Let's Talk About Canada

When advocates of lowering the drinking age bring up Europe for comparison, they often paint themselves into a corner.  America and Europe are very different, so in many ways it's apples and oranges.  But European countries are not the only ones that have lower drinking ages.

We do in fact have a good yardstick for what would have happened had the drinking age not been raised to 21 in the 1980s.  It's called Canada.  Their drinking ages have remained at 18 or 19, depending on the province, for the past three decades.  And it is the country that most resembles America in many ways, especially in terms of its car culture.  So let's talk about Canada then.

ALCOHOL-RELATED TRAFFIC FATALITIES

It is often claimed by proponents of the 21 drinking age that raising the drinking age saved lives.  While alcohol-related traffic fatalites did decline, correlation does not prove causality.  First of all, the trend began in 1982, two years before the National Minimum Drinking Age Act that forced all states to raise their drinking ages to 21 by 1987.  Perhaps the trend began even earlier, as total 18-20 year old fatalities began declining in 1979-1980, but 1982 is the first year that FARS has reasonably reliable data for alcohol-related fatalities.  And Canada saw a remarkably similar trend, as you can see in the graphs below (courtesy of NHTSA).

Percent Change from 1982-1997 US: drivers age 16-20 in fatal crashes with positive BAC (FARS) Canada: driver fatalities age 16-19 with positive BAC (TIRF)	Percent Change from 1982-1997 US: percentage of drivers age 16-20 in fatal crashes with positive BAC (FARS) Canada: percentage of driver fatalities age 16-19 with positive BAC (TIRF)

Interestingly, the decline in alcohol-related traffic fatalities since 1982 occurred at about the same rate in both countries, with no evidence of divergence in the expected direction despite the fact that Canada did not raise the drinking age to 21.  In both countries, drivers under 21 saw some of the largest declines of all compared with other age groups, though all ages saw some decline over the long run.  Moreover, progress continued for Canadian teens from 1997-2005, while unfortunately it stalled for their American counterparts during that time, only resuming after gas prices began to skyrocket (which Americans were not used to) and the economy began to sag.  In 2005-2006, the rate of total 15-24 year old traffic fatalities (per 100,000 people) for the USA was 25.5, and 16.9 in Canada, the latter being 33% lower than the former.

In other words, the downward trend in fatalities can be explained entirely by other factors, which likely include, inter alia:

• Tougher laws and penalties for DUI
• Better DUI enforcement
• More education and awareness of the problem of impaired driving
• Designated driver programs
• Seat belt laws
• Safer cars and roads due to improved engineering
• Demographic changes
• Changes in gas prices

In fact, some things, such as the 0.08 BAC limit, were already in place in Canada well before 1982.  The BAC limit in the US was still 0.12-0.15 in most states in 1982, and since then all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico lowered it to 0.10 and eventually to 0.08.  Zero-tolerance laws for younger drivers, which were enacted in all 50 states and DC by 1998 (beginning in the 1980s), were nonexistent until well into the 1990s in most Canadian provinces, and until very recently no province's law was as strict as in the USA.  Also, graduated driver license rules for younger drivers had eventually become stricter than Canada's in several states.  If anything, fatality rates for all ages should have declined faster in the US relative to Canada, but for some reason they did not.

Worse still, according to a 2004 book by Leonard Evans, former safety researcher for General Motors, America has been lagging behind several other countries in terms of traffic safety.  The table below shows the change in the number and rate of total traffic fatalites (all ages) over time in the US and three other countries that maintained lower drinking ages since 1979.

Country	MLDA	1979 Fatalities	2002 Fatalities	% Change (raw)	% Change (per vehicle)	% Change (per VMT)
USA	21	51,093	42,815	-16.2%	-46.2%	-52%
UK	18	6,352	3,431	-46.0%	-67.1%	-70%
Canada	18 or 19	5,863	2,936	-49.9%	-63.5%	N/A
Australia	18	3,508	1,715	-51.1%	-79.1%	N/A

TEEN DRINKING AND "BINGE" DRINKING

Of course, highway fatalities are not the only concern raised about the drinking age.  Proponents of the 21 drinking age also claim it reduced teen drinking and "binge" drinking (5+ drinks in an occasion).  But that trend, as measured by the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, began in 1979, which was several years before most states adopted the 21 law.  And raising the drinking age may lead to reduced reporting in surveys even in the absence of actual behavioral change.  So all teen surveys ought to be taken with at least a grain of salt, if not a pound.

