Happy Memorial Day!

This Memorial Day, let's not forget those who died for our country BEFORE they were old enough to drink legally.  A list of all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for America before the age of 21 since 2001 can be found here.  Let's also not forget the countless others who came back wounded as well.

Let America be America again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

Just How Dangerous Are Alcohol/Energy Drink Combinations?

Recently, there has been a great deal of scare stories regarding the supposed dangers of alcohol mixed with energy drinks (AMEDs for short).  In 2010 this led to the banning of premixed canned AMEDs such as the notorious Four Loko, which still is on the market but without the caffeine and taurine.  Of course, drinkers (and bartenders) are free (for now at least) to mix energy drinks with alcohol after obtaining them separately.  But are such fears (and laws based on them) actually warranted, or are they exaggerated?

A recent review of the scientific literature on the topic of AMEDs suggests that the dangers have been greatly exaggerated.  After surveying numerous studies of the effects of combining the two beverages, the authors concluded that there was, contrary to popular opinion:

• virtually no hard evidence that adding energy drinks to the mix significantly alters the behavioral effects of alcohol
• no reliable evidence that energy drinks significantly affect the perceived level of intoxication by drinkers
• zero evidence that mixing energy drinks with alcohol increases the odds of alcohol or drug abuse or dependence, and
• no significant adverse health effects for healthy individuals from combining energy drinks and alcohol in moderation.

Of course, it should go without saying that both alcohol and energy drinks, alone or in combination, can indeed be harmful when consumed to excess.  Also, one should always remember that caffeine (in energy drinks or otherwise) does not make a drunk person less impaired or more able to drive.  The best take-home message from all this is that moderation is the key.

In the case of Four Loko and similar drinks, it appears that the real issue was not that it contained alcohol and caffeine in combination, but rather that it contained such large amounts of each per can.  One 23-ounce can apparently contained the equivalent of 5 shots of vodka and 3 cans of Red Bull, and typically cost less than $3.00.  Such cheap and highly potent concoctions don't exactly promote moderation.  But unfortunately that fact was lost in all the hysteria over alcohol and energy drinks.

Hand Sanitizer Hype

Anyone who has looked at the news in the past two weeks is probably familiar with the latest moral panic:  teenagers drinking hand sanitizer to get drunk.   Apparently, most hand sanitizers (which unlike beer don't have an age limit) contail large amounts of ethanol (i.e. drinking alcohol), up to 60-70% in fact--making it nearly as strong as 151.  So strong, in fact, that some teens ended up in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning as a result.  (WARNING:  DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!)  And the media are clearly eating it up.

But is there really any reason to panic?  Probably not.  For one thing, overall teenage drinking is actually at a record low according to the Monitoring the Future survey and other surveys.  Secondly, alcohol "surrogates" are nothing new--vanilla extract, mouthwash, and cough medicine all typically contain alcohol and have no age limit to purchase them despite the fact that they are (ironically) more harmful than normal alcoholic beverages.  There have always been at least some people consuming them, and there is zero hard evidence that surrogates in general are any more popular among young people today than they were a generation ago.  In fact, very few teens actually end up resorting to drinking sanitizer or any other surrogate alcohol, and so far the number reportedly ending up in the ER from sanitizer remains in the single digits.  But just like moral panics and media hype about glue-sniffing in the 1960s actually made the practice more popular among teenagers, there is the same potential for hand sanitizer to follow such a trend if the media keeps at it long enough.

One thing is clear, however.   The idea that the drinking age should be 21 (as opposed to 18) to keep booze away from high-schoolers now appears to be even more of a canard in light of the fact that kids of any age can just drink sanitizer (and other more harmful surrogates) to catch a cheap buzz when all else fails.  It appears that this "trickle-down" theory is just as bogus as the other one.

If all this sounds similar to what happened during Prohibition, you would be correct.  "Paint remover" (industrial denatured alcohol) and various patent medicines like "ginger jake" were among the surrogates used by drinkers in the 1920s, with disastrous consequences.   Sadly, as many as 10,000 people died as a result, and their blood lies on the hands of the feds who mandated the deliberate poisoning of alcohol surrogates while simultaneously denying legal, quality-controlled alcoholic beverages to the people for thirteen years in a row.  The results were all too painfully predictable.  And unfortunately, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

When Alcohol Retreats, Cannabis Advances (And Vice-Versa)

A number of studies suggest that alcohol and cannabis (marijuana) are economic substitutes, meaning that when one increases, the other tends to (albeit unequally) decrease.  The past five years are one example of such opposing trends.  Thus, one apparent unintended consequence of raising the drinking age to 21 was a modest increase in cannabis use among 18-20 year olds and high school seniors.

The most recent study by Crost and Guerrero (2011) found that, using a regression discontinuity approach, upon turning 21 young adults tend to increase their drinking and decrease their cannabis use, both in terms of probability and frequency.  The authors estimate from this pattern that the 21 drinking age law decreases past-month alcohol use by 16% while increasing past-month cannabis use by 10% among 18-20 year olds.  The apparently larger effect size for alcohol may reflect greater reporting bias of drinking (which is illegal before 21 but legal afterward) relative to cannabis use (which is illegal for all ages), so the real effect on alcohol may be considerably smaller.  This study dovetails nicely with an older study by DiNardo and Lemieux (2001), which found that raising the drinking age to 21 in the 1980s led to a decrease in self-reported alcohol use accompanied by an increase in self-reported cannabis use by high school seniors, though both effects were fairly small.  It also dovetails somewhat with the webmaster's own (albeit unscientific) observations of his peers' behavior in high school and especially college.

