Would A Graduated Drinking Age Be Better?

Twenty-One Debunked has long called for the drinking age to be lowered to 18, completely, and yesterday is not soon enough.  And that hasn't changed one iota since our founding in 2009, and it never will.  That's our North Star.

But what about a phase-in period to make the age lowering more likely to get passed at all?  We have already proposed for the first few years of the new law, to have it remain at 21 for kegs, cases, handles (large bottles) of liquor, and other bulk quantities, while otherwise lowering it to 18 yesterday, and having the higher age limit automatically sunset after X number of years (likely three to five years).  And also, keep the zero tolerance age at 21 for drinking and driving as well for the first few years.  The question remains, however:  what if that still is not enough to realistically get it passed?  We face an extremely uphill battle these days, after all.

Thus, we at Twenty-One Debunked would now grudgingly support, and ONLY for the first few years at most, also keeping the purchase age at 21 for the first few years for hard liquor, or really anything with more than 18% alcohol by volume.  Everything else in non-bulk quantities would be lowered to 18 right away, while the higher age limit would automatically sunset to 18 within a few years.  The higher age limit would not apply to drinking the liquor, of course, only for the specific act of buying it.

Alternatively, the higher age limit can be phased down gradually to 20, then 19, then 18 as well.

The higher age limit could also be kept for all internet, phone, or delivery app orders of alcohol for the first few years as well, and also perhaps have shorter trading hours allowed for off-premise sales for those below that age.

All of this would pour cold water over any real or imagined fears of a short-term increase alcohol-related problems and casualties among teens and young adults, particularly those involving high school students and keggers.  (Longer-term problems and casualties resulting from a lower drinking age have already been thoroughly debunked by Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) and several other studies, of course.)

Hey, if it actually gets us to our real goal sooner than being absolute purists about it would, why not?  Especially in light of the fact that there are more and more places (coffee shops, movie theaters, etc.) these days that serve beer, wine, cider, and/or alcopops, but not hard liquor.  That said, we will NOT support any further compromises beyond that, as that would be a compromise OF a compromise, and thus that would ultimately vitiate our goal of lowering to 18.

So what are we waiting for?