The province of Ontario (with a drinking age of 19 since 1979) has a similar survey (OSDUS) going back to the 1970s, though not all the measurements are the same.  The following table, again courtesy of NHTSA, shows the changes in Ontario during the most relevant time period (1979-1991 unless otherwise stated) compared with the USA.  The American data are for grade 12 only, while the Ontario data are for grades 7-13 combined, so they are not directly comparable.  The trends, however, are strikingly similar.

Drinking Behavior	1979	1991	% Change, 1979-1991
Annual drinking: USA	88.1%	77.7%	-12%
Annual drinking: Ontario	76.9%	58.7%	-24%
Daily drinking: USA	6.9%	3.6%	-48%
Daily drinking: Ontario	0.9%	0.4%	-56%
5 or more drinks: USA (past 2 weeks)	41.2%	27.9%	-32%
5 or more drinks: Ontario (past 4 weeks)	27.0%	21.9%	-19%
5 or more drinks: USA (past 2 weeks, 1979-1993)	41.2%	27.5% (1993)	-33%
5 or more drinks: Ontario (past 4 weeks, grades 7, 9 and 11 only, 1979-1993)	24%	15% (1993)	-38%
Drive after drinking: USA (past 2 weeks)	31.2% (1984)	18.7%	-40%
Drive after drinking: Ontario (annual)	43.2% (1983)	20.1%	-53%

Of course, that is only one province.  What about the rest of Canada?  Unfortunately, most Canadian provinces do not have longitudinal data going back that far, or even before 1996, so we are stuck with doing a crude cross-section using current data for our international comparison.  The following table consists of the past-month prevalence of "binge" drinking (5+ drinks in an occasion) for high school seniors as reported in recent surveys, in selected states and provinces.  American data were taken from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, while Canadian data were taken from various provincial surveys. 

Location	Binge Drinking (Grade 12)	Drove after drinking (Grades 9-12)	MLDA	Year
USA (overall)	36.5%	10.5%	21	2007
North Dakota	47.0%	18.7%	21	2007
South Dakota	47.3%	13.0%	21	2007
Montana	46.2%	18.5%	21	2005
Vermont	38.0%	9.2%	21	2007
Wisconsin	42.7%	14.3%	21	2007
Alberta	46%	N/A	18	2005
Alberta	48.5%	10.3%	18	2008
Atlantic Provinces	49.7%	N/A	19	2007
Manitoba	47%	N/A	18	2007
Ontario	48%	11.6%	19	2007
Saskatchewan	70%+	N/A	19	2008
Puerto Rico (USA)	33.2%	7.3%	18	2005
Guam (USA)	30.3%	7.8%	18	2007
Northern Mariana  Islands (USA)	36.5%	14.1%	21	2005

Care was taken to compare apples to apples, and that is why the YRBS was used for American data instead of the Monitoring the Future survey.  Canadian surveys and YRBS report past-month "binge" drinking, while MTF reports it for past two weeks (and thus contains lower numbers).  The Manitoba figure was for the past-year, as comparable data for past month were not available, and can thus be considered an upper bound for past-month "binge" drinking.

Note the similarity between the northern states and Canadian provinces which are geographically and demographically similar--they generally tend to be around 50%.  There does not appear to be a significant correlation between the drinking age and "binge" drinking rates.  Remember again that the American data are more likely underreported than the Canadian data due to the drinking age difference and cultural factors.

Also note the below-average numbers for the US territories of Guam and Puerto Rico, both of which have a drinking age of 18.  In fact, even the temperance-oriented Robert Wood Johnson Foundation concedes that Puerto Rico was able to reduce both alcohol-related traffic fatalities and underage (under 18) drinking since the 1990s without raising the drinking age.  From 1982 to 2009, Puerto Rico saw a whopping 84% decline in teenage (16-20) drunk driving fatalities, while the nation as a whole saw a 74% drop, in both cases to record-low levels.  Now that's a great American success story.