Further evidence for substitution effects can be found in another recent study by Anderson and Rees (2011).  This study found that legalization of medical cannabis was associated with a modest increase in self-reported cannabis use among young adults aged 18-25 (but not among people under 18) and a modest decrease in alcohol sales and consumption.  Even more notably, legalization of medical cannabis was associated with a 9% decrease in traffic fatailites, which was most likely a result of reduced alcohol consumption.  Also, the same DiNardo and Lemieux study mentioned before found that state-level decriminalization of cannabis was associated with a decrease in drinking among high school seniors, even though there was no corresponding increase in cannabis use (actually, both went down).  Interestingly, in contrast to the effects of the drinking age, higher beer taxes were found to reduce both alcohol and cannabis use.

So is this apparent substitution effect of the 21 drinking age a good thing or a bad thing?  While it is true that unadulterated cannabis is generally safer than alcohol by just about any objective measure of harmfulness, neither substance is absolutely safe for everyone, and most of the pro-21 crowd would probably not be very thrilled about an increase in cannabis use.    Furthermore, reporting bias may very well overstate the effects of the drinking age on alcohol (but not cannabis) use, and thus the net effect is uncertain.  Even though probability and frequency of drinking may be reduced somewhat by a 21 drinking age, the intensity of the clandestine drinking that remains may very well increase to more dangerous levels for a variety of reasons.  More ominously, though there have been no direct studies to our knowledge of the effects of the drinking age on hardcore drug (cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, etc.) or prescription drug abuse among teens and young adults, it is nonetheless plausible that there may be some substitution of those more dangerous substances for alcohol as well.  After all, the crack epidemic of the late 1980s and early 1990s roughly coincided with the drinking age being raised to 21, and the more recent increase in prescription drug abuse coincided with increasingly tougher enforcement of the 21 drinking age.  And while the gateway drug theory is largely a bogus concept, as long as cannabis remains illegal, users will continue to expose themselves to dealers who may also be peddling more dangerous wares.

While Twenty-One Debunked does not take an explicit position on whether cannabis should be legalized, it should be noted that our parent organization, the True Spirit of America Party (TSAP), fully supports cannabis legalization for all adults 18 and over.  And Twenty-One Debunked believes that, if and when cannabis does become legal, the age limit should be 18 rather than 21, for many of the same reasons that we believe that the drinking age should be lowered to 18.

The Invisible Knapsack

Two decades ago, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh coined the term "invisible knapsack" to refer to the subtle and not-so-subtle advantages that come with white privilege and male privilege resulting from inequality.  She describes such privilege as being "like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks".  The idea is that while we are generally taught that racism and sexism put some people (i.e. women and people of color) at a disadvantage, we are often taught to remain blissfully unaware of its corollary advantages that accrue to white males.  Hence, the "invisible knapsack" of privilege.

We at Twenty-One Debunked couldn't help but notice just how much this metaphor also relates to America's 21 drinking age and the "over-21 privilege" that results.  Being well over 21 myself, as the webmaster and founder of Twenty-One Debunked I have put together a list of advantages in the invisible knapsack of over-21 privilege that people like myself carry every day.  As a person over 21, as long as I have an ID to prove it:

1. I can buy alcoholic beverages at any store that sells them, in any quantity I wish.
2. I can enter pretty much any bar or nightclub of my choosing without fearing that people of my age group cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
3. If I do not want to associate with people under 21, I may frequent numerous establishments that ban younger people from entering.
4. I am never asked to speak for all of the people in my age group, nor do I have to worry about my individual behavior reflecting on my entire age group.
5. I can legally host a drinking party with my friends, as long as all the guests are over 21.
6. I can join my co-workers for happy hour after work, and even talk about it at work, without any sort of shame.
7. When I go out with people under 21, it is generally understood that one (or more) of them will be the designated driver instead of me.
8. Generally speaking, I can drink alcoholic beverages fairly openly without having to worry about getting arrested, fined, jailed, expelled, having my driver's license revoked, or being publicly humiliated.
9. As long as I am not driving, I can legally get as drunk as I please in many states. 
10. Even in states where public drunkenness is technically illegal, the cops are unlikely to arrest me unless my behavior is really out of control.
11. If I get in alcohol-related trouble on campus, I will likely face lesser penalties, and I will not have to worry about my parents being notified without my consent.
12. If I think one of my peers may have alcohol poisoning, there would be no reason for me to hesitate to call 911 for fear of the law (and vice-versa).
13. I can have a drink or two (or maybe even three!) before driving without having to worry about being over the legal limit for DUI.
14. Even if I drive while over the limit, I can be assured that drunk drivers in my age group will NOT be the highest law enforcement priority.
15. If I choose to drive drunk, I can know that I am statistically more likely to kill someone under 21 than the other way around.
16. Even if I had several convictions for DUI or drunken violence, I can rest assured that I will still be allowed to buy and consume alcohol.
17. I enjoy less scrutiny over my own behavior, because I live in a society in which young people are scapegoated for adult problems.
18. I do not have to worry about being a good role model when it comes to drinking, since people under 21 can be punished (often severely) for emulating me.
19. Finally, I have a much better chance of being taken seriously on the issue of lowering the drinking age, without being accused of selfishness or immaturity.

And the list goes on.  As we see, the 21 drinking age is not just about disadvantaging people under 21, but giving unearned advantages to people over 21 as well.  And while some of these advantages are positive rights that should be extended to everyone (or at least all adults over 18), others are not "rights" at all, but wrongs that are an unfortunate byproduct of setting arbitrary age limits and of adultism in general.  Still others could be considered either rights or wrongs depending on the context.  And let's not forget the luxury of being able to ignore the issue entirely.

So, are the advantages found in this invisible knapsack really worth it?