Latest Study Wields "Occam's Butterknife"

More educated readers of this blog are probably familiar with Occam's Razor--the observation that a relatively simple explanation is more likely to be correct than a more complicated one.  Some folks have satirically come up with the term Occam's Butterknife, which is the erroneous belief that a more complicated explanation beats a simple one.  A case in point is the latest study on how lowering the drinking age in the USA might affect college binge drinking.

The study uses a mathematical model to suggest that lowering the drinking age would not reduce binge drinking.  However, there are significant problems with the study and its conclusion:

• The study is purely theoretical, not empirical.
• The only empirical data considered is current self-reported survey data where the drinking age is 21, which may be biased, and levels of enforcement in various colleges.
• The definition of "heavy episodic drinking" is questionable in the absence of context.
• The study modeled a change in the drinking age to 19, not 18.
• The study only looked at two variables--"misperception" (social norms) and "wetness" (availability/enforcement).
• Most campuses are actually very "wet" in practice.
• Variables such as the dangerous effects of forcing alcohol underground are not considered.
• Consequences of drinking were not considered.

Thus, while the study was relatively complicated in terms of the mathematics used, it does not prove that lowering the drinking age to 18 is a bad idea, or that keeping it at 21 is a good idea on balance.

We at Twenty-One Debunked also find it rather funny that the authors of the study said that lowering the drinking age to 18 would be a "radical social experiment," when in fact, the current drinking age of 21 is the real radical social experiment, both internationally and in terms of our nation's own history.  And a failed one nonetheless.

New Holiday: Drink Nothing Day

You have probably heard of Buy Nothing Day.  Celebrated on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year, this self-explanatory holiday is meant to be a protest against consumerism.  But perhaps you didn't know that the biggest drinking day of the year is the day before Thanksgiving.  That's right, it's not New Year's Eve, but the day before Thanksgiving.

Thus, we at Twenty-One Debunked have decided to create our own protest holiday, Drink Nothing Day.  It is designed as a way for people 21 and over to show solidarity with those under 21 by not drinking any alcohol that day.  To observe this holiday, which can only logically be done by folks over 21, one must not drink any form of alcohol at all during the entire 24 hours of that date, as well as the following day until sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner.  Then, one may drink, but one must give thanks that prohibition no longer applies to him or her.  Other things include wearing two black armbands:  one to symbolize those soldiers who died before being able to drink legally in the very country they served, and another to symbolize those under 21 who were killed by a drunk driver over 21.

We will observe this holiday this year, and every year thereafter until the drinking age is lowered to 18 in all 50 states.  After that, we should rename the holiday "Novemberfest" or something like that.

Several Military Leaders Support Lowering Drinking Age on Bases

It seems like we may have finally reached daybreak on the drinking age issue.  Though many are hesitant to talk about it, several military leaders are endorsing proposal that would allow 18-20 year old servicemembers to drink beer and wine on base.  This would affect all military bases, both foreign and domestic. Currently, most domestic bases set the age at 21 due to a federal law that requires all domestic bases to have the same drinking age as the state the base is in, except for those very close to the Canadian and Mexican borders, who set it at 18 if they choose to.  Of course, many 18-20 year old servicemembers still drink illegally anyway like civilians do, usually off-base which creates more dangerous situations.  Thus, lowering the drinking age on base would likely be safer than the current situation.  This idea certainly deserves a 21-gun salute.

Though this is quite a limited relaxation of the 21 drinking age, the movement to lower the drinking age to 18 across the board has to start somewhere, and we at Twenty-One Debunked fully endorse this idea.  If you are old enough to go to war, you are old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

Do Drinkers Really Outlive Teetotallers?

This has been a controversy for decades, with most studies saying "yes", at least for moderate drinkers.  Such a relationship is thought to be primarily due to reductions in cardiovascular disease.   However, methodological problems such as confounders and the "sick quitter" effect (not to mention the wrath of the neoprohibitionists) have hampered the ability to draw any firm conclusions until now.

A recent study found that, among 55-65 year olds at least,  moderate drinkers lived the longest, followed by light drinkers, followed by heavy drinkers, followed by abstainers.  You read that right--for some reason, even heavy drinkers outlived teetotallers!  This was true even after controlling for numerous traditional and non-traditional confounders, including smoking, obesity, sociodemographic factors, former problem drinking status, and health problems at baseline.  While controlling for these attenuated the relationship somewhat, it still remained strong, confirming previous studies that also found a U-shaped or J-shaped curve for mortality.  It appears that the ancient Greeks were right after all.