In other words, it appears that Miron and Tetelbaum (2009) were spot on when they said that the drinking age appears to have "only a minor impact on teen drinking," just like they were right about its lack of a lifesaving effect on the highways. 

OTHER EFFECTS, OR LACK THEREOF

As for allegedly creating a nation of brain-damaged, alcoholic felons by allowing 18-20 year olds to drink, this myth does not hold water either.  In international standardized tests, Canadian 12th graders beat their American counterparts despite the former having similar or lower scores in 4th grade.  In fact, nearly all the countries that beat us set the drinking age at 18 or even lower!  The alcoholism rates in both the USA and Canada are also roughly equivalent, and the adult per capita alcohol consumption rate is actually slightly lower in Canada.  Alcohol-related death rates, both in terms of liver cirrhosis as well as "alcohol use disorder", are also lower in Canada according to the World Health Organization.  In fact, Canadians live on average three years longer than Americans.  And the rates of violent crimes, especially the most serious ones like homicide, tend to be significantly lower in Canada as well.
 
In short, puritanical America, with our 21 drinking age, appears to be the less healthy society of the two.  And while correlation does not prove causation, the aforementioned statistics certainly won't convince anyone that our illiberal policies are doing much good in reducing alcohol-related problems or improving public health and safety.  We need to see the forest for the trees, something America chronically fails to do in terms of alcohol policy.


Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from our neighbor to the north?

QED


2011 UPDATE:  Errata have been found (and updated) for some surveys.  Also, additional data have been (and will be) added to this post from time to time--stay tuned. 

A Teachable Moment

Too young to drink legally, but old enough to be sued?  Welcome to the world of the American teenager.

In Massachusetts in October 2008, a 17 year old honor student, Taylor Meyer, went out drinking with several friends after a football game, and unfortunately did not survive.  They went to some house parties and eventually the woods by a swamp, Taylor wandered off, and her body was found in the frigid swamp a few days later.  The details of what actually happened in the woods are not yet known, and it is thus a bit premature to speculate on the roles of her friends that night.  Though it is highly unlikely anyone forcibly poured the booze down her throat, and the autopsy showed that the death was consistent with drowning rather than foul play.

Now, in 2010, Taylor's mother is suing seven of the girl's friends, five of which are under 18 and six of which are under 21, for wrongful death.  She says it is about "accountability" rather than money, and the amount she is suing for was not disclosed.  Nevermind the fact that those teens are, due to their age, deemed too irresponsible and immature to drink legally.  If that's the case, how can they be mature enough to be held legally liable for a friend's self-inflicted death?  Look, you can't have it both ways--either they're adults or they're not.  The hypocrisy is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Unfortunately, this is what happens when alcohol is forced underground. Many preventable deaths occur as a result of the 21 drinking age, just like during Prohibition.  So why is no one in the MSM saying this?  If anyone should be sued, it should be the government, as well as fanatical groups like MADD, for helping to create a more dangerous environment for young people.  Those folks have WAY more blood on their hands than they care to acknowledge.

Our litigious culture feels the need to sue for just about everything, and this is just one of many examples. Personal responsibility has sadly become a forgotten virtue in our society, and parents increasingly abdicate their responsibility for their children as well.  They often expect the state to raise them, and when things go wrong it is always someone else's fault.  Alas, this has become the new "normal" for America.

The mother in this case, however, believed she was doing the right thing.  From what she said, she (like many American parents of teenagers) appears to have raised her daughter on a "zero tolerance" model with respect to alcohol, perhaps even more so than average.  And she is left wondering what more she could have done, such as check her daughter's Facebook.  The problem with the "zero tolerance" approach, however, is that there is little to no room for harm reduction.   Many teens, like Taylor, are going to drink either way.  And the 21 drinking age often creates a false sense of security for parents, as well as increased dangers for their teenage children.  Better alcohol education, and a more relaxed view of alcohol, could oddly enough have prevented this tragedy.  A feast or famine mentality, fear of getting busted, forbidden fruit attraction, and a schizoid drinking culture all combined, in this case, to spell disaster.

