First and foremost, lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 (in line with the rest of the world, and a good chunk of American history) is NOT a radical change at all. So any (real or imagined) fears related to lowering it even further below 18, or abolishing the age limit altogether, do NOT apply to lowering it to 18.
Secondly, it is NOT like the (real or imagined) fears of suddenly legalizing something that was previously completely illegal for everyone. Alcohol in its various forms has been broadly legal, tolerated, and openly advertised for most of recorded history. It is the "devil we already know", basically. So "same as before, but without the arrests or injustices" is actually pretty close to accurate here.
Thirdly, simple and practical things like raising the alcohol taxes and cracking down harder on drunk driving, drunk violence, drunk and disorderly conduct, and stuff like that, would basically render any feared unintended consequences academic in practice. This is true whether the drinking age is lowered to 18 gradually OR suddenly.
Fourthly, it's not the 1970s or 1980s anymore. America is almost a completely different country now in so many ways, including for drunk driving. The original, albeit still fatally flawed, crisis-based justification for coercively raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s is itself grossly outdated and basically academic now in the 21st century, hence the need for the pro-21 crowd to invent new, ever more specious and spurious justifications (such as junk neuroscience, and a perversion of the precautionary principle) for keeping it at 21, because reasons.
And finally, it is ultimately a matter of principle, as it is fundamentally a civil rights issue, far more so than it is a public health and safety issue. Not everything can be reduced to crude utilitarianism, after all. "Let us do evil, that good may come" is always and everywhere a trap, a lesson that is unfortunately too often learned the hard way.
(Mic drop)
Hello Ajax,
ReplyDeleteA recent finding would reinforce your thesis regarding the questionable effectiveness of authoritarian measures at reducing substance use.
Earlier this year, a WHO report was published, showing that England had the highest rate of alcohol use among 11 and 13 year olds.
This would suggest we have a higher rate of consumption even compared with countries that do not use many ID checks and where alcohol is cheaper relative to income.
This would suggest many costly and bureaucratic measures like those aforementioned are ineffective at best.
Link to the article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68884005
Regards,
Wayland
Well-said, Wayland. Of course, the neoprohibitionists will perversely say, well, then that means that the UK should raise their drinking age to 21. Because reasons. Or something. But take it from us in the USA: it doesn't work. All it does is drive alcohol further underground and make it more dangerous than it has to be.
ReplyDeleteWe had it at 18 in NY since 1934, then raised it to 19 in 1982. Didn't work. Then we raised it to 21 in 1985. Still didn't work. Then we added all sorts of ancillary laws to prop it up, cracked down hard in terms of enforcement. Guess what? It still doesn't work.
Right, Ajax. The US didn't feature in the study. But the neodrys would probably point to Iceland, which has the lowest chid alcohol use (as usual) as an example of why we need to raise the drinking age. (In Iceland it's 20.) But they would fail to mention that alcohol is so heavily taxed there it's unaffordable to anyone who isn't very rich. (Bit of an exaggeration, but it demonstrates the effectiveness of the price mechanism over outright prohibition.)
DeleteIndeed, same goes for Lithuania. Their drinking age was also raised to 20, but their alcohol taxes are also very high, which is a major confounding factor.
DeleteIt is almost like there is really no age limit that is truly on philosophically stable ground. All age limits are arbitrary, but some are more arbitrary than others. One can argue that 18 is a philosophical "island of stability", but only in a very relative sense.
ReplyDelete