But before you go out and buy a bottle of Jack to celebrate, remember that there are several caveats to these findings.  First of all, the study only looked at 55-65 year olds, so attempting to generalize these findings to younger (or older) age groups can be problematic.  No health benefits from alcohol have ever been conclusively proven for people under 40 (though one study suggests that there might be some), and many (but certainly not all) experts believe that the well-known risks (dependency, injuries, liver damage, etc.) outweigh any theoretical benefits that may occur from drinking before that age, especially for heavy drinking.  People over 65 would likely show significant cardiovascular benefits from light drinking, but this age group can run the risk of falls and other injuries from drinking as well.  Also, there are many folks (of all ages, and we all know them) who really should avoid the bottle like the plague.  The fact that the study included only people over 55 means that it inherently excluded many severe alcoholics and/or drunk drivers who would most likely have died before reaching that age, and thus reduced the number of life years in the population.  Finally, the study failed to distinguish between different patterns of drinking--you should realize that there is a huge difference between having two drinks each night of the week (Continental-style) versus having all 14 drinks on a single night (British-style).  The latter is very dangerous indeed, don't do it!

While this study is not directly relevant to the drinking age issue, we feel that studies like this are important to show that alcohol is not an unmitigated evil like MADD and their ilk claim it to be.  Booze does indeed have a dark side that we all need to be aware of, but there are good things about it as well.

We at Twenty-One Debunked present this for informational purposes only and in no way intend this to be an encouragement for anyone to drink.  We are not a "pro-alcohol" organization, but rather we are pro-liberty and anti-tyranny.  But if you do choose to drink, remember that moderation is the key, and of course never drink and drive.

UPDATE:  Take a look at this review in the British Medical Journal on the apparent inverse relationship between light to moderate drinking and cardiovascular disease.

More About Guam

As you already know, much to our chagrin Guam was in the news for hastily raising the drinking age to 21 in July 2010.  That makes them the first part of the USA to change the drinking age in over two decades.  They were in the news again recently in August.  The first is that they will actually get tougher on DUI by requiring a mandatory overnight jail stay and will prosecute cases within 48 hours, instead of the former policy of "catch and release" that made it such a joke before.  (This we certainly applaud, by the way.) The second was the fact that the arrest rate for DUI had been skyrocketing since 2007, especially for younger drivers.  Aside from being the major impetus for the latest change in DUI criminal procedure, this fact was also used by some to retrospectively justify the drinking age hike to 21.

But the latter claim does not stand up to closer scrutiny.  In fact, it falls flat on its face.  The stats from the Guam Police Department show the following numbers, in a population of about 175,000 residents:

Year	Total DUI Arrests	Under 21	%  Under 21
2007	790	58	7.3%
2008	677	70	10.3%
2009	1146	116	10.1%
2010 (first half)	382	41	10.7%

Clearly arrests have risen for all ages, and doubled for those under 21 in two years, though the share of arrests under 21 has essentially plateaued since 2008, after jumping from 2007 to 2008.  Back in 2005, it was only 6%.  However, arrest rates can be quite deceiving, as the table of fatalities below so clearly shows:

Year	Total Fatalities	Alcohol Related	Under 21	% Under 21
2007	24	11	1	9%
2008	8	5	0	0%
2009	13	9	1	11%
2010	10	2	0	0%
Avg.	15.7	7.7	0.57	7.4% (3.7%)

Here we see a very different picture indeed.  It does not appear that alcohol-related fatalities have been rising for any age group.  Quite the opposite in fact, a whopping 64% decrease overall, and thus the reason for rising arrests is most likely greater enforcement and targeting of younger drivers, as opposed to more drunk driving. You read right that in 2008 and 2010, there have actually been zero traffic fatalites of those under 21.  The 2010 data only include the first half of the year (up to June 30), during which the drinking age was still 18, so one can thus project 20 total deaths and 4 total alcohol-related deaths for the whole year, and either zero or one death under 21, had the status quo remained. 

As for the percentage under 21, since alcohol involvement is not given for the under 21 data, we assumed the worst (that all of them involved booze) and calculated the number of under-21 deaths as a percentage of total alcohol-related deaths.  This gives 7.4%, but if we assume that half of the under-21 deaths involve booze (a reasonable estimate given the all-ages data), we get a mere 3.7%.  Thus, drivers under 21 are overrepresented in arrests, but underrepresented in fatalities.  Put another way, even if all under-21 drinking was to somehow magically disappear, over 96% of the deaths would most likely still occur.