We can learn a lot from tragedies like these, and how to prevent them from happening in the future.

New Organization for Lowering the Drinking Age

We at Twenty-One Debunked are clearly not alone in wanting to lower the drinking age.  Within the last week, the nation's first commercial (aka .com), non-blog website, Drink at 18, launched.  (In contrast, we're still just a blogged site--they beat us to it!)  Though they are not in any way affiliated with us, we wish them the best.  The more supporters our common cause has, the better, since there is still a dearth of websites dedicated to lowering the drinking age (compare that to the number dedicated to legalizing cannabis).  Check the site out for yourself--it's good.

Are there any significant differences between us, besides the fact that our site is primarily devoted to debunking junk science (as our name implies)?  Perhaps we have a somewhat more detailed plan of action for lowering the drinking age, but Drink at 18 is new and still has time to formulate such details.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  And any other differences are mostly cosmetic, such as the fact that we don't sell merchandise (yet).  We salute you, Drink at 18.

18 Year Old Elected Mayor--Too Bad He Can't Legally Drink

In the small town of Dawson, Iowa, an 18 year old high school senior named Colton Morman was just elected mayor.  This makes him one of the youngest mayors in US history.

We at Twenty-One Debunked believe that the idea that one can be old enough to be mayor but still not allowed to drink legally is absurd.  We wish him well.

Will Israel Emulate the American Failure?

Perhaps.  A recent government proposal in Israel, if passed, would restrict alcohol to a greater extent than it is now.  The bill would ban off-premise alcohol sales after 11 pm, furnishing alcohol to minors, and most notably would (possibly) raise the drinking age from 18 to 21.   Other restrictions may include raising the prices for spirits, banning alcohol advertising, and requiring special licenses to sell alcohol.

Allegedly, there has been an "epidemic" of teen drinking and drunkenness in just the past few years over there.  But it is unlikely that raising the drinking age to 21 would help.  Hell, they don't even enforce the current drinking age of 18!  Perhaps if they did so, along with several of the other reforms that have been proposed, the "epidemic" drinking could be reduced, or at least contained.  Attempting to emulate America's greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition would likely just throw gasoline on the fire.

How Common is Extreme Binge Drinking? Now We Know

We at 21 Debunked have repeatedly voiced disapproval at those who insist on calling 5 drinks a "binge," as well as noting the dearth of longitudinal data concerning the practice of imbibing 10 or more drinks in an evening, sometimes called "extreme" drinking or "extreme binge" drinking.  The Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey of middle and high school students has not been gathering data on this truly dangerous activity, so we have been left in the dark about its true prevalence.  Until now. 

Lloyd Johnston, the overseer of the survey, has recently been asking high school seniors whether they have had 10+ drinks or more in at least one occasion in the past 2 weeks.  The most recent data say 11% have done so, and 6% have had 15+ drinks in a row.  While clearly a small minority, it is not a trivial fraction either, and is probably an underestimate.  And, most relevant to the drinking age debate, these numbers have not changed significantly since Johnston began following them, despite ever-intensifying enforcement.  So recent declines in prevalence of 5+ drinks in a row appear to be somewhat misleading, especially since underage drinkers tend to undercount their drinks.  Lying (or exaggerating or minimizing) is also fairly common in teen surveys.

For what it's worth, according to the same surveys 25% of seniors and 18% of sophomores admit to having had 5+ in a row in the past two weeks, and these numbers are leveling off after a decade-long decline.  It seems that fewer teens are drinking, but the more they do when they do.  That may explain why in emergency rooms in several cities across the country, admissions related to teen binge drinking increased in recent years in spite of surveys showing less drinking.

