The Real Terrorists of the Road

What if we were to tell you that there was an epidemic of adults going around killing thousands of children and teenagers every year, and maiming hundreds of thousands more?  What if the innocent victims were statistically more likely to be victimized by such adults than to be victimized by people their own ages?  What if the killers were able to get off with relatively light punishments, and were still allowed to engage in the very behaviors that led to such tragedies? 

You probably think there would be an outrage, as there should be.  But America just predictably responds with a collective yawn and a shrug to the problem of drunk driving adults over 21 killing and maiming people under that age.  A new study shows that, with respect to alcohol-related crashes, children and teens are statistically more likely to be victimized by adults over 21 than vice versa, and more than from drunk drivers under 21.  Think about that next time you read about yet another "teenager killed in a drunk driving crash."

Remember, the drunk driver that killed MADD founder Candy Lightner's 13 year old daughter was 46.  A teenager was killed by an adult.  And what age group lost the most civil liberties as a result of MADD's activism?  18-20 year olds.  Honestly, does that really make any sense?

It's time we got much tougher on the real terrorists of the road.  Our children and teens--that is, our future--deserve nothing less.

New Zealand Revisited

(NOTE:  This blog is from a primarily American perspective)

It's official.  New Zealand has a drinking problem.  While America does too, if you scrape the bottom of the barrel you will actually find quite a few countries that are worse than the good old USA in terms of dangerous and excessive drinking, and NZ appears to be one of them.  And it appears to be getting worse over there as time goes on.

New Zealand has always had such a problem to some extent.  Google "six-o-clock swill" and you'll quickly see that it goes back at least a century.  But the recent increase can be traced back to 1989, when the Sale of Liquor Act dramatically liberalized the booze laws.  Trading hours for booze became 24/6 (still no Sunday sales), up from the previous 10 pm closing times, and the looser licensing laws caused number of outlets to more than double from 1989 to 2009.  Booze prices also shrank relative to average incomes, and "loss leading" became a common practice.  In 1999, on the same day the drinking age was lowered from 20 to 18, they began allowing beer to be sold in supermarkets, accelerating the rise in outlet density, and with the simultaneous addition of Sunday sales, it was now 24/7.  All this in a country that is generally soft on crime and tolerant of extreme drinking and drunken violence.

The Law Commission has apparently come up with a few recommendations to tackle the problem.   In their report, they include the following, among others:

• Have a "one-way door" (no entry) policy for pubs and nightclubs after 2am
• Require all pubs to close by 4am
• No off-premise sales after 10pm
• Restrict "irresponsible" promotions that encourage excessive drinking
• Raise the alcohol excise tax by 50%
• Raise the drinking age from 18 to 20

While we at Twenty-One Debunked would not have a problem with the first five changes being implemented, we clearly take exception to the last one, raising the drinking age.  We do not think it will do any good, and may possibly throw gasoline on the fire.  Clearly, NZ doesn't have a teen drinking problem, they have a Kiwi drinking problem, one that spans all ages.  Plenty of 20-29 year olds can't handle their liquor, should the drinking age be 30 then?  Funny all the vitriol about raising the tax, often the same people over 20 who want the drinking age raised.  If the proposed 50% tax hike (really a mere 10% price hike) bothers you, you're clearly drinking way too much.  Perhaps you should cut down.  Chivas Regal said it best.

Besides, raising the age limit would be a major victory for the pro-21 crowd in this country as well if the drinking age was raised, reducing the chances that our drinking age will be lowered any time in the near future.  It would only reinforce the specious claim that lowering the drinking age in America would be a disaster, since it would seem that NZ tried it and couldn't handle it.  Nevermind that NZ is a very different culture from the USA, and that other factors were at work--neoprohibitionists apparently can't be bothered with pesky facts.

