All 50 states and DC have a legal drinking age of 21 thanks to federal coercion, but apparently there are some parts of the country where the average age of onset of drinking is as low as 12. Think about that for a moment--that's nine years below the legal age, and that's the average in some communities!
So with all of this very underage drinking going on, with numerous kids starting to drink nearly a decade before they are legal, where are they getting all that booze? The answers can be found in a survey of kids in one such community in South Dakota. And 37% of the kids surveyed said that friends over age 21 would buy it for them, while 8% got strangers to buy for them and 4% had other means. But wait--wasn't raising the drinking age to 21 supposed to stop kids under 18 from getting their older friends to buy for them? Guess not.
Of course, the average age of onset in the USA as a whole has generally been in the 16-17 range since 1965 despite fluctuations in the legal drinking age. And the average age at first drink actually dropped from 16.6 in 1980 to 16.2 in 2002. Even 8th graders (13 year olds!) can apparently their hands on alcohol more easily than even cigarettes, which have an age limit 18 in 46 states (and often poorly enforced). There seems to be little to no correlation between the legal drinking age and the average age of onset of drinking. But if not that, what does explain why some communities drink earlier (and/or more so) than others? Like the above-referenced article points out, a combination of socioeconomic disadvantage, low alcohol prices, and the drinking patterns of their parents and grandparents seems to be the main culprit. And there is nothing at all surprising about that.
A community group has made recommendations to address the problem. Such recommendations include restricting alcohol advertising in the area, raising alcohol taxes, working with retailers on pricing and the placement of alcohol in stores, and increasing compliance checks on retailers by law enforcement. We at Twenty-One Debunked believe that these commonsense measures are a good idea overall, and would support them even more if the drinking age was lowered to 18 as well. Remember that the success story of Puerto Rico did not require a drinking age of 21 to succeed. And nor did America's experience with tobacco use reduction over the past few decades require an increase in the smoking age to 21.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Happy Drink Nothing Day!
You have probably heard of Buy Nothing Day. Celebrated on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year, this self-explanatory holiday is meant to be a protest against consumerism. But perhaps you didn't know that the biggest drinking day of the year is the day before Thanksgiving. That's right, it's not New Year's Eve, but Thanksgiving Eve.
Thus, last year we at Twenty-One Debunked have decided to create our own protest holiday, Drink Nothing Day. It is designed as a way for people 21 and over to show solidarity with those under 21 by not drinking any alcohol that day. To observe this holiday, which can only logically be done by folks over 21, one must not drink any form of alcohol at all during the entire 24 hours of that date, as well as the following day until sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner (or until the sun goes down, whichever occurs earlier). Then, one may drink, but one must give thanks that prohibition no longer applies to him or her. Other things include wearing two black armbands: one to symbolize those soldiers who died before being able to drink legally in the very country they served, and another to symbolize those under 21 who were killed by a drunk driver over 21.
We will continue to observe this holiday until the drinking age is lowered to 18 in all 50 states.
Thus, last year we at Twenty-One Debunked have decided to create our own protest holiday, Drink Nothing Day. It is designed as a way for people 21 and over to show solidarity with those under 21 by not drinking any alcohol that day. To observe this holiday, which can only logically be done by folks over 21, one must not drink any form of alcohol at all during the entire 24 hours of that date, as well as the following day until sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner (or until the sun goes down, whichever occurs earlier). Then, one may drink, but one must give thanks that prohibition no longer applies to him or her. Other things include wearing two black armbands: one to symbolize those soldiers who died before being able to drink legally in the very country they served, and another to symbolize those under 21 who were killed by a drunk driver over 21.
We will continue to observe this holiday until the drinking age is lowered to 18 in all 50 states.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Yet Another Sketchy Study--DEBUNKED!
A recent study now claims that raising the drinking age to 21 saves the lives of roughly 1200 women per year who otherwise would have died of suicide or homicide, including later in life as well. The pro-21 crowd (and the media) are really eating it up. But is it really true, or should we be skeptical?
It turns out that there are in fact several reasons one should be skeptical of such an audacious claim. First of all, there was no noticeable effect of the drinking age on suicide and homicide rates among the general population exposed to the law change--only when the results were separated by gender was any sort of pattern noticed, and only among women born after 1960. The fact that men (who tend to drink more than women, and who also are more likely to kill themselves and others) were completely unaffected is very difficult to explain away assuming the effect is genuine. Secondly, the odds ratios were fairly small, 1.12 and 1.15, and any odds ratios less than 2.0 ought to be taken with a grain of salt (if not a whole pound). It could very likely be the result of chance, bias, or confounding factors. Thirdly, the study only looked at where the individuals were born, not where they lived at age 18. Fourthly, comparing the USA with countries with lower drinking ages does not appear to support the claim that allowing 18-20 year olds to drink results in higher homicide and suicide rates. For example, Canadians of both genders have lower homicide rates than Americans, and suicide rates that are intermediate between the lower 48 states and Alaska.