Tracking this dangerous behavior is long overdue.  We already know that among college freshmen, 20% of males and 8% of females have done extreme drinking (10+ males, 8+ females) in the past two weeks.  But that was a one-semester snapshot in the fall of 2003, with no other years for comparison.  The rate of "binge" drinking (using the 5/4 definition) in the past two weeks was 41% for males and 34% for females, which does jibe well with known statistics (roughly 40%) that use that definition.  But one must wonder if there is even any relationship at all between the rates of drinking, "binge" drinking, and "extreme" drinking.

Indeed, from 1993 to 2005, the percentage of college students who "binge" drank (5/4 definition) in the past two weeks has not changed a whole lot, but the percentage who do so three more times in the past two weeks ("frequent binging") has gone up significantly.  And since the aforementioned study found that extreme drinking was strongly correlated with frequent "binging," the former most likely rose as well.  Further evidence comes from another study that found that the number of alcohol poisoning deaths (a good indicator of truly dangerous drinking) among college students nearly tripled from 1998 to 2005. 

Bottom line:  when you criminalize normative drinking, you inevitably normalize truly dangerous drinking.  We saw the same thing during Prohibition.  And we all pay a heavy price for it.

Would you drive a car knowing its brakes would fail 11% of the time?  Didn't think so.

White Noise Syndrome

Has anyone ever seen the 2007 horror film White Noise 2? (Spoiler alert) A man has a near-death experience that has left him with the supernatural ability to predict exactly who will die and when.  He acts on his premonitions, and saves several lives, only to find out that exactly three days later, the people he saves start killing others upon being possessed by an evil entity.  In other words, the net effect is an increase in deaths.  He then realizes he wasn't supposed to save those people, regrets his choices, and actually considers killing those he saved in order to rectify this horrible, unforseen tragedy.  We watch such films with revulsion and assume they are mere fiction.

But what if there was a government policy, at the expense of tax dollars and civil liberties, that at best delayed deaths of young people by a few years and potentially even increased the number of premature deaths over the lifecycle?  What if there were entire orgainizations who wholeheartedly endorsed such a policy as "saving lives" or "for the children" while ignoring or minimizing its dark side?  And what if anyone who questions such a policy is subjected to a heckler's veto and even occasional censorship to chill debate? 

Well, that describes the 21 drinking age perfectly.  Fans of this blog already know about a study done by Dee and Evans (2001) which showed that raising the drinking age merely shifted deaths into the future by a few years, and perhaps even increased them.  Asch and Levy (1987 and 1990) and Mike Males (1986) were some of the first people to notice this redistribution of mortality.  And remember, the longer a drunk driver lives, the more innocent people he or she can take to his grave with him or her.  Of course, not every study agrees with Dee and Evans' conclusion, but there is some new evidence that supports this view.

Kitt Carpenter and Carlos Dobkin (2009) have a new study out that shows a discrete and significant jump in mortality at exactly age 21.  The effect is true only for external causes of death, including motor vehicle accidents, suicides, deaths labled as "alcohol related," and those labeled as "other external," but not homicides or drug-related deaths.  The effect also occurs for self reported alcohol consumption as well.  Ruling out alternative explanations, they conclude it is due to the effect of the drinking age.   But unfortunately, they also make the specious claim that such an effect is not merely a delay in deaths but a true lifesaving effect of the policy.

We at Twenty-One Debunked who have read the paper fail to see a true lifesaving effect over the lifecycle.  First of all, only deaths between one's 19th birithday and 23rd birthday are included, and the data are rather grainy, making longer range projections very difficult for what would happen in the absence of the observed drinking age effect.  Yes, the effect persists to an extent, but one can clearly see it gradually decline over time.  It would have been better if they expanded the data to include ages 18 through 24 (are 18 year olds somehow irrelevant to the debate?).  And there could be other age-related factors that give an illusion of persistence, such as a "toning down" of drinking in the few months just before turning legal as well as the fact that 22-23 year olds are more likely to have cars and live away from their parents than 19-20 year olds.  Indeed, our own crude back-of-the-envelope calculations after reading the paper (and its graphs) in which we project while excluding ages 20.5-21.5 suggest exactly that--it is most likely just a temporary effect overall.

