Alternate History Of The Legal Drinking Age (Part Deux)

In a previous post, we explored what an alternate timeline would have looked like if the drinking age was NOT raised to 21 in the 1980s.  The most critical point in preventing that from happening in that timeline was Michigan (the first domino) NOT raising it to 21 in 1978.  And the result?  The Overton window did NOT shift in favor of 21, and with most states choosing to keep it at 18 or 19 depending on the state, the feds did NOT force or coerced and states to raise their drinking ages.  If anything, the feds used positive reinforcement to get the Dirty Dozen states that were 21 since the 1930s and 1940s to lower their drinking ages, and by the end of the 1980s, all states except Utah were either 18 or 19 depending on the state.  Some states had a split 18/19 age limit for different beverage types (i.e. beer vs wine vs liquor), while some others had a split 18/19 age limit for on-premise vs. off-premise purchases, or more often, limits on quantities and/or hours of sale for off-premise purchases if under 19, but otherwise set at 18.  The most common was states who set it at 18 across the board, but allowed "local option" to set it 19 for off-premise purchases and/or quantity limits, though some of the 18 states chose to preempt even that on principle.  (The higher age limit in states with graduated age limits was often called the "No Trickle-Down Law" or the "No Gray Market Law".)

A few states chose to keep it (or raise it to) 20 or 21 for very large quantities (kegs or multiple cases or multiple handles bought in the same transaction or same day), but those states were in the minority.

Even Utah, the strictest state of all for obvious reasons, held their collective noses and grudgingly lowered their drinking age to 19 for weak beer and 21 for everything else by 1990, and then briefly 19/20, then finally a flat 19 across the board (except kegs) sometime during the 1990s.  Though they still retained their other bizarre and Byzantine liquor laws all the same in both timelines, of course.

So what would the 2020s look like in greater detail in this alternate timeline of events?

• Tobacco and nicotine age limits would remain at 18 in all but a very few states which are 19.  But many states choose to put a reasonable cap on the quantities that 18-20 year olds can purchase (per transaction, and only one transaction per day), to discourage them from giving or selling to their friends under 18.
• Cannabis is legalized in mostly the same states in both timelines (though a somewhat greater number of states do so in the alternate timeline), but all who do so choose 18 or 19 as their age limits, nearly always matching their drinking and smoking ages.  And like tobacco, most states choose to limit the quantities that 18-20 year olds can purchase per transaction and per day, and for the same reasons.
• And the federal government FINALLY gets around to legalizing it as well by 2024 if not sooner, with a federal age limit of 18 for cannabis sales (but no limit for use or possession) to match the tobacco sales age limit that still remains in effect.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Cannabis, Firearms, and Explosives and the FDA both have joint (pun intended) authority to enforce it on vendors.
• Alcohol taxes (and prices) in the USA are somewhat higher as a rule in the alternate timeline, though still not nearly as high as in Canada.  Thus, in nearly all states, the typical six-pack of beer costs about a dollar or two more in 2025 dollars.  Likewise, the typical gallon of wine and the average liter of hard liquor also costs an extra dollar or two more in the alternate timeline.  Some states also experiment with "minimum unit pricing" (MUP) as well, but most states still only prohibit selling "below cost."
• In 2019, instead of raising the tobacco sales age to 21, which there is virtually zero appetite for, the feds instead decided to implement the Mark Kleiman's idea to raise the federal cigarette and other combustible tobacco taxes to $5/pack or the equivalent amount of tobacco, BUT allowing states and localities to fully rebate it against their own tobacco-specific taxes.  Result?  Low-tax states states raise and largely equalize their taxes with high-tax ones, smoking rates plummet for all ages (especially among youth), and the interstate smuggling black market dries up.  Win-win-win for everyone except Big Tobacco and their sycophantic lackeys.
• Vaping products have their nicotine levels capped by the FDA at the same levels as the EU, UK, and Israel, most flavors are banned, and ingredients are better regulated as of 2019.  The "vaping epidemic" slows to a crawl.
• The drinking age of 18 (or 19, or split) is very strictly enforced on vendors and servers.  For young drinkers themselves, underage drinking is illegal but decriminalized in nearly every state by now.  It is typically treated like a minor traffic violation or parking ticket.
• While a few bars and clubs here and there set their own age limits of 21 or higher to enter, such examples remain few and far between, and are looked upon with disdain by most Americans. And for places like Dave and Busters, or really any other businesses for that matter, it would literally never even occur to the managers to set any age limits higher than 18, if even that high at all.  Such baseless age segregation remains well outside the Overton window in the alternate timeline.
• Without that specious quick fix in their toolkit, they instead implement a zero tolerance policy for fighting, vandalism, theft, and disorderly conduct of any kind, strictly enforced.  And they are NOT KIDDING!
• It remains rare for any hotels or motels to refuse anyone over 18 due to age.  Ditto for most cruise ships as well.
• Drunk driving is taken very, very seriously for people of all ages, and increasingly tough laws are increasingly strictly enforced.  The same goes for drug-impaired driving as well.
• Most states by now set the BAC limit at 0.05%, but anything below 0.08% is usually a traffic violation instead of a criminal offense.  (New York only has to add two words, per se, to their existing but currently underappreciated 0.05% law, by the way.).  And Zero Tolerance laws exist as well, albeit usually based on how long one has had their driver's license rather than age alone.  And for ALL drivers, the limit is now 0.00% if one is driving recklessly.
• Social host liability laws, while existing in some places in limited form, never really seem to catch on in most of the USA.  Most people think such laws are insane and un-American in the alternate timeline.
• The combination of the lack of a 21 drinking age and lack of social host laws results in somewhat more in-person socialization between young people, and between generations, in the alternate timeline compared to the current timeline.
• Block parties make a comeback, or more accurately, never really went away.
• America is still very much a car culture either way, but "safe rider" programs are far more common in the alternate timeline.  And slowly but surely, at least some improvements are finally being made in public transportation.
• America's drinking culture still leaves a lot to be desired, much like in the rest of the Anglosphere, but over time it becomes at least somewhat healthier and less extreme overall.
• Certainly the college drinking culture is much safer and healthier in the alternate timeline, even though it is often just as wild.  The wildness peaks during and shortly after "frosh week" at the beginning of freshman year, getting it largely out of their systems early on, after which students tend to buckle down and study a bit more and keep the partying in it's proper place in their list of priorities, certainly by the time midterms roll around. Especially since all of the major universities have finally decided to tackle the grade inflation that had been building for decades.
• Many colleges and universities even have bars and pubs on campus, sometimes even in the dorms.
• Fraternities and sororities, while they still exist, largely wither on the vine as they have become increasingly obsolete, except for the more academic and service-oriented ones.
• High school, contrary to what some may fear, is NOT radically different between the two timelines, and in many ways improved.  Drinking and "binge" drinking rates are both at most a couple of percentage points higher (if at all) in the alternate timeline for grade 12, mostly due to greater honesty in surveys (which are always taken with at least a grain of salt in the alternate timeline).  They may drink slightly more frequently, but the less they do when they do on average.  For earlier grades, the difference is practically negligible.  And differences in cannabis use rates are also practically negligible in all grades, while tobacco and nicotine use rates are actually lower in the alternate timeline.
• And no, there is NO practical difference in "liquid lunches" among high school students between the two timelines.  By now, the drinking age (regardless of what it is) is VERY strictly enforced in that regard, and K-12 school grounds are strictly "dry" for all ages.  (This is still the USA, not Denmark, after all!)
• Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic still happens, and so do the lockdowns and related restrictions.  But such restrictions generally tend to be somewhat briefer and somewhat less extreme in the alternate timeline, as America has still not been quite as affected by "safetyism" as in the current timeline.  Not much change either way in the case and death rates regardless, though.  Turns out, as the saying goes, virus gonna virus, and humans gonna human.  
• And in the alternate timeline, since the 1980s we as a society have clearly fallen out of love with the "illusion of control", to the extent that we ever even really loved it at all.  That has got to be the single most defining feature that differs between the two timelines.
• Traffic death rates, both alcohol-related and otherwise, are actually rather lower in the alternate timeline compared to the current one, both among youth and adults alike.  And the relative decrease in feelings of alienation and loneliness among younger people leads to at least somewhat fewer suicides and mass shootings as well.
• While Donald Trump still most likely gets elected President in 2016*, in 2024 he ends up narrowly losing to Kamala Harris instead of narrowly winning, both by popular vote as well as the Electoral College.  That is because America's loneliness epidemic and feelings of alienation among younger Americans, especially young men, while still persistent, is at least marginally less pronounced in the alternate timeline, and the fence-sitters were less likely to be swayed towards Trump.  (And Trump's second failed coup attempt in January 2025 fails even more than it did on January 6th, 2021, as he is largely greeted by crickets this time around, and he ultimately ends up in prison where he belongs.)  It turns out the age-segregation effects of the 21 drinking age (and its ancillary laws and policies) in the current timeline were much more far-reaching than anyone could have predicted.  
• And the rest is history.  And the beat goes on.....

