Would A Graduated Drinking Age Be Better? (Part Deux)

In our previous post, we discussed the idea of possibly having a split (graduated) drinking age for the first few years of lowering the drinking age, whether for quantity limits, beverage type, or both.  And we concluded that we would be open to that, but ONLY if that would eventually sunset to make it 18 across the board within a few years at most.  Remember, our goal at Twenty-One Debunked remains to fully lower it to 18, and not a day later.

Another idea could be to lower it completely to 18 for on-premise purchases (bars and restaurants), while requiring anyone 18-20 buying alcohol at stores for off-premise consumption to simply have someone 21 or older with them for the purchase, except if those 18-20 have and present a college or military ID.  And they could not have anyone under 18 with them (except their own children) either.  That would be more than enough to discourage 18-20 year olds from buying for their younger friends, which of course would still remain just as illegal as it is now.  

And of course, 18-20 year olds should be fully allowed to drink, possess, and be furnished alcohol in private as well, just like people over 21 currently are.  That would be head and shoulders better than ONLY allowing them to possess and consume alcohol on premise, a truly half-baked idea which would thus create a perverse incentive to drive under the influence, especially in rural areas where such a policy would be tantamount to legalized entrapment in practice.

What about the fear of "blood borders" between states that lower their drinking ages while adjacent states remain 21?  Well, first of all, that is really no worse than the problem of dry counties adjacent to wet counties in terms of perverse incentives to drive under the influence.  (And we sure as hell don't blame it on the wet counties!)  Secondly, they could always have it be where on premise establishments less than X number of miles from the state line of such adjacent states would not be allowed to accept out of state IDs for people under 21 from those specific states, except in college towns for those who also show a college ID.  And the same "temporary residence" exception should also apply to hotels serving their overnight guests as well.  There is a precedent for Wisconsin (a state that has experimented with just about every possible alcohol policy under the sun) doing something similar before 1977 when it was rescinded.

Another "novel" idea:  simply enforce existing laws against actual drunk driving better.  Checkpoints and/or roving patrols can really go a long way yo reduce the problem.

But should we even bother to start out with a compromised position at all?  That remains an open question.

The pro-21 crowd really lives in an alternate reality, it seems.  Just recently, I was debating someone on Reddit that kept on fruitlessly picking apart the methodology of Miron and Tetelbaum's groundbreaking 2009 study that thoroughly debunked the idea that the 21 drinking age saved lives.  The person I debated with kept on straining at proverbial gnats and swallowing proverbial camels, tossing red herrings, using the word "weird" repeatedly for anything they disagreed with, and kept failing to actually refute it.  The pro-21 crowd really cannot to see the forest for the trees, it seems.  They are apparently way too left-brained to do so (and perhaps smooth-brained as well).

The point being:  trying to reason with them is fundamentally an exercise in futility.  And compromising with them would also likely be just as futile as well.

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?