Instead, we propose the following for NZ in addition to the Law Commissions recommendations (aside from the drinking age), and these will likely work in other countries with a serious drinking problem:

• Set a price floor for alcohol, especially at off-licenses, and ban the practice of "loss leading" (selling below cost).
• Restrict or ban alcohol advertising, especially on TV and radio.
• Increase the penalties for drunk driving, and step up enforcement.
• Lower the general blood alcohol limit for driving to 0.05, and the under-20 limit to 0.02 or less (the limits are currently 0.08 and 0.03, respectively).
• Hold parents accountable for what their under-18 kids do, especially if the parents supplied them with alcohol beforehand. 
• Put more cops on the street, and get tough on real crime, especially drunk violence.
• Ban drinking in the street by all ages, or allow very limited designated areas to do so.
• Restrict the number and density of alcohol outlets, especially in cities.
• Increase alcohol education and public awareness campaigns.
• Exempt microbreweries from any new tax hikes (they are generally not part of the problem, and they would have the hardest time absorbing such price increases). Otherwise, tax the hell out of alcohol, especially RTDs (alcopops).
• Do NOT raise the drinking age! Just enforce it better, especially for off-premise sales, and close the existing loopholes on furnishing alcohol to minors under 18 (which the Law Commission also recommends).

Note that some of these things are a bit stricter than that which we would propose for America.  However, NZ has a worse drinking problem than we do, and appear to be one of the worst in the world.  Only Russia and a few other former Soviet-bloc countries appear to be worse, and not by all that much. 

Interestingly, the New Zealand Medical Association agreed in 2006 that the drinking age should remain 18, since there was no clinical evidence that alcohol was more harmful to an 18 year old than a 20 year old. But they did say that the current drinking age needs to be enforced better, and also called for tighter advertising restrictions on alcohol.  Unfortunately, they appear to have flip-flopped on the drinking age issue this time around.

What exactly were the effects of lowering the drinking age from 20 to 18 in December 1999?  It turns out that those who claim it was a disaster haven't the foggiest idea of cause and effect.  Carnage on the highways?  Unlikely to be causal.  According to the International Traffic Safety Data and Analysis Group, the reporting of nonfatal injury crashes by police had improved since 2001. Teen traffic fatalities fluctuated a great deal due to their small numbers, but the rates generally remained below their 1999 values from 2000-2008.  Increase in youth crime and violence?  That had been rising since 1992, seven years before the drinking age was lowered, and actually declined around 1998-2002 before resuming its upward trend.  Again, unlikely causation.


(Take a look at our May 2009 blog post about New Zealand for more information about the issue of their drinking age)

In other news, NZ's driving age (currently 15) was raised to 16 effective in mid-2011, and it will also be a bit tougher to get a license.  To that, we say good--if any age limit should be raised over there, the driving age is it.  Kiwis tend to have higher fatality rates compared to Aussies or us Yanks, and their driving age is ridiculously low compared to most other countries.  They are already debating whether to raise it further to 17.  But while they're at it, why not get tougher on drunk driving and reckless driving for all ages?

New Scare About Young Adult Drinking

This one is so easy to knock down it is almost a straw man, but we will do what we always do when junk science is encountered.  That's what we're here for, after all.

A new study reports that there is a correlation between benign breast disease and frequent drinking in young women aged 15-22.  One headline, "Underage Drinking Tied to Breast Disease Risk," is misleading because it includes women up to two years over the legal drinking age of 21, and not all drinkers were equal.  The risk was only statistically significant for those who drank three or more times per week, with the highest risk for daily drinkers.  Even so, the confidence intervals were very wide, suggesting possible residual or unmeasured confounding.  And the effect was not explained by age of onset of regular drinking.  That's right--no correlation with age of onset, and therefore nothing magic about the drinking age of 21.

Once again, it appears moderation is the key, regardless of age.  That should be the take-home message for this study, not "don't drink a drop until 21, then do what you will," which is apparently what one of the authors implied when discussing the results.  But moderation appears to be a forgotten virtue in the land of extremes that is America, no doubt spurred on by the 21 drinking age.

We at 21 Debunked provide this for informational purposes only and do not in any way advocate drinking of any kind, underage or otherwise.