And America shall once again become the "shining city on a hill" that we were meant to be all along.  An America to be truly proud of.  If only we were in that alternate timeline.

*P.S.  Ideally the DNC would NOT have totally screwed over Bernie Sanders, and he could have beaten Trump in 2016.  That, and the Democratic Party establishment would not have eaten its young either.  After all, Trump was literally supposed to lose, by design.  But that, of course, would have probably been yet another alternate timeline, albeit one that is largely the same as the one discussed above, but perhaps with a few more subtle differences added on.  

P.P.S.  Of course, had Jimmy Carter been re-elected in 1980 instead of Reagan, America would now REALLY be more like Canada in so many ways, only better, having dodged the very worst of neoliberalism and all of that nonsense.  And Carter could have pulled it off had he not screwed up in the presidential debate less than two weeks before the election, as he was well ahead in the polls just before the debate.  But it was far more parsimonious to simply leave the 1980 election unchanged in the above alternate timeline, with Reagan as the winner, so as to isolate the drinking age as the variable of interest, unconfounded by that very pivotal and fateful election.  Regardless, had Michigan failed to raise the drinking age to 21 in 1978, either way, it would have been extremely unlikely that either Reagan or Carter would have ever been swayed (let alone gung-ho) in that direction.

About That Finland Study (Part Deux)

(This is a continuation of a previous article from 2023.)

Another recent Finland study this year found that the higher alcohol tax rates and alcohol advertising restrictions implemented in the mid-1970s in that country had a much larger long-term beneficial effect on the cohorts who were under 18 at the time compared to those who where already over 18 by then.  The study authors of course give more credit to the advertising restrictions than the tax hikes, but historically speaking, most research would argue the reverse, namely that the tax/price hikes would have had a larger effect than the advertising restrictions.

The key takeaway:  if alcohol taxes/prices are high enough, then the legal drinking age essentially becomes irrelevant.

Tobacco 21 Laws STILL Don't Work

More evidence that Tobacco 21 laws aren't working:  while survey results seem to show that smoking rates have fallen among young adults some Tobacco 21 laws were passed, biomarkers say otherwise, according to a recent study.  Turns out, while more young people are hiding the fact that they smoke because it's now illegal, they are still smoking.  Gee, who woulda think it?  In other news, water is wet, and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Safety Third

We live in a culture where "Safety First" is increasingly taken for granted, and has been since roughly the mid-1980s following a series of moral panics and zealotry in general.  While it is generally a good thing that safety has largely improved since then (prior to that, Americans were really quite cavalier overall, and it really showed in the statistics across multiple domains), there can also be too much of a good thing as well.  

Most people at least intuitively know this on some level, and that's why even the most die-hard safety zealots seldom (if ever) practice what they preach in all areas of life all of the time, at least not for very long.  Even they still conveniently carve out selective and arbitrary exceptions for themselves and their own chosen "guilty" pleasures and activities.  