How does this compare with the rest of the nation, where the drinking age has been 21 since 1988?  Well, research shows that in 2008, drivers under 21 accounted for 12% of total fatalities and 13% of alcohol-impaired fatalities.  Clearly worse than Guam by any measure, but remember that 21-24 year olds are the worst of all in terms of overrepresentation in drunk driving deaths, a fact that is true in almost every developed nation in the world regardless of drinking age.  Thus, these data are hardly a ringing endorsement for a 21 drinking age.

California Passes Social Host Law

Much to the chagrin of 21 Debunked and all those who love liberty and oppose the 21 drinking age, today California joined the majority of states and passed a social host liability law.  This means that if you furnish alcohol to someone under 21 and they happen to get killed or injured, you can be sued, and there appear to be no limits on how much you can be sued for. 

We have already discussed in previous posts why we oppose such laws.  First of all, it is just another attempt to prop up the greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition, the 21 drinking age.  Secondly, 18-20 year olds are legal adults in all other ways, and should be responsible for their own actions, drunk or not.  Third, such laws have not been proven to save lives, and would probably just force alcohol even further underground, leaving party hosting to only the bold and reckless. Finally, in a country without meaningful tort reform, it will enrich greedy trial lawyers while causing many families to possibly even lose their homes in lawsuits, as social host awards are typically in the millions of dollars.  We can just see them salivating like Pavlov's dog at the prospect.

We at 21 Debunked feel that suing the host (who is at most only peripherally involved, by definition) because the drunk driver does not have deep enough pockets is really quite low to say the least.  Parasitic even, especially when the dollar amounts are ludicrously high as they usually are.  The worst of all are those stupid drunk drivers who sue the host for their own injuries, a group for whom we have no sympathy.  Thus, we do not support social host laws of any kind.  But we do think that drunk drivers of any age who kill or seriously injure others should be sued for everything they have and, if that is still not enough to cover the damages, be forced to work off their debt in prison the rest of their lives.

Interestingly, social host laws (as well as dram shop laws, which are the same thing only applied to bars/restaurants instead) appear to exist in only two countries, the USA and Canada.  We Americans are well-known for our ethic of hyper-individualism, as opposed to a more communitarian or "brother's keeper" ethic found in most other countries, including many in Europe.  Thus, America is the last place one would expect to find such laws, but for some reason it is almost the only place they are found.  Perhaps the fact that our society is so litigious compared to the rest of the world, and increasingly so, is at least part of the reason.  Or maybe it is for the same asinine reasons that the drinking age is arbitrarily set at 21, a full three years higher than the age of majority.  Whatever the reason, such laws are un-American, obsolete, and incompatible with the values upon which our nation was founded, and should thus be stricken from the books at once.

Zero Tolerance Laws in Canada

On August 1, 2010, Ontario will join a few other Canadian provinces (not to mention the USA) in implementing zero-tolerance laws for drinking and driving.  In Ontario's case, the age limit will be 22, and the BAC limit will be 0.00%.  It is a traffic infraction rather than a criminal offense. The penalty will be an automatic 24-hour roadside suspension of one's license, plus a fine of up to $500 and a suspension of up to 30 days upon conviction.  For those over 22, the limit will remain 0.05 for a traffic infraction and 0.08 for a criminal offence of DUI.

Ontario has, and will retain, a drinking age of 19.  In Canada, the drinking age is 18 or 19 depending on the province.  Thus in Ontario, one can drive at 16, drink at 19, but will not be allowed to mix the two until 22 or until one has had a license for at least two years, whichever is longer.

We at Twenty-One Debunked, who unequivocally abhor drunk driving but believe the drinking age should be 18 and not a day later, have mixed feelings about the new law.  On the positive side, though it may or may not actually save lives, it does send a strong message that drinking and driving simply do not mix.  It provides a reason (or even an excuse) for young drivers to refuse a drink from their buddies at a bar or party without looking or feeling awkward.  It also helps to appease the fears among older adults about young people drinking and driving, and can help pre-empt more extreme measures, such as raising the drinking age.  On the negative side, it still remains a form of age discrimination, regardless of how well-intentioned it is, and the unrealistically low BAC limit provides no safeguards against false positives.  There is a significant margin of error of +/-0.01-0.02 in BAC readings, meaning that it is theoretically possible for someone who had nothing at all to drink can test positive and lose his or her license for up to a month.

