold after her ignominious ouster long ago.  If anything, they should seriously be canonizing her as a secular saint!

Channeling the late, great Thomas Hobbes, we have also come to realize that the 21 drinking age, though far from perfect, is most analogous to a palliative treatment for a hopelessly incurable disease.  But even then, we will work to hopefully defy what are taken for granted as the laws of human nature to not only reduce, but thoroughly eradicate the horrible and deadly scourge of underage drinking.  And we must of course exorcise the ghosts of John Locke and especially the fiendish John Stuart Mill as well.

We are still keeping the legacy name "Twenty-One Debunked", of course.  That's because we think the current 21 drinking age is if anything too LOW.  It needs to be raised to AT LEAST 25, yesterday, with NO grandfather clause and NO LOOPHOLES.  May MADD accept that as our penance.  And while we are at it, we should seriously consider bringing back Prohibition for all ages, this time with teeth!

Because we have also learned that, actually, Prohibition was a success according to the best evidence.  And had it been properly enforced, and not sabotaged by those who put personal gratification ahead of the common good, it could have been even more successful to this day.

And all of the above shall apply a fortiori to cannabis and tobacco as well, by the way.  Those should never have even been legalized at all.  Thus, we need to redouble our efforts and renew the War on Alcohol And Other Drugs, and stop our "retreat and defeat" strategy.  Yesterday.

And finally, dear reader, as a wise college administrator once said, we DARE NOT let alcohol or any other substance blemish your bright promise.

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APRIL FOOLS!

Of course we would never in a million years agree with any of what we said above, not one iota.  We will never, EVER sell out like that!  But you have to admit, with that sort of satirized sophistry, we sure had you, didn't we 😉

Why Is The 21 Drinking Age So Sacred?

Few laws are as uniquely sacred in the USA today as the 21 drinking age laws.  They are essentially a "third rail" of politics, even more so than Social Security.  And yet these laws are widely disobeyed by the vast majority of Americans at some point in their lives.  So what gives?

It clearly cannot be about saving lives, because speed limits would be even more of a matter of life and death, and yet those are never treated even remotely as sacred as the 21 drinking age.  They are openly flouted and scoffed at by most people, and the penalties and enforcement are pretty lax to this day.  The erstwhile national 55 speed limit was in fact mercilessly mocked and gradually weakened until it was ultimately jettisoned in the 1990s despite (ultimately quite accurate) warnings of "blood on the highways".  And even worse, speed limits on other streets, roads, and especially "stroads" have been raised higher as well, with very deadly consequences, and a fortiori for pedestrians and cyclists (hey, remember them?).  Speed kills, even more so than drunk driving these days, and yet, as one commenter noted, we don't have "Mothers Against Fast Driving", we have the Speed Channel instead.  Likewise, distracted driving, especially by smartphones, is at an all-time high, and people just cavalierly LOL it off for the most part.

(It's all fun and games, until they crash right into a kid on a bike, who is killed or maimed.  Not so funny now, is it?)

And even for drunk driving, the current (generous by international standards) blood alcohol limit of 0.08% for people over 21, let alone lowering it to 0.05% (except in Utah), seems to have far less popular support than the 21 drinking age or zero-tolerance laws for people under 21.  

And also, when they cut the federal alcohol taxes in 2018, ostensibly to boost the economy, there were few voices against it, and even those voices were far more muffled than to they would have been if they had had the temerity to (gasp!) even partially repeal the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.  So the drinking age is not even entirely about alcohol per se then, even if there is clearly some neo-prohibitionist impulse involved as well.

Thus, we can conclude that the 21 drinking age is really about power and control, along with an irrational fear of young people.  Which of course dovetails with being comparatively lax with the privileged age group that is currently in power, as tyranny is always whimsical.  And now the proverbial emperor is naked for all to see.

Chesterton's Fence Revisited

One very important philosophical principle is that of Chesterton's Fence, by author G.K. Chesterton.  

Per Wikipedia:

"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. The quotation is from Chesterton's 1929 book, The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic, in the chapter, "The Drift from Domesticity":

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

In other words, before you remove or destroy a fence (or policy), make sure you know why it was put up in the first place.  That's just common sense.

(Hey DOGE, are you listening?  Seriously!)

Of course, the apocryphal "Five Monkeys Experiment" is a good foil to counterbalance that principle.  That is, sometimes various policies really have outlived their usefulness, were rotten from the start, and/or do far more harm than good.  And wisdom is to know the difference between the two cases.

(The latter pitfall is sometimes called "status quo bias".)

So where does that leave the 21 drinking age then?  Well it seems to be a bit of both, in fact.  On the one hand, the reason why they raised the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s was ostensibly to combat drunk driving at times when drunk driving was widely considered normal and socially acceptable, and generally not taken very seriously.  At the same time, any other justification (such as junk neuroscience) given for it now is an after-the-fact rationalization, so anything other than drunk driving came be considered a "Five Monkeys" case.  Back to the original justification, that has long since passed it's sell-by date for the following reasons:

• Countries that did NOT raise their drinking ages to 21, even car cultures like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, saw similar or greater declines in teen and young adult traffic deaths, both alcohol-related and otherwise, than the USA did during and right after the time that the drinking ages were in flux.  They did not diverge in the expected direction, and if anything diverged in the "wrong" direction.
• The 12 states that had been 21 since the 1930s and 1940s, and thus did not change their drinking ages at all since then, also saw similar declines in teen and young adult traffic deaths during that time period.
• Several good and rigorous studies, including, but not limited to, Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), Asch and Levy (1987 and 1990), Dee and Evans (2001), Grant (2011), and others, have either cast major doubt on the idea of the 21 drinking age having a significant net lifesaving effect, or even debunked it entirely.
• It's literally well into the 21st century now.  Drunk driving is no longer socially acceptable in the USA, and is taken far more seriously now than it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. America is almost a completely different country now than it was back then.
• Rideshare services like Uber and Lyft exist now as well, and young people are taking longer than ever now to get their driver's licenses.
• We know now that there are far more effective ways of reducing alcohol-related harms of all kinds, such as raising the taxes on alcohol, limiting alcohol outlet density, improving alcohol education, and most importantly of all, seriously cracking down on actual drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk vandalism, and stuff like that.  Rather than merely "flatten the curve", doing so can actually CRUSH the curve for good.

Thus, having applied the principle of Chesterton's Fence, we can conclude that the 21 drinking age can be safely tossed aside like so much garbage, and without looking back.

So what are we waiting for?