From the abomination that is the 21 drinking age to the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs to increasingly stringent rules and heavy monitoring of youth to lack of free play among children to prison-like schools to actual mass incarceration to the sexual counterrevolution dressed up as "culture wars" to the ever-encroaching nanny state to finally the ultimate culmination of safety zealotry, the pandemic lockdowns and related restrictions, we have clearly been sold a bill of goods in that regard.  And yet paradoxically, actual health safety statistics from life expectancy to violent deaths to traffic casualties have in the USA actually lagged behind peer nations, often well behind.  Thus, it's long past time to take a fresh approach.

We call that approach "Safety Third".  And it's really not an entirely novel idea, having been promoted in some form by diverse folks from "Dirty Jobs" pundit Mike Rowe (largely right-wing) all the way to contemporary philosopher Charles Eisenstein (largely left-wing).  That does NOT at all mean that safety is trivial or should be disregarded as such, far from it.  We do value safety as important, of course, but not THE most important thing, let alone the ultimate end-all-be-all of human flourishing.  

So if safety is third on the list of priorities, what are first and second then?  For example, Charles Eisenstein says "giving and receiving", not necessarily in that order.  That makes sense, if a bit vague perhaps, but we at the TSAP and Twenty-One Debunked would alternatively answer, "liberty and justice for all", not necessarily in that order.  Anything short of that is un-American.

Even the biggest safety zealots have to concede that.  For example, we could theoretically save even more lives by making the speed limit 21 and the drinking age 55 rather than the other way around, but we don't and never will.  Because deep down, we all know on some level that there are other important considerations as well in any free society worthy of the name.

It was indeed one of our Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, who said, "Whoever gives up essential liberty for a little temporary safety, deserves neither and loses both."  After all, safety is a great servant, but a terrible master.  We would be wise to recognize that, in all areas of life.

At The End Of The Day, We're Not Japan

There are a lot of wonderful things about Japan.  The culture, the food, the technology, the games, the general lack of street crime and violence, and so on are all great.  But at the same time, there are some things about Japan that would absolutely NEVER fly in America, and for very good reason.

Take their extremely strict (even by global standards, not just by American standards!) approach to DUI, for example:

• The BAC limit for driving is a mere 0.03%, where as little as ONE standard drink will almost certainly put you over the limit for at least an hour or two (effectively zero tolerance).  For ALL ages, period.
• Penalties can range from up to three years in prison, a $5000 fine, and losing one's license for at least three months (which wouldn't matter if one is locked up for three years).  And you will almost certainly lose your job as well.  Again, for as little as ONE drink before driving.  OUCH!
• And if you have the audacity to exceed 0.04% when driving, which translates to one or at most two standard drinks in a couple hours or so (depending on body weight, gender, time, pace of drinking, food, etc.), it gets even worse still:  five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, and cancellation of one's license altogether.  DOUBLE OUCH!
• Above that second threshold, though, there are no further graduated penalties at the margin:  driving after one or two drinks is treated the same as driving after ten.
• But wait, there's more!  As if that wasn't bad enough, it's NOT only the driver who is on the hook for such harsh penalties.  Anyone who allows someone to get behind the wheel after drinking even ONE drink, including the passengers and anyone who served the driver, such as in restaurants and bars, and anyone who provided a vehicle to the driver, will also face roughly the same penalties.  It is collective responsibility taken to the extreme, basically.
• Oh, and this also applies to bicycle riders as well, by the way.  (But hey, at least they don't apply it to pedestrians though, as there are no laws against drunk walking or public drunkenness there.)
• And this is all very strictly enforced, of course.

In a word, WOW!  They are so strict that bars and restaurants will simply not let you order even ONE beer unless they confirm with you first that you will not be driving home.  They even have "skipper" taxi services for hire with two drivers:  one to drive your vehicle home, and one to pick up the first driver afterwards.  (Or sometimes just one driver with an e-bike to ride themself back, and then onto the next customer.) And the popularity of non-alcoholic beers and wines has predictably skyrocketed in Japan since these laws were passed in 2002 and 2007.  

And yes, it is true that Japan saw alcohol-related traffic fatalities drop by over half instantly, and by up to 80 percent over the next few years following the passage of these super-strict laws.  Significant decreases in such casualties were seen after each of both the 2002 (i.e. lowering the BAC limit from 0.05% to 0.03%) and 2007 (penalties for passengers, servers, and vehicle lenders) law changes, and both also involved a great stiffening of DUI penalties in general, as opposed to merely making the law harder to satisfy.  So on its own terms, it seems to have worked wonders, at least on the surface.  But at what cost, really?  

Baby, meet bathwater, basically.

Try to implement such a draconian law over here in the USA today, especially the part about punishing servers and passengers, and the very best you could hope for in terms of unintended consequences in our culture would be a deep-freeze chilling effect on what is left of in-person socialization, and it goes downhill from there.  

In any case, such a law is WAY outside of the Overton window for an individualistic society (not to mention a car culture with vast rural areas!) like the USA, so the odds of this ever happening here are quite slim to none indeed.  It is truly un-American, to say the least.  But both less extreme (in terms of criminal penalties) AND more extreme (in terms of lower BAC limits) versions of this have of course been applied to Americans under the arbitrary age of 21 for decades now:  just think of zero tolerance laws and social host liability laws.  And internal possession laws, constructive possession laws, use and lose laws, keg registration, and other face-saving ancillary laws to prop up the failed experiment that is the 21 drinking age as well.

Oh, and even with this law in place for two decades, Japan STILL has stubbornly refused to lower the drinking age to 18.  Even after lowering the age of majority from 20 to 18 effective in 2022, they still kept the drinking age and smoking age at 20, because reasons.  And that whole thing about easily getting beer and sake in vending machines (!) for the past few decades or so?  Well, now the vending machines will need to see (and scan) some ID, at least most of them, apparently, according to Reddit.