Thus, we recommend keeping the law, but raising the BAC limit to 0.02, or at least automatically subtracting 0.01 or 0.02 from any breathalyzer reading if they still wish to retain the absolute zero limit.  Also, we think all fairly novice drivers (less than 5 years of licensed driving experience) should be held to the same standard regardless of age, as is currently done in the Netherlands with a BAC of 0.02.  In addition, we recommend that if there must be age limits, the drinking age should be lowered to 18, and the zero tolerance age should be 21.  Finally, we must never lose sight of the fact that (in the USA) the average BAC in fatal crashes is 0.16 overall and 0.14 for drivers under 21.  We need to see the forest for the trees, and focus enforcement where it matters most.  For those with high BACs, regardless of age, judges need to throw the book at them before they ever kill someone.

Guam Raises Drinking Age to 21

We didn't think this would actually happen, but it did.  On July 8, 2010, the bill that raised the drinking age to 21 was unfortunately signed into law at noon.  This new law, effective immediately with no grandfather clause, criminalizes the purchase and possession of alcohol by anyone under 21, just like it was for those under 18 before, except that 18-20 year olds are still allowed to work in bars and sell/serve alcohol.  Selling to anyone under 21 is illegal now as well. 

This time, they did not even leave it up to the people.  (Not like those over 21 really should have a say as to what legal but outvoted young adults 18-20 put into their own bodies, especially if those over 21 are allowed to do it themeslves, but it still was elitist for the legislature to go over the people's heads.) It was passed unanimously by the Guam Senate with almost no debate at all, in spite of the fact that referenda for raising the drinking age in previous years (such as 2006) had failed.  What little discussion occurred was primarily recycled and often outdated junk science from the mainland, combined with shaky (but emotional) anecdotal evidence from Guam.  The deck was stacked, and the opposition didn't stand a chance.

We predict that, based on research we have previously cited, no lives will be saved as a result of this draconian law, at least not in the long run.  They would have been better off getting tougher on DUI and raising the alcohol taxes than punshing all 18-20 year olds for the actions of the few.  Like we previously noted, 94% of the island's DUI problem consists of drivers over 21, and would still remain even if they could somehow prevent everyone from drinking until 21.  On the mainland, roughly 90% of young adults will drink before 21 despite the drinking age, so even that is just wishful thinking. 

Also, this will most likely hurt Guam's economy, dependent on tourism as they are.  Looks like tourism will probably decrease over there, while it will likely increase in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the last two places in the USA in which 18-20 year olds are allowed to drink legally, and no passport required.  Fiji learned this the hard way in 2006-2009, when their drinking age was briefly 21.  They have since lowered it as a result, and the sky did not fall.  Thus, we hope the leaders of Guam will come to their senses within a few years as well after seeing that the costs of an unrealistically high drinking age outweigh any possible benefits.

To Guam: Don't Raise the Drinking Age!

Guam (Guahan) is one of the few places in the United States that, along with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, still has a drinking age of 18, but all that may soon change.  Several politicians on the island want to raise the drinking age to 21, and the majority of adults (who are over 21) agree as well.  They claim it will make the island safer and reduce various social problems.  But we at Twenty-One Debunked feel that this move is a huge mistake.

Supporters of the proposed 21 law ignore several important facts while simultaneously touting junk science.  First, Guam (as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) has lower teen drinking and past-month "binge" drinking rates than the mainland, as well as lower than the Northern Mariana Islands, where the age limit is currently 21.  Ditto for self-reported driving after drinking in the past 30 days, according to the latest CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey data:

Location	"Binge" Drinking (Grade 12)	Drove after drinking (Grades 9-12)	MLDA	Year
USA (overall)	36.5%	10.5%	21	2007
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
US Virgin Islands	14.4%	6.1%	18	2003
American Samoa	26.1%	7.8%	21	2007

In addition, only about 6% of all drunk driving arrests in Guam are for drivers under 21.  That means that even if you could somehow magically stop everyone from drinking until 21, 94% of the island's DUI problem would still remain.

Secondly, Canada has seen the same (or faster) decline in traffic fatalities as the United States despite not raising the drinking age to 21, and their teen "binge" drinking rates in most provinces remain comparable to the geographically and demographically similar northern States as well.  In fact, most of the world allows 18 year olds to drink, without the sky falling in those countries. 