High Gas Prices Save Lives

It's now official.  Traffic fatalities in 2009 were at their lowest since 1954, and in 2008 were at their lowest since 1961.  This was despite the fact that now the population is much larger, there are much more cars on the road, and much more vehicle miles traveled than back then.  Similar trends have been noted in preliminary data from Canada as well.  While many factors likely contributed to this lifesaving trend, perhaps the most salient one of all was gas prices, which had been rising steadily since 2004 and spiked dramatically in 2008.

Gas prices are now known to have a significant effect, and are thus now emerging as one of the most cost-effective ways to save lives on the road.  Carefully controlled studies have found this to be true, and the fatality rates of 2008 and 2009 confirm this.  While 2009 had lower gas prices than 2008, the driving habits learned in 2008 had yet to be unlearned, and this was likely prolonged by the recession.  Similar effects of gas prices (and recessions) occurred in 1974-1975, 1980-1983, and 1990-1993.  Contrary to popular opinion, the price elasticity of gasoline is not zero, or even close to zero, and it seems to rise dramatically when prices go above $3.00/gallon.  Longer-term elasticites are about twice as strong, suggesting the effect builds over time.

The effects on fatalities are not limited to reduced vehicle miles traveled; while that drops too, even controlling for this we can see a decrease in deaths.  "Discretionary" driving declines the most when gas prices rise, and most fatalities occur from this type of driving, including the majority of alcohol-related fatalities.  Speeding and aggressive driving also decline in an effort to save fuel and money.  Thus, the price elasticity for gasoline demand actually understates the effect on fatalities.

By that logic, it seems that one of the best ways we can reduce traffic fatalities (both alcohol and non-alcohol) would be to raise the gas tax.  Of course, that would make a lot of people mad.  But if it saves even one life, it's worth it, right?  Isn't that what groups like MADD have said about things like the 21 drinking age?  Judging by the lack of enthusiasm about raising the gas tax, it appears that the pro-21 crowd doesn't practice what they preach.  Or maybe it's all about liberty for "just us," not all.

If we know higher gas prices save lives, not to mention the planet, what are we waiting for?

The Lincoln (Nebraska) Miracle that Wasn't

You have probably heard about the supposed miracle that has happened in Lincoln, Nebraska.   At the University of Nebraska--Lincoln, a combination of tough laws, heavy-handed enforcement, and strong public support (from community members over 21) has led to a decrease in "binge" drinking and associated consequences since 1997.  Or at least that's what they're telling us.

UNL is a dry campus, and has been such for a while, but the surrounding town has been anything but dry.  But then the crackdowns happened, apparently with a special focus on underage drinking.  Police, college officals, and landlords all teamed up to reduce underage drinking and out of control parties, and the consequences meted out for either are severe (at least compared to other college towns).   Lives and careers have been ruined to one degree or another as a result.  In fact, it's become a virtual witch-hunt that would likely make McCarthy himself blush.

The crackdowns are actually part of a larger anti-alcohol program known as A Matter of Degree, funded by grants from the neo-temperance Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and directed by Dr. Richard Yoast.  Ten colleges around the country, including UNL, participated in the AMOD program since 1997 and it is still ongoing.

So was it worth it?  Well, if you dig a little deeper you will find that according to its own police department, the city of Lincoln had a record high number of DUI arrests in 2009.  In fact, 2008 and 2009 were the two worst years, even surpassing the old record from 1992.  Of course, analyzing arrest rates poses a chicken-or-egg problem; it could simply be tougher enforcement, not more drunk driving.  However, student surveys show that the percentage of students who report driving after drinking actually doubled from 2003 to 2006.  We speculate that many of the parties have simply shifted outside of the city limits, so party-goers drive there, get drunk, and drive back.  If that's success, we'd hate to see what failure looks like.

