Teen Drinking Plummets Worldwide, Regardless of the Drinking Age

That is the biggest takeaway from the latest World Health Organization (WHO) study.   Since 2002, teen drinking has indeed plummeted worldwide, including the USA.  And lest the pro-21 crowd try to take any credit for this trend, keep in mind that this secular trend also occurred in other countries with drinking ages of 18 or even lower still.  The UK, for example, despite their legendary binge drinking culture and relatively loosely enforced (albeit more so than in the past) drinking age of 18, saw their rate of weekly teen drinking among boys decline from 50.3% to 10% by 2014, a relative drop of over 80% and one of the largest declines of any nation.  And British teen girls also saw a drop almost as large as well.

Both among teens and adults alike, gender gaps on drinking are also clearly narrowing.  The difference is that among teens, the convergence is primarily due to drinking more rapidly decreasing among males (while still dropping for both primary genders), whereas among adults, it is primarily due to an increase in drinking among females in many countries.  Let that sink in for a moment.

And as Twenty-One Debunked has noted before, another such notable example of this is Germany, whose drinking age is still 16 for beer and wine, and 18 for distilled spirits.  In fact, one can even drink at 14 in public when accompanied by a parent or guardian, and there is no age limit for drinking in private residences.  Such laws have essentially been in effect for as long as anyone can remember (with perhaps the notable exception of the Nazi era), so what were the results of maintaining them in recent decades?  From 1979 to 2016, the percentage of 12-17 year old Germans who drink at least weekly dropped from 25.4% to 10.0%, a relative drop of more than 60%.  For 18-25 year olds, the percentage dropped by nearly half during the same timeframe, and from 1973-2016 dropped from from two out of three (67.1%) to less than one out of three (30.7%).  These trends are comparable to if not faster than the corresponding figures for American youth.

In other words, consider this the final nail in the coffin for the specious claim that the 21 drinking age had anything more than a minor impact on overall teen or young adult drinking.  Prost!

The Banality of Evil

Why is it that, despite all of those who fight against raising the latest age limits, after losing the battle, most of them suddenly go quiet?  I mean, the silence is truly deafening, as we saw after they raised the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s as well as the smoking age to 21 in recent years in some states and localities.

The answer is the "banality of evil", that is, it becomes normalized.   Just like every other form of tyranny and oppression, most people simply adapt to it.  And that is very dangerous, as history has so painfully shown time and time again. History may not exactly repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.

All the more reason to redouble our efforts, yesterday.  So what are we waiting for?