Thirdly, if Guam thinks that a drinking age of 18 is not working in some way, the first thing that should be done is to enforce it (and other existing laws, such as DUI) better, not to ban all 18-20 year olds from drinking and thereby increase the number of "underage" drinkers.  Also, jacking up the alcohol taxes (especially beer) would likely be beneficial as well, especially if the funds are used for education, treatment, and law enforcement.

Fourthly, it will merely force drinking by young adults underground, as well as create "forbidden fruit" and "feast or famine" mentalities about alcohol.  This will make it a lot more dangerous than it has to be.  The effects of a 21 drinking age are thus iatrogenic--the "cure" is worse than the "disease."  This is part of the reason that several college presidents want to lower the drinking age to 18 on the mainland, even as the pro-21 folks are calling for more and more ancillary laws and pharisaical enforcement to prop up the greatest alcohol policy failure since Prohibition.  And we all know how that worked out.

Finally, 18 year olds are legal adults, for better or worse.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  And those that claim that the brains of 18-20 year olds are not developed enough to be given full adult rights need to think long and hard about the underdeveloped ethics of trying them as adults, executing them, letting them be police officers, letting them get married and raise their own children, among other things--all while denying them sovereignty over their own bodies.  Makes you wonder how capable the brains of people over 21 (especially over 25) are of thinking in new ways.

To Guam, take it from us folks on the mainland:  21 does NOT work!  On the contrary, those that claim that it does and advocate raising the drinking age are playing with fire.

There They Go Again!

In a previous post, White Noise Syndrome, we have pointed out what was known for a long time:  drunk driving (and related deaths) peaks at age 21.  Now, yet another study has noticed this too, this time among college students.  Captain Obvious, if you will.  The researchers found that among 20 year old students, 20% admit to driving drunk, which rises modestly to 25% when they turn 21.  But the conclusions the authors drew about it were nothing short of strange.

The authors actually feel that the study validates keeping the drinking age at 21!  Their pretzel logic is that the increased availability of alcohol at 21 translates into more drunk driving than at 20, thus lowering the drinking age would be a bad idea.  But this argument is specious at best.  For example, the peak age for drunk driving is also 21 in countries with lower drinking ages such as Canada (18 or 19), Germany (16), Australia (18), and the UK (18), and this was true in the USA as well when the drinking age was 18 in most states.  That is, DUI increases between age 18 and 21 even in the absence of increased availability at 21.  Also, the aforementioned study also found that college freshmen drink more than upperclassmen, while drunk driving appears to increase with age--and even between 19 and 20 this increase occurs as well despite similar alcohol availability.  One possible reason for this paradox is that freshmen are less likely to have their own cars, as are 18 year olds in general, and more likely to live on campus.  Combine a 21 year old's greater likelihood of owning a car with the sudden increase in freedom to drink legally, and the study's results are hardly surprising.  It is the Law of Eristic Escalation in action.  One thing is for sure:  no one magically becomes able to handle alcohol upon turning 21 if they were not able to handle it before.  And with 1 in 5 college students overall admitting to driving drunk in the past year, it is quite obvious that if this is what they call success, we'd hate to see what failure looks like.

Perhaps our country's misguided attempt to keep 18-20 year olds from drinking at all, which has clearly failed, is not the best way to prepare young adults for the reality of drinking that 90% of them will experience.  All it is doing is delaying the inevitable at best, and making it more dangerous than it has to be at worst.  If the drinking age was 18, young adults could get the partying out of their system before many of them get their first cars, and often while still living on campus.  It would likely be done more safely than now, when it is done underground.  There would be no need to go to far-off locations (which often involve drinking and driving) when they could drink in their dorms, apartments, or walk to and from the local bar.  In fact, a 2005 study found that blood alcohol levels prior to driving among college students are higher from drinking at parties compared to all other locations, so more 18-20 year olds going to bars would probably mean fewer crashes, even among those who are foolish enough to drive.  Then when they are a few years older, it would get to be "old hat" and there would be less desire to mix booze and car keys. 

If anything, this study is a good argument for lowering the drinking age to 18, as well as cracking down harder on drunk driving.  We currently waste far too many resources trying to keep 18-20 year olds from drinking, that could be better spent on DUI enforcement.  But apparently the brains of people over 21 (especially over 25) are less capable of thinking in new ways.

As the late Ronald Reagan would say, "I can't help it, there you go again!"