Of course, death rates are merely the tip of a very large iceberg.  Carpenter and Dobkin (2008) also conducted another similar study, this time concerning various types of crime, with similar results overall.  Arrest rates were used as the proxy measure of crime.  They found a discrete and significant jump in the arrest rates of several offenses, such as assault, drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and especially DUI, at exactly age 21.  However, there was no noticeable effect for other crimes.  Interestingly, even rape, which has a reputation for being alcohol-related, appeared to be unaffected.  (We suspect this is due to the fact that drinking is less likely to be done "underground" after 21, and thus in environments less conducive to rape, which may outweigh the increase in drinking.  Or perhaps the supposed causal link between alcohol and rape has been overstated.)  The authors draw the same conclusions that they did in the other study, which is unfortunate for precisely the same reasons.

While our own back-of-the-envelope projection estimates suggest that the increaes in assault and disorderly conduct arrests are merely temporary and seem to wear off by age 22, the effects on DUI and drunkenness arrests do still seem to persist to at least age 23.  However, the fact that 21-23 year olds can drink in bars may make drunk drivers more likely to get caught, and also the increase in both DUI and drunkenness may be an artifact of the fact that people over 21 can no longer be charged with underage drinking, as evident in the simultaneous sharp decrease in "liquor law" (i.e. underage drinking) arrests upon turning 21.  Thus, some behaviors that would lead to underage drinking arrests before 21 would likely lead to DUI and/or drunkenness arrests instead after turning 21.

In other words, these studies show that banning young people from drinking until age 21 (when they are more likely to have cars, and family controls are much weaker) may not be the best way to introduce them to alcohol.  In fact, it appears on balance to be one of the worst ways, and is akin to setting a time bomb.  There is zero evidence that people magically become mature enough to handle alcohol upon turning 21.  Indeed, the aforementioned studies suggest quite the opposite, at least in the short term.

We all know what the road to hell is paved with.  Let's defuse this ticking time bomb and lower the drinking age to 18, legalizing alcohol for all legal adults in America.  What better time than now?

Chasing the Dragon

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a functional definition of insanity.  So why does our government continue to pursue policies that fail?  It could be that some bad public policies, such as Prohibition, the War on (some) Drugs, and the 21 drinking age are simply addictive.  But how exactly can failure be addictive?

The answer lies in the fact that several of these policies began with at least perceived success.  Prohibition, for example, coincided with a large decrease in alcohol consumption in the first year or two.  The 21 drinking age coincided with reduced drunk driving fatalities in the 1980s.  And it occurred in both cases despite little to no enforcement.  Whether or not the relationship was causal is immaterial to the government's perception of success.  For Prohibition, alcohol consumption (and its attendant social problems) began rebounding after the first two years, and by 1929 consumption reached at least 70% of pre-Prohibition levels, possibly even 100% by some estimates.  Even during the Great Depression, it continued to rise, albeit at slower rate.  Enforcement increased dramatically, but it could not duplicate or prolong the initial, temporary "success" the government was now hooked on.  Most scholars agree that Prohibition did more harm than good, and most Americans agree as well.

For the 21 drinking age, there were numerous confounding factors that likely explain the fatality decline better, especially since it occurred in Canada as well, who did not raise the drinking age to 21.  But numerous studies still claim that raising the drinking age was causally linked, and the effects occurred largely at a time during which enforcement was weak.  Miron and Tetelbaum (2009), however, find that was not the case, at least not in the long run.  By separating out states that raised it voluntarily (before 1984) from those who were coerced by the feds in 1984-1988, a striking pattern was discovered.  After controlling for numerous confounders and secular trends, it was observed that states that raised the age voluntarily did see a small lifesaving effect, but it was only temporary, lasting no more than 1-2 years. Kind of like Prohibition, though this time the rebound was masked by confounders and secular trends.  The coerced states, however, saw no lifesaving effect, and in many states it merely threw gasoline on the fire.  A similar pattern was seen for high school drinking and "binge" drinking rates as well.  And in all states, increasing enforcement over time does not appear to have any noticeable correlation.  In other words, the idea that raising the drinking age somehow saved lives and continues to do so was nothing more than a mirage.  Of course, this should come as no surprise to those who study history, or know anything about young people, but I guess we can't expect the government to do so.