And the decrease in "binge" drinking according to surveys was from 62% of students in 1997 to 45%, meaning that they went from well above average to merely average.  No better than average in fact, and average is still quite high.  Remember too that correlation does not equal causation.  Part of it could be that prospective students who are most likely to be party animals simply choose other colleges instead after hearing about what a police state Lincoln has become.  And high school student drinking in Lincoln is still a persistent problem, one that most likely will remain as long as the police continue disproportionally targeting 18-20 year olds.  (Of course, Lincoln is clearly not the only place in the country where this is an issue)

As for the crackdowns purportedly reducing crime, LPD crime statistics for the city as a whole appear to debunk that claim as well, at least for the most serious crimes like homicide, rape, and aggravated assault.

Thus, it appears that it was a rather hollow victory overall.  While there are some good aspects to their overall strategy of reducing high-risk drinking, it would probably be best if Nebraska decided to lower the drinking age to 18 (it actually used to be 19 until the 1980s) and targeted the actual troublemakers rather than those who are simply drinking and/or at the wrong place at the wrong time.  But the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation would never even consider that, given their apparent bias against alcohol.

In fact, the rather expensive AMOD program itself is highly questionable at best.  A 2004 study found that in the first five years of implementation, little to no change in high-risk drinking (or its consequences) was seen in the aggregate.  Five out of the 10 schools that participated (including UNL) did see some improvement, but it was hard to tease out what actually caused what due to all the variables involved.  The RWJF, of course, put a positive spin on the results, as does the neo-temperance crowd overall.  But the rest of us can clearly see that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

So let's make a toast to Richard Yoast.

The Emperor Is Naked

We should have written about this last year, but we recently learned that MADD has severed all ties with the Century Council, and all of the reasons why.  For those who don't know, the Century Council (TCC) is an organization dedicated to fighting drunk driving and underage drinking, that is funded entirely by America's leading distillers.  Cynics, however, would say that the organization is just a political ploy to deflect blame from the alcohol industry.  MADD's Dear John letter to them noted that the primary reason for the split was the Century Council's initial opposition to mandatory ignition interlocks for first offenders, a group MADD rightly referred to as "ticking time bombs" since they have already driven drunk 88 times on average before being caught.  For that particular issue, we at Twenty-One Debunked tend to agree with MADD.  Ignition interlocks are the mimimum that should be imposed on drunk drivers, and in fact we think the laws against DUI should be much tougher.  Usually only extremely die-hard libertines or those with vested interests would be opposed to that, and TCC has since officially switched to neutrality on the ignition interlock issue.

However, another less-publicized reason noted in the letter was that TCC allegedly condoned drinking before the age of 21, despite the organization's generally unequivocal stance supporting the 21 drinking age.  This was based solely on a quote by TCC's president, taken way out of context, concerning an ad campaign designed by college students through the American Advertising Federation's student competition to reduce excessive drinking.  The actual quote was, "[t]he behavior is taking place, the best thing we can do is reduce the harm." Despite the TCC reaffirming its support for the 21 drinking age, MADD still was not satisfied since their refusal to retract that specific quote (though clearly true) could somehow be perceived as "undermining" the drinking age or "condoning" underage drinking.   Now that's just lunacy--even the slightest hint that one can see cracks in the facade of prohibition is somehow bad?

Just go to any college campus (except perhaps Brigham Young or Bob Jones) and you will see that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.  The 21 drinking age simply doesn't work--the majority of 18-20 year olds still drink.  And while fewer of them now drink regularly than they did back in the 1970s, which may or may not have anything to do with the drinking age, the more they do when they do.  And the problem of truly dangerous drinking, though always there, is arguably worse in colleges today.  Forcing alcohol underground only makes it that much more dangerous (and appealing), a lesson we should have learned in the 1920s but somehow conveniently forgot when it comes to today's young people.  We need better solutions, the kind that can only work with a lower drinking age.  What better time than now?

The Fake Controversy

The Canadian women's ice hockey team is supposedly in hot water after some of its members were drinking beer on the ice to celebrate winning against the American team in the Vancouver Olympics.  At least one of them was 18, and the drinking age in British Columbia is 19 (but 18 in Alberta where they trained, as well as in the player's native Quebec).  They weren't out of control, and the festivities occurred after the fans had left. 