That said, Japan is actually surprisingly lax in general by American standards about things like public drunkenness (as long as one is not being disorderly, of course), drinking in public, drinking on public transportation, and even drinking in a car (!) as long as the driver isn't drinking.  And alcohol is available almost everywhere, from convenience stores to supermarkets to vending machines and even in fast-food restaurants as well. That's largely because no liquor licenses are required for serve alcohol on-premise in Japan, and even though such licenses are required to sell alcohol for off-premise, they aren't exactly hard to get.

Twenty-One Debunked strongly opposes drunk driving, of course, but still does NOT support such an extreme approach to it like they have in Japan.  Rather, we support a graduated BAC limit of 0.05% for administrative-only penalties, 0.08% for criminal penalties, 0.15% for "aggravated DUI" criminal penalties, and a limit of 0.00% if driving recklessly, and grudgingly support 0.00-0.02% zero tolerance for young and novice drivers, ideally based on number of years of licensed driving rather than age alone.  Riding a bicycle under the influence should be a traffic violation, not a crime.  (Walking under the influence should not be illegal at all in itself, of course.)  And we believe in individual responsibility, thus the only people punished should be the drinking drivers themselves, not the passengers or servers, as that would be un-American.  Thus, we also believe that dram shop and social host liability laws should be repealed, or at least greatly watered down, as far as consenting adults are concerned.

Crack down HARD on actual drunk drivers, with sobriety checkpoints (provided that they follow the Constitution, of course) and especially roving and saturation patrols as well.  "Rovin' Eyes....are watching YOU!!!"

(Contrary to what some believe, something approximating de facto "random breath testing" actually IS possible in the USA, they just have to be more creative about it.)

Repeat or high-BAC offenders, and especially those driving recklessly as well, should lose their licenses immediately and permanently, and go directly to jail.  Do NOT pass GO.  Do NOT collect $200.  Do the crime, do the time.  

Even first offenders (who have likely been doing it hundreds of times before getting caught the first time) should still be punished harshly enough to be a very serious deterrent as well.  We also need to expand the use of ignition interlocks for ALL DUI offenders, as well as things like DUI Courts and South Dakota's highly successful 24/7 Program.

Kill or maim someone else as a result of driving under the influence?  Throw away the key!  NO MERCY!

And yes, the "skipper" taxi and rideshare services are an excellent idea that should be implemented everywhere, as well as also extending the hours of public transportation where it currently exists.  There is no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good, after all.  And that will also help the hospitality industry survive as well.

To Japan's credit, they have proven that it is indeed possible to completely separate drinking from driving.  We certainly have to give them kudos for that, no doubt.

But criminalizing and jailing experienced and responsible adult drivers (let alone those around them too!) for having ONE glass of wine or beer with dinner?  That is simply a bridge too far for any free society that has even the slightest hint of a car culture.  That's not public safety, that's lunacy!

(And as Japan has shown, it's NOT like even that will be enough to appease the ageists into lowering the drinking age, as there is really NO appeasing anyone like that.  Meanwhile, far less strict countries, even with car cultures, still have no qualms about letting 18 year olds drink, as long as the don't drive under the influence of course.)

And of course, we strongly believe that the drinking age should be lowered to 18, period, and yesterday is NOT soon enough.  Let America be America again.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

After all, at the end of the day, we're NOT Japan.  We never were, and we never will be either.

Prohibition: It Still Doesn't Work

In 2016, India's very populous state of Bihar (130 million people) embarked on the modern world's largest alcohol prohibition experiment to date, following the lead of the three other "dry" Indian states.  Now in the mid-2020s, the proverbial dust has settled, and the results are in.

By 2023, it became clear that many of the women who strongly supported the prohibition law initially (primarily in the hopes of reducing male drunken violence against women, especially domestic violence) ended up greatly regretting it.  Not only did prohibition wreck livelihoods and lead to harms from more dangerous and questionable black market alcohol (and alcohol substitutes), but such violence against women has also apparently come back with a vengeance as well after a short-term reduction.

Of course, such observations are anecdotal, so what about the statistics then?  Well, a study was done in 2024 using household survey data going up to 2020, and attempting to control for other variables.  And no matter how much the authors tried to make things look good, the results were not nearly as rosy as they made them seem.  We see a modest, likely short-term, improvement on some measures of health and domestic violence but not others, and and such surveys clearly have their limitations from reporting bias and undercounting.  Besides, in the case of violence, alcohol is generally NOT a root cause, but rather merely a potential accelerant with both individually and culturally-dependent effects, and is more likely a vain and frankly pathetic excuse for otherwise unacceptable behavior.  The real root causes of such go much, much deeper, such as most notably patriarchy in the case of intimate partner violence.

(This largely dovetails with an earlier study that compared different Indian states with and without prohibition and with varying legal drinking ages, with older data from long before Bihar went dry.  Basically, possible short term and often inconsistent benefits at best, but beyond that, prohibition is useless or worse than useless.)

In other words, the crude and blunt sledgehammer of prohibition (total or otherwise) essentially acts as a sort of "tourniquet" for excessive drinking and related problems.  But using any sort of tourniquet willy-nilly and/or leaving it on too long clearly does far more harm than good, whether such a tourniquet is literal or metaphorical.  The very same lessons can be drawn from using mass incarceration to fight crime, or worse, using lockdowns to fight a pandemic.

And in 2025, the black market for alcohol remains rampant in Bihar, killing people in the process.  That is true despite it being as vigorously enforced as is possible for such a law.  Prohibition clearly casts a long, dark shadow indeed.

Of course, all anyone considering such a law should have done was Google the history of the American experience with Prohibition to see why this was not exactly the wisest move.  I believe there is a name for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

UPDATE:  South Africa had an even more recent experience with alcohol prohibition, in their case during the context of COVID restrictions in 2020.  And yes, a recent study found that there was a short-term reduction in crime and death from unnatural causes as a result, over and above any effects of the curfew restrictions.  Again, it acts as a sort of "tourniquet".  But it is clearly NOT a long-term solution!

Alternate History Of The Legal Drinking Age

Lately I had been thinking a lot about alternate histories and alternate universes in regards to the 21 drinking age.  That is what would have happened if X, Y, or Z had changed but leaving everything else constant?  Here is what I came up with:

Michigan, as we know, was the first state (and therefore the most influential one) to raise the drinking age back to 21, in 1978.  They did it by a constitutional amendment ballot initiative on November 7, 1978, effective December 22, 1978, just in time for the holidays of course.  Earlier that same year, the state legislature had grudgingly passed, and Governor Milliken grudgingly signed, a bill to raise the drinking age to 19 for a three year trial period to study its effects, and then sunset it back to 18.  That would have taken at least some of the wind out of the sails of the still-nascent movement to raise the drinking age further, that is, had the ballot initiative not passed.  But that initiative got only 57% of the vote, which was hardly a landslide.  And while that particular initiative only required a simple majority to pass (a pitifully low bar to literally change the constitution at all, let alone to do so in a way that abridges civil rights), it is not that unusual for various states to require a higher supermajority threshold (such as 60%) to alter a state constitution by popular vote.

So one way to have stopped that very first domino from falling would have been to somehow raise the threshold for altering Michigan's constitution by ballot initiative to 60%.  Alternatively, had Michigan stuck with their original 1933 law to set the drinking age at 18 for beer and 21 for wine and hard liquor, and not raised it to 21 across the board in 1937 like they did, they would have been more like their neighbor Wisconsin, who eventually lowered it to 18 across the board in 1972 when they lowered the age of majority.  Just like Michigan would have done either way in 1972.  Thus, because of their history, there would have been far less appetite among Michiganders to raise it to 21 in 1978 had that been the case, and would probably have fallen short of even a 50%-plus-one threshold in that case.  Either way, the 1978 attempt to raise the drinking age to 21 would have flopped.

OK, so what would have happened next, had that fateful ballot initiative failed in November 1978?  Well, here are what things I think would have been most likely to occur, per the domino theory:

Michigan's drinking age hike to 19 would have gone into effect as planned on December 3, 1978, and then three years later in December 1981, it would have reverted back to 18 in time for the holidays.  The same celebrated decline in traffic fatalities would have most likely occurred either way due to factors other than the drinking age (including the bottle deposit and liquor tax hikes raising the prices of beer and liquor, respectively).  In both timelines, the bottle deposit literally went into effect on the same day as the 19 drinking age!

Disheartened by their failure in Michigan, the nascent movement to raise the drinking age to 21 would have lost momentum very quickly.  Thus, at least the other three of the first four states to raise it back to 21 would have most likely relented and not done so, and ditto for those after that. And no further states would have raised it to 20 either.

Massachusetts would have chosen the "Michigan Model" and raised it to 19 in 1979, with a sunset clause after a few years, instead of 20.  And since they wouldn't raise it to 20, New Hampshire doesn't do so either.  They either keep it 18 or raise it to 19.  And while Rhode Island raises it to 19 in 1980, they do not raise it further in the alternate history.

New Jersey still raises it to 19 in 1979 (effective January 1, 1980), but in this version of events, they add a three-year sunset clause, inspired by Michigan.  (More on NJ later, we will get back to this soon as this is highly significant later on).

Illinois would have instead kept it at 19 for beer/wine and 21 for liquor, instead of raising it to 21 effective in 1980.

Pennsylvania's otherwise ill-fated attempt at lowering it from 21 to 19 in 1978 does NOT die in the legislature in November, but continues to be debated on and is finally voted on sometime in 1979, when inspired by Michigan and New Jersey, narrowly votes yes and lowers it to 19.  This was the last chance while the zeitgiest still remained relatively permissive, before it switched to restrictive.

Meanwhile, out west, at least some of the states that had kept it 21 since the end of Prohibition, especially California and Nevada, decided to lower it to 19 by the end of 1979, following PA's lead, and also "study" its effects for a few years.  There already seems to be a convergence towards 19.  And we aren't even out of the 1970s yet.

"Give 19 a chance!" become the new slogan.  And of course, Ontario, Canada also raises it to 19 as well in 1979, in both versions of events.

The Overton Window has clearly shifted.  And the by now famous Dr. Richard Zylman, Professor at the Center for Alcohol Studies at Rutgers, is vindicated in his successful debunking of the pro-21 crowd's specious studies and talking points.  People are now finally listening to him for once!

Next, several other states that would have raised to 19 in 1979-1981, such as Florida, either keep it 18 or or raise it to 19 with a sunset clause.  Texas definitely keeps it 18, as no one tells Texas what to do!  Florida is cool with 19 though, since Spring Break tourists are nearly all over 19 anyway.

Virginia, in both versions of events, passes a compromise bill to raise it to 19 for off-premise purchases but keep it 18 for on-premise purchases in July 1981.  Their neighbor Maryland, who otherwise would have raised it to 21 in 1982, decides to "give 19 a chance" and adopt the "Virginia Model" instead.  After all, since the Michigan and Illinois failed to raise it to 21 in this alternate history, Maryland never works up the appetite to do so themselves.  That's now three dominoes averted so far.

By 1982, other states start to think that Virginia has nailed the best compromise thus far.  And Minnesota, the very first state to raise their drinking age to 19 (in 1976) is the very next to adopt the "Virginia Model".

The 1982 Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving convenes, but in the alternate timeline, Dr. Richard Zylman is one of the members.  When recommendation #8 out of 39 comes up, i.e. setting a national uniform drinking age of 21, Zylman quickly and openly pours cold water on that idea, and Dr. Morris Chafetz gets the courage to speak up and also refute that.  The idea gets scrapped, and Candy Lightner eats crow.  That recommendation gets replaced with a national uniform drinking age of 18 instead.

In 1982, New York narrowly decides against raising their drinking age to 19 in the alternate history.  The appetite to raise it simply was not there in the alternate version of events.  Especially since their drinking age has been 18 since 1934, and thus the status quo bias was quite strong.  

Meanwhile, New Jersey decides to let the 19 drinking age lapse and revert back to 18 on January 1, 1983.  In the version of events that actually happened, of course, NJ raises it to 21 effective on that same date.  This was probably the most important domino of them all to avert, as most of the loudest voices for the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, such as Senator Frank Lautenberg who wrote it, were from.....wait for it....New Jersey.  Thus, even more wind taken out of the sails of the pro-21 movement and the windbags in charge of it.  And the gambling age in Atlantic City remains at 18 (the only reason they raised it to 21 in the current version of events a few months later in 1983 was because it would have been extremely difficult to enforce the new drinking age of 21).  And not coincidentally, the number and extent of "blood borders" began to greatly shrink, as opposed to grow like it does in the current version of events.

Later in 1983, Oklahoma and Alaska thus decide to NOT raise it to 21 and keep it at 18 and 19, respectively.  And when Alaska hikes their beer tax dramatically that same year, which happens in both versions of events, traffic fatalities plummet either way.  That influences other states (and the feds too) to raise their alcohol taxes in 1984-1985 and beyond, to a greater extent in the alternate version of events (since the non-existent drinking age hike obviously couldn't speciously take credit for the drop in crash deaths in Alaska).

OK, so what about MADD?  Well, they start out the same way in 1980, and briefly advocate for raising the drinking age to 21 starting in 1982-1983.  But since the appetite for it just isn't there anymore by then, they grudgingly and quietly put that issue the back burner where it has been simmering ever since, and basically become more akin to MADD Canada in that regard.  Founder Candy Lightner still has a falling out with MADD in the mid-1980s, and is thus forced to resign in either version of events, for reasons unrelated to the drinking age.

(And in any case, they were unable to convince President Reagan on the supposed merits of the 21 drinking age.)

Having NOT been swayed, the other major anti-drunk driving group, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID), in the alternate history does NOT end up supporting the 21 drinking age, preferring to focus solely on drunk driving, for all ages, period.  

In New York, no attempt to raise the drinking age higher than 18 (where it remains to this day) ever succeeds in the alternate version of events.  NONE.  Not in 1982, not in 1985, not ever.  Capisce?  But ever since their founding in 1981, their legendary STOP-DWI program of drunk driving enforcement (later expanded to include ALL forms of reckless and dangerous driving as well) continues to successfully target the actual problem, and thus becomes a model for the nation.

New Jersey decides to follow New York's lead in 1983, and also makes their road test much more difficult as well.  The whole "Jersey Driver" thing ultimately becomes a thing of the past, at least for the most part.  And when future generations hear such jokes about them being such horrible drivers, the most common response is, "I don't get it".

More and more states pass tougher DUI laws, faster and tougher in the alternate version of events, and crack down harder on drunk driving for all ages.  Alcohol-related traffic casualties plummet as a result, even faster than they did in the current version of events.

Vermont and Louisiana famously keep holding the line at "18 and not a day higher!" in both versions of events, and several more states and DC join them.  In the alternate timeline, they only need to stick it out a few more years tops before they are home free for good.

In 1984-1985, the feds decide to not only NOT coerce states to raise their drinking ages to 21, but after reading the studies by Colon and Cutter (1983) and Colon (1984), actually does the opposite and uses positive reinforcement to nudge states with higher age limits to reduce them to 18 or 19 to reduce or eliminate any remaining "blood borders".  That is, give states an extra 10% of federal highway funding per year for ten years for reducing (or maintaining) their drinking ages to 18, or 5% per year for five years for reducing (or maintaining) it to 19.  And if the 12 states that didn't lower it from 21 in the 1970s didn't end up lowering it by then, they sure would after that!  Yes, even Utah grudgingly lowers it to 19 for 3.2 beer at least.

(The feds also decide to make drunk driving across state lines a federal crime as well.  Initially, the BAC limit is set at 0.10%, but is quickly lowered to 0.08%.  States that lower their limits to 0.08% are soon rewarded with extra highway funding.  And thus, that becomes the standard in every state much, much sooner in the alternate version of events than in the current version.)

The legendary Peter Asch and David Levy's groundbreaking 1987 study also further confirms what the anti-21 folks have known all along:  the 21 drinking age is useless at best, and more like worse than useless.  The anti-21 side is fully vindicated now, and the pro-21 side is thoroughly discredited.

And by the end of the decade, all states are either 18 or 19 depending on the state, much like Canada.  And it remains that way from then onwards.  And eventually, 18 becomes more common than 19.  The remnants of the pro-21 crowd keep trying to raise it for a while into the 1990s, but they eventually give up and swallow their pride, along with their beer when they are finally done crying in it!

And like Canada and Australia, drunk driving laws and enforcement continues to get tougher over time, and casualties continue to fall.  As for Zero Tolerance laws for DUI, starting in the 1990s, many of the same laws are passed in both versions of events.  Some are based on age, like Puerto Rico, some Canadian provinces, and some countries, while others are based on how long one has had their driver's license, like other Canadian provinces and Australian states.  And some are based on both.  The most common such laws in the alternate version of events are 0.00 to 0.02 BAC for the first three years of licensed driving or until 21, whichever is longer.  But the stated purpose is now different:  it's not because "you're too young!" and "it's illegal!", but rather because people should gain more experience with both driving as well as drinking before being allowed to mix the two, even in small amounts.  The goal is to separate drinking from driving entirely.

Drunk driving casualties for young and old alike continue to plummet even further, now reaching an all-time record low by the mid-1990s.  And they continue to fall after that as well, rather than stubbornly stall and stagnate like in the current timeline.

And while only Utah ultimately lowers their criminal BAC limit down to 0.05% from 0.08%, that doesn't stop many states from experimenting with Canadian-style brief administrative license suspensions and brief vehicle impoundments for drivers above 0.05%, albeit as a traffic violation. 

And while truly "random breath testing" (RBT) still remains unconstitutional to this day in the USA in both versions of events, that really just means that enforcement needs to be a bit more creative with sobriety checkpoints and roving/saturation patrols to approximate its effect.  The tools already exist (at least in the states that choose to allow them).  The real key is for such enforcement to be sustained, and create the perception of swift and certain punishment.  And in the alternate version of events, that is precisely what happens.

They even make a popular reality TV show out of it!  Called "Operation Rovin' Eyes", and complete with ride-alongs, it was an instant success.  It's birthplace was (where else?) New York, the ultimate pioneering state against drunk driving, and it has expanded to many other states from there. Legend has it, it was inspired by the Australian reality show "RBT", but it most likely pre-dated that show.

"Rovin' Eyes....are watching YOU!!!"

Alcohol taxes are raised more frequently and to a greater extent in the alternate version of events, albeit still not quite as high as Canada or Australia. 

Enforcement of the 18 (or 19, or mixed, depending on the state) drinking age over time has evolved to be quite strict, but primarily targeting the sellers of alcohol.  And underage drinking is decriminalized to a parking-style or traffic-style ticket offense, with no jail and no criminal record.

Hawaii's meth epidemic in the 1990s, while it still happens unfortunately, is at least somewhat blunted by keeping the drinking age at 18.  

In the alternate version of events, research, science, public policy, politics, and culture all remain far less warped than they would have become in the current version of events.  And states truly remain "laboratories of democracy," while being careful to avoid "tyranny of the majority" or mob rule as well (like what almost happened in Michigan in 1978!)

Fast forward to the 2020s:

"Tobacco 21?  What's that?  Never heard of it." (In other words, smoking and vaping ages remain 18, or in a tiny few states and localities, 19.  Needham, MA doesn't even bother.)

It literally never even occurs to Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York to raise the smoking age to 21, especially since his father gave up after failing to the get the drinking age raised any higher than 18.  Similarly, Mayors Mike Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio of NYC never bothered to do so either.

Cannabis is legalized in much the same way as in the current version of events, but with one crucial detail different:  all states that legalize it choose 18 or 19 as their toking ages instead of 21, typically choosing to match their drinking and/or tobacco smoking ages.  And also, a greater number of states legalize it in the alternate version, including Hawaii after finally calling off their abominable Operation Green Harvest eradication and  interdiction program, and ultimately the federal government does the same.  Even Florida ends up doing so.

As for other countries, some differences can be seen there as well due to America's influence.  Take Canada, for example.  Ontario, shortly after abolishing 13th grade in 2003, decides to lower their drinking age from 19 back to 18, and when they legalize weed in 2018, they choose 18 for that as well.  Prince Edward Island never raises their drinking age from 18 to 19, and never adopts a Tobacco 21 law.  Quebec keeps their age limit for cannabis at its original 18, and never raises it to 21.  Otherwise, Canada remains the same in both versions of events.

Japan lowers their drinking age to 18 when they lower their age of majority to 18 in 2022.

And Lithuania keeps their drinking age at 18, refusing to raise it to 20 in 2018.  Ditto for Sri Lanka, who keeps it at 18 instead of raising it to 21 in 2006.

Can you say, "Butterfly Effect?"

Oh, and by the way:  alcohol-related death rates, both on and off the highways, are really not very different between the two versions of events, at least in the long run.  In fact, they are most likely lower in the alternate version of events.  Ditto for alcohol-related problems in general as well.

UPDATE:  Another pathway to this alternate timeline could have been if Minnesota had decided NOT to raise the drinking age from 18 to 19 in 1976.  They were the very first state to raise it from 18, so they likely influenced other states after that.  Alternatively, as their stated goal was simply to keep alcohol out of the high schools, they could have chosen to do something similar to what Virginia did five years later, namely, raise only the off-premise purchase age to 19 and keep it 18 otherwise.  Additionally, another pathway could have been if at least some of the 12 states that kept it 21 throughout had decided to lower it to 18 or 19 in the early 1970s along with the age of majority, especially the highly influential states of California and Pennsylvania.

What The Feds Should Have Done, And Still Should Do, About "Blood Borders"

When the infamous National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed, coercing all states to raise their legal drinking ages to 21 or else lose 10% of their federal highway funding, one of the specious arguments in favor of it was that by establishing a uniform minimum drinking age, it would eliminate the problem of "blood borders".  That is, it would end the perverse incentive of young people from states with a higher drinking age from driving to neighboring states with lower drinking ages to drink, then driving back drunk.  And, rightly or wrongly, that was one of the biggest selling points of the new law.  

But there was always more than one way to skin that particular...well, you know.  States' rights arguments aside, while a uniform minimum drinking age would indeed eliminate that particular perverse incentive to drive drunk (and to drive a longer distance drunk at that), that age limit need not be 21.  After all, 21 is completely arbitrary, and as we have seen from numerous studies including, but not limited to, the ones below, it is not really backed by sound science.

Naor and Nashold (1975)
Colon and Cutter (1983)
Colon (1984)
Males (1986)
Asch and Levy (1987)
Asch and Levy (1990)
Dee and Evans (2001)
Males (2008)
Miron and Tetelbaum (2009)
Grant (2011)
Dirscherl (2011)

Boes and Stillman (NZ) (2013)

Boes and Stillman (NZ) (2017/2024)

Dasgupta et al. (NZ) (2022)

Thus, a uniform legal drinking age of 18 would have made far more sense, and would would not only have eliminated the "blood borders" issue between states, but also largely for our very long international borders with Canada (18 or 19, depending on province) and Mexico (18) as well (which the federal 21 drinking age only exacerbated).  But even then, the states' rights issue comes up once again.  So how to resolve that?

It turns out, even that could have been resolved without such undue federal coercion.  Instead, here is what the feds should have done then, and should still do today:

• Encourage all states with higher drinking ages to lower their drinking ages to 18 via positive reinforcement.  That is, reward states that lower their drinking ages to (or maintain their drinking ages at) 18 with 10% extra highway funding per year above what the funding formula normally entitles them to, for at least ten years.  Think carrots, not sticks.
• And for states that lower it to (or maintain it at) 19, make the reward half that amount, 5% per year for five years.  States that lower it to 19 and then subsequently lower further it to 18 should then get the full 10% retroactively to when they lowered it to 19 if they do it in a timely fashion afterwards.
• Make drunk driving across state lines a federal crime.
• And last but not least, raise the federal alcohol taxes as well.  That is probably the most important policy lever that the federal government has against drunk driving and alcohol-related problems in general, and is the lowest-hanging fruit there is in that regard.

Problem solved.  After all, the "blood borders" problem was really no worse in practice that what happens when dry counties are located adjacent to wet counties.  And in such cases, we sure as hell don't blame it on the wet counties!

(Mic drop)

Yet Another Myth Bites The Dust

One of our earliest posts in 2009 was one criticizing a study that attempted to link the 21 drinking age to improved birth outcomes (and conversely, lower drinking ages with worse birth outcomes) among young pregnant people.  We thought we debunked it fairly well even back then, as that study had many flaws.  Then, in 2015, another study came out that further weakened that older study's conclusions to the point of virtual irrelevance, but the authors still seemed to cling to the idea that there may still be some benefits to the 21 drinking age in that regard, because reasons.

More recently, in 2024, yet another study came out that really thoroughly debunked the idea of the 21 drinking age improving birth outcomes at all among young pregnant people.  In contrast, alcohol policies that target the general population regardless of age do seem to be beneficial.

In any case, regardless, any attempt to justify the 21 drinking age in that regard is pure mission creep and grasping at straws on the part of the pro-21 side.  Even if such benefits were true, such a sledgehammer approach is both over- and under-inclusive, grossly outdated, and worst of all, is a gross violation of civil and human rights.

So consider this one debunked as well.

(Mic drop)

What Australia Gets Right (Updated)

One thing our movement has a habit of doing is comparing the USA to Europe for the purpose of ascertaining what the effects of a lower drinking age would be like.  While there is some truth to such a comparison, the pro-21 side routinely calls us out on the important differences between here and there.  For example, they have much better public transportation than we do, they are more urbanized, driving licenses are much more difficult to obtain, gas prices are much higher, and thus they are much, much less of a car culture that we are.  All of which would dramatically affect traffic fatalities and skew any comparisons.  As a result, Twenty-One Debunked typically prefers to make comparisons to Canada instead, which is also a car culture that is the most similar to the USA.  And they have seen a similar or faster drop in traffic deaths than the USA despite NOT raising the drinking age to 21, and their traffic death rates have been consistently lower than the USA.  But there is also another major car culture as well with a drinking age of 18--Australia.

In the Land Down Under, they have in fact seen a faster drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths than the USA and even Canada since 1982 despite keeping the drinking age at 18.  For all age groups.  Not only that, a recent study in Australia found essentially no link between being able to drink legally and motor vehicle accidents of any type, at least not in the state that was being studied, New South Wales.  Using a regression discontinuity design similar to the sort that pro-21 researchers have been doing lately, they found NO discontinuous jump in such deaths or injuries in young people upon turning 18.  This stands in stark contrast to the USA, in which various pro-21 researchers have found a significant jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries among young Americans upon turning 21, an increase that in many cases lingers well beyond one's 21st birthday.

Of course, such a phenomenon is not unique to the USA, as a jump in alcohol-related deaths and injuries has also been observed in Canada at their own respective MLDA (18 or 19, depending on the province), albeit of a shorter duration than in the USA and limited primarily to males who participate in "extreme" binge drinking.  It would seem that a "powder-keg" effect is unfortunately an almost inevitable consequence of the very concept of a drinking age, regardless of what it is.  So what does Australia do right that seems to defuse the powder keg?

Most importantly, Australia has tougher DUI laws, and tougher and more frequent enforcement of such laws.  For example, not only are penalties tougher, but the BAC limit is 0.05 (as opposed to 0.08 in the USA in every state except Utah) and they have random breath testing (RBT), which has been effectively ruled unconstitutional in the USA, and even Canada only began doing it in 2018.  Though one could argue that nowadays the USA effectively practices a form of "de-facto RBT" via a combination of "no-refusal" laws (i.e. the police often have a judge on speed-dial to issue a telewarrant to compel those who refuse to be tested) and often quasi-randomly pull people over for trivial reasons as a pretext and use that as an excuse to test drivers, and the initial effectiveness of RBT in Australia seems to decay over time to converge to the still-significant level of effectiveness demonstrated by American-style sobriety checkpoints (in 38 states) and/or roving/saturation patrols (in all states).   So America can indeed do what Australia does, we just need to be more creative about it.  Additionally, driver's licenses are harder to get and easier to lose over there than in the USA, and the road test there is significantly more difficult as well.  Alcohol excise taxes are also higher in Australia as well.  But truly the biggest and most salient difference is the seriousness with which they take the issue of drunk driving.  You really do NOT want to get busted for DUI in the Land Down Under!

(They also have zero tolerance BAC laws as well, albeit for the first three years of licensed driving regardless of age.)

Of course, the picture down under is not entirely rosy.  Australia's drinking culture is quite extreme even by American, Canadian, and British standards (though tame by New Zealand standards), and binge drinking is quite the art form over there.  Indeed, even the aforementioned study found that while traffic deaths and injuries do not increase discontinuously at 18 when they become legal to drink, there is still a discontinuous increase in hospital visits and admissions for alcohol poisoning and injuries from assault at 18.  But the fact that, even in a country with a more Anglo-Celtic, drink-to-get-drunk culture than the USA, it is nonetheless possible to break the link between drinking and drunk driving casualties, really speaks volumes indeed.

In other words, lowering the drinking age in the USA should really not be something to fear.  But we also need to get tougher on drunk driving if we wish to continue the progress of decades past.

UPDATE:  We should clarify that we do NOT support Australia's zero tolerance per se policy for driving with cannabis.  Since THC is fat-soluble, the pharmacokinetics of cannabis are far too complex, and thus do NOT lend themselves to any sort of per se limits, let alone zero tolerance.  If there must be any official limit, is should be "permissible inference" or "prima facie" instead, and of course significantly greater than zero.  After all, merely testing positive at a too-low cutoff days or longer after last use should NOT be seen as evidence of current impairment.