In addition, another addictive aspect of these policies is actually the oldest addiction of all:  POWER.  Policies like Prohibition and the drinking age inevitably give more power to any government that enacts them.  And once they experience it, they cannot seem to get enough.  This further reinforces the pursuit of unattainable success that characterizes the various prohibitions on consensual activities throughout history.  It is also no accident that the targets of enforcement tend to be the least powerful members of society.
 
It's time to stop chasing the dragon.  You are never going to catch it.

Will Australia Raise the Drinking Age?

NOTE: This blog is primarily about the United States and is thus written from an American perspective.


Just as more and more Americans want the drinking age to be lowered to 18 over here, there is a growing movement to raise the Australian drinking age (currently 18) to 19 or even 21. The movement, which appears to be spearheaded by Prof. Ian Hickey, cites hackneyed and specious claims about "dain bramage" and alcohol-related violence. Interestingly, drunk driving in Australia is barely even mentioned at all since it is less of a problem over there than here (they are much tougher on DUI than America is), and we can really learn a lot from them. Fortunately, the government is not interested in raising the drinking age, and thus it probably won't happen. Because if it did, it would merely throw gasoline on the fire.

If they want to see what a failure the 21 drinking age is, they should come to America. We tried raising the drinking age to 19 in the early 1980s. Didn't work, so we raised it to 21 in the mid 1980s. Still didn't work. Then we added all these ancillary laws such as dram shop, social host, use and lose, zero tolerance, internal possession. And we toughened up enforcement. Guess what? It still doesn't work.

If Australia is worried about kids under 18 getting wasted, they should enforce the current drinking age better. And the biggest problem group over there, like in America, is people in their twenties. Raising the drinking age targets the wrong group. It would be best for them to raise the alcohol taxes (and make them proportional to alcohol content), shorten pub sales hours (currently 24/7), increase alcohol education, and have zero tolerance for drunk violence. Being drunk is no excuse for misbehavior--millions of people get drunk without ever becoming violent. And forcing drinking underground (where it can't be monitored) is unlikely to reduce violence in any sense. Even if it somehow did for 18-20 year olds, which is unproven, it would merely shift the behavior to 21-24 year olds (which already have a problem).

As for brain damage, there is no conclusive evidence that drinking at 18 is significantly worse than doing so at 21, all else being equal. Maybe for those younger than 18, but that's already illegal. So let's not confuse the issue. Again, lack of enforcement (in Australia) is the problem. And many young people would likely benefit from education about alcohol, which needs to start young since drinking starts young over there (and here as well).

Yes, Virginia, Australia DOES have a drinking problem, and a legendary one at that.  But America does too.  In fact, all predominantly Anglo-Celtic cultures do to some extent.   That's not news.  With few exceptions, the more Anglo-Celtic they are, the worse the drinking culture.  Ditto for pub/street violence--they don't call it a Glasgow kiss for nothing.

How Anglo-Celtic is each country? (Figures are approximate)

US:  30%
Canada:  50%
Australia: 70%
New Zealand: 70%+
UK: 86%
Republic of Ireland: 95%

Due to changing demographics, America is less Anglo-Celtic now than in the past.  This perhaps explains the decline in drinking since 1980 more than anything else, and it is less true for Australia and other such cultures.

The drinking age is irrelevant.  Drunken violence (and other problems) flourishes in cultures that tolerates misbehavior when drunk, such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and of course the USA.  Alcohol must never be considered an excuse. 

Why Have Virtually All Prohibitions Failed?

This is a question that many people have asked, and essentially all serious scholars know the truth. Even those who admit alcohol prohibition failed, but claim the 21 drinking age (as well as the War on (some) Drugs) was a success, likely know precisely why, but are afraid to admit it. And it's more than just an inability to legislate morality or the fact that a given substance is too much a part of the social fabric. So, as Professor Charles Whitebread of USC Law School said:

Every single person who has ever written seriously about the national alcohol prohibition agrees on why it collapsed. Why? Because it violated that iron law of Prohibitions. What is the iron law of Prohibitions? Prohibitions are always enacted by US, to govern the conduct of THEM. Do you have me? Take the alcohol prohibition. Every single person who has ever written about it agrees on why it collapsed.