The American media has been making a big deal out of this.  Why?  Because in the good old US of A, the drinking age is 21, and many older adults are both terrified and titillated simultaneously at the idea of those under 21 drinking.  Especially when it is done by young women.  Thus it makes a good story over here.  But the rest of the world (including Canada) just laughs at our puritanical immaturity and cultural schizophrenia regarding alcohol and young people.

In Canada, they recognize 18-20 year olds as full adults, and treat them as such.  The drinking age is 18 or 19, depending on the province, and they do not appear to be any worse off for it than us.  Drinking at that age is viewed as normative behavior, and they recognize that alcohol abuse (rather than mere use) is the real problem.  Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from our neighbor to the north.

Vermont Debates the Drinking Age

The Vermont legislature is currently debating whether or not to lower the drinking age to 18.  And we hope they choose to do so.  Someone's gotta go first, and Vermont's independent streak will make them a good choice.

For those who don't know, Vermont was the first state (except the 10 states that were 18 since the 1930s) to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 in 1971, along with the voting age and age of majority.  This remained the case until 1986, when it was raised back to 21 due to federal coercion.  Actually, Governor Richard Snelling flat-out refused to raise the drinking age in spite of the highway funding penalty, vetoing several bills, and thought that it would be better to actually get tougher on drunk driving and improve alcohol education.  It was not until they got a new governor that the state finally sold out and it was raised. 

Interestingly, Vermont in 2008 actually had zero under-21 drunk driving fatalities, down from 14 in 1982.  Of course, that's easy for a state with a population of only 621,760.  And the decline began at least four years before the drinking age was raised.   This is in spite of their proximity to Quebec (where the drinking age is 18), the state's rural nature, and its above-average "binge" drinking rate.  Since the pretext for raising the drinking age in the 1980s was reducing drunk driving, many of the state's 18-20 year olds are probably now wondering, "Can we have our civil liberties back now?"

Most states either hate guns or hate gays.  Vermont, however, uniquely tolerates them both.  And if they lower the drinking age to 18, they will truly be the most free state in the country.  Even freer than their neighbor New Hampshire, the one with the motto "Live Free or Die," which also happens to be the motto of the True Spirit of America Party.

Social Host Laws Revisited

We at Twenty-One Debunked have repeatedly stated that there was no hard evidence that "social host" laws (laws that impose civil and/or criminal liability on those who merely allow (not give) those under 21 to drink on property they control, especially if injuries or fatalities subsequently occur) save any lives or reduce underage drinking.  In fact, a 2008 study by Fell et al. (a true believer in the 21 drinking age no less) found no effect of such laws, at least not for criminal ones.  That is not surprising since even district attorneys find these laws difficult to enforce, including the notorious law in Massachusetts. 

But a new study by Dills (2009) appears to have found a lifesaving effect for social host laws among 18-20 year olds, at least according to the author.  And it supposedly remained even after several other variables (drinking age, 0.08 BAC limit, seat belt law, zero tolerance, beer tax, etc.) and fixed effects were controlled for.

However, this claim does not appear to stand up to closer scrutiny.  After reading the paper ourselves, we find the following issues with the study:

• The fatalities were divided into three categories:  drinking, drunk driver, and sober.  The fact that data from the 1977-2005 were used would likely introduce biases relating to BAC testing rates.  Testing rates were much lower in the 1970s and early 1980s, and determination was often subjective.
• Restricting the data to 1982-2005 (the only years for which that FARS has alcohol-related data, and likely less biased) reduced the size and significance of the effects of both social host laws and the drinking age.  The former was only significant at the 10% level, while the latter was not even statistically significant at all. 
• None of the models showed a "dose-response" relationship when the effects of various drinking ages (18, 19, 20, and 21) were tested.  In fact, some even had the "wrong" sign.
• Many of the covariates such as BAC limit, beer tax, zero tolerance, and seat belt laws were statistically insignificant, suggesting something wrong with the models.
• Dram-shop laws were not controlled for, and since many social host states have these as well, this may be a potent confounding factor.  Some past studies have found effects of dram-shop laws, while others have not.
• Other variables that were not controlled for include sobriety checkpoints, roving patrols, 0.10 BAC laws, harsher DUI penalties, administrative license revocation, police per capita, and several others.
• There was no distinction between statutes and case law, which suggests a potential endogeneity problem.
• There was no over-21 comparison group.
• In general, states that adopted social host laws already had declining fatalities before adoption.
• Using survey data among 18-20 year olds, effects of social host laws were not significant (even at the 10% level) for drinking, "binge" drinking, and drunk driving in the past 30 days when other variables and state trends were controlled for.  For the frequency of drunk driving per respondent, it was only significant at the 10% level despite a very large sample size of over 52,000 people.
• Effects on those under 18 were not tested in any sense.

For those who don't know, statistical significance refers to the likelihood that a result did not occur by chance.  However, it only controls random errors, not systematic ones (such as bias or confounders).  Traditionally, a 5% level is chosen, meaning that if the p-value (the probability of getting another result at least as extreme) is below 0.05, it is considered statistically significant.  Results with a p-value above 0.05, such as many of the results in the Dills study, are traditionally rejected.

In other words, the evidence from the study in support of social host laws is rather weak, and is likely to be a spurious correlation.  In fact, the reported 9% decrease in drunk driving fatalities is both too small to be conclusive evidence of causality (especially when statistical significance is examined), and too large to be plausible given that the majority of people are likely unaware of the existence of these laws, especially civil ones (which are usually only sporadically enforced).  Most likely, social host laws are acting as a proxy for something else, such as tougher DUI laws and/or enforcement.

To our knowledge, there has been only one other study of social host laws to date. A 2000 study by Stout et al. did manage to find a significant negative correlation between all-ages civil social host laws and both self-reported "binge" drinking as well as self-reported drinking and driving among adults over 21 in national survey data from 1984-1995.  While numerous variables were controlled for, the following were not:  state fixed effects, state trends, blood alcohol limit, sobriety checkpoints, overall DUI enforcement, and drinking age.  Again, it could have been a proxy for something else.  And traffic fatalities or any other consequences of drinking were not examined in the study, so questions relating to those are left unanswered by that study.  Generalizability is also limited, and it says nothing about the persistence of the reported effects or whether they are applicable to anyone under 21, especially in today's world.  Those who use the study to justify social host laws as worthwhile should bear in mind that the same study found that mandatory fines and especially mandatory jail for a first DUI offense to be more effective in reducing self-reported drinking and driving than social host laws.

What about the "collateral damage" that occurs from social host laws?  For one, a host (however broadly defined) can be fined, sued, or even jailed--in some cases for several years.  And civil liberties often need to be violated to enforce such draconian prohibitions.  But what about the "children," you know, the ones these laws were ostensibly written to "protect"?  In the five years since San Diego passed their own local social host ordinance in 2003 (California itself has none), there have been more police responses to parties, and more alcohol-related teen hospital admissions.  In other words, there was likely just as much drinking if not more so, but the bigger teen drinking parties of the past seem to have broken up into many more smaller (and more dangerous) ones with presumably more booze to go around.  And only the bold and reckless (and/or ignorant) are hosting them now that it is a crime.  Looks like the Law of Eristic Escalation in action yet again.

We at Twenty-One Debunked do not support any type of social host law, civil or criminal, as they contravene the very idea of personal responsibility and likely do more harm than good by forcing alcohol deeper underground, making it more dangerous than it has to be.  At the very least, we do not think that such laws should apply to drinking by those over the age of majority (18), regardless of the current legal drinking age.  Of course, we want that to be 18 as well.  And we have repeatedly noted that social host laws are just another pathetic attempt to prop up the greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition.  We would be better off going after those who actually do drive drunk and endanger the public, regardless of age.

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.