Unfortunately, we were unable to access the full text of the study, so we don't know what confounders (if any) the authors attempted to adjust for, except for state and birth-year fixed effects. However, since summaries of the study say that the effect was seen in 38 out of 39 states, that implies that the 12 states that did not change the drinking age at all (remained at 21 throughout) were not included. This is important since that would be a rudimentary way to test for secular trends, as we have done in this previous post. So many other things have changed during that time, making it difficult to tease out the impact of the drinking age change. And why weren't women (or men for that matter) born before 1960 affected? This study seems to leave the reader with more questions than answers.
The true believers in the 21 drinking age will need a lot more convincing in the error of their ways, however. That's why we took the initiative and looked up the mortality data ourselves in the publicly available CDC WONDER database. And here is what we found:
The above charts look at the female homicide and suicide rates of various age cohorts (15-19, 20-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54) for the years 1979-1998. The study we are critiquing used the years 1990-2004 instead of 1979-1998, but we felt the latter would be more appropriate since a) the WONDER data are grouped into 1979-1998 and 1999-2007, each with somewhat different death codes, and b) more cohorts would be included. Voila--there is essentially no difference in the patterns of either rate over time between the various groups of states (all states, states that were always 21, and states that were 18 at some time) despite changes in the legal drinking age.
It turns out that there are in fact several reasons one should be skeptical of such an audacious claim. First of all, there was no noticeable effect of the drinking age on suicide and homicide rates among the general population exposed to the law change--only when the results were separated by gender was any sort of pattern noticed, and only among women born after 1960. The fact that men (who tend to drink more than women, and who also are more likely to kill themselves and others) were completely unaffected is very difficult to explain away assuming the effect is genuine. Secondly, the odds ratios were fairly small, 1.12 and 1.15, and any odds ratios less than 2.0 ought to be taken with a grain of salt (if not a whole pound). It could very likely be the result of chance, bias, or confounding factors. Thirdly, the study only looked at where the individuals were born, not where they lived at age 18. Fourthly, comparing the USA with countries with lower drinking ages does not appear to support the claim that allowing 18-20 year olds to drink results in higher homicide and suicide rates. For example, Canadians of both genders have lower homicide rates than Americans, and suicide rates that are intermediate between the lower 48 states and Alaska.
Unfortunately, we were unable to access the full text of the study, so we don't know what confounders (if any) the authors attempted to adjust for, except for state and birth-year fixed effects. However, since summaries of the study say that the effect was seen in 38 out of 39 states, that implies that the 12 states that did not change the drinking age at all (remained at 21 throughout) were not included. This is important since that would be a rudimentary way to test for secular trends, as we have done in this previous post. So many other things have changed during that time, making it difficult to tease out the impact of the drinking age change. And why weren't women (or men for that matter) born before 1960 affected? This study seems to leave the reader with more questions than answers.
The true believers in the 21 drinking age will need a lot more convincing in the error of their ways, however. That's why we took the initiative and looked up the mortality data ourselves in the publicly available CDC WONDER database. And here is what we found:
Female homicides, all USA:
Female suicides, all USA:
Female homicides, "always-21" states:
Female suicides, "always-21" states:
Female homicides, "18 at some time" states
Female suicides, "18 at some time" states
The above charts look at the female homicide and suicide rates of various age cohorts (15-19, 20-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54) for the years 1979-1998. The study we are critiquing used the years 1990-2004 instead of 1979-1998, but we felt the latter would be more appropriate since a) the WONDER data are grouped into 1979-1998 and 1999-2007, each with somewhat different death codes, and b) more cohorts would be included. Voila--there is essentially no difference in the patterns of either rate over time between the various groups of states (all states, states that were always 21, and states that were 18 at some time) despite changes in the legal drinking age.
It is really transparent and obvious why a study like this would come out now, at a time when many policymakers are seriously considering lowering the drinking age. After the arguments about drunk driving fatalities have been debunked time and time again, it was necessary to come up with other "public health" arguments for continuing to violate the civil rights of 18-20 year old young adults. But make no mistake--these arguments are really just a more socially acceptable way of saying that some people's rights are more important than others. That is, the antithesis of what America supposedly stands for.