He further elaborates:

Large numbers of people supported the idea of prohibition who were not themselves, opposed to drinking. Want to see it? Let me give you an example, 1919. You are a Republican in upstate New York. Whether you drink, or you don't, you are for the alcohol prohibition because it will close the licensed saloons in the City of New York which you view to be the corrupt patronage and power base of the Democratic Party in New York. So almost every Republican in New York was in favor of national alcohol prohibition.
And, as soon as it passed, what do you think they said? "Well, what do you know? Success. Let's have a drink." That's what they thought, "let's have a drink." "Let's drink to this." A great success, you see.

There you have it. There is always an US and a THEM. Liberty for "just us," not all. And if you STILL don't get it by this point, he goes on to drive the point home even further:

I just want to go back to the [English] prohibition against the drinking of gin [in the 1800s]. How could a country prohibit just the drinking of gin, not the drinking of anything else for forty years? Answer: The rich people drank whiskey and the poor people drank [guess] what? -- gin. Do you see it?

He also points out that the rationale for drug prohibitions often follow the same pseudo-logic. Cannabis was banned partly due to anti-Mexican racism and competing business interests, opium banned due to racist fears of the Chinese immigrants, and cocaine was banned due to (largely fabricated) fears of superhuman, coked-up black men going on murdering sprees and raping white women. (Cocaine ironically became popular due to Southern liquor laws designed to keep whiskey out of the hands of lower-class blacks, thus driving them to a more dangerous substitute.) And the very first laws on the books against these other substances specifically targeted such groups. Even to this day, minorities are disproportionally targeted for Drug War enforcement, while the Clinton drug czar Lee Brown speciously claims that drug legalization would be "genocide" against blacks. You read that right. WE can handle it, while THEY cant.

Of course, Dr. Whitebread was not talking specifically about the 21 drinking age, but it too follows the same "iron law" as an age-based selective prohibition of sorts. In fact, it applies a fortiori in this case--the "us" group being adults over 21 and the "them" group being "minors" under 21, the latter being politically impotent at the time it was passed. Supporters of the 21 drinking age, who usually drink themselves, invariably say something to the effect of "well, WE can handle it, but THEY can't." And guess who takes that as a dare?

Nevermind that 18-20 year olds are judged capable of handling war, guns, cigarettes, questionable "dietary supplements," gambling, cars, trucks, motorcycles, chainsaws, dangerous jobs, sex, marriage, and even having kids. But not beer. This would clearly fail the Martian test (can you explain it to a Martian without sounding like an idiot?) for obvious reasons.

In the entire history of the world, there has never been a society in which adults drank but teens did not, nor has the reverse ever been true. While this is also true for other substances, it is especially true for those substances that have gained the widest acceptance in a society. And no substance in history has ever achieved this widespread status quite like ethanol. And that, my friends, is why the 21 drinking age is the greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition.

Mike Males observes that in the USA, youth have the least amount of freedom relative to adults. The key word here is relative. Look at other countries around the world and see if you can see a pattern. Ever notice how the less relative freedom teens have, the worse the excesses (of all kinds) are among adults in such cultures? The reason for that is very simple. Those adults feel they need not worry about being good role models, since teens will face harsh punishment for emulating their behavior. Do as I say, not as I do--farcical (and pharisaical) to say the least. Being "grown-up" apparently just means making better excuses for bad behavior rather than truly behaving better. And what passes for "education" is often little more than "just say no" and disingenuous scare tactics. Such cultural schizophrenia is clearly not the best way for teens to be socialized into the adult world. And the excess-loving adults they eventually become are living proof.

But why is America like that? How could these obvious farces still be with us? Dr. Males notes that it is more than just fear of young people in general, it is that today's youth are more racially diverse (i.e. less white) than the older generation, and this is more true in America than any other industrialized country. So the in-group-out-group thing is even more pronounced since there is more than one dimension to this fear/loathing of the Other. How did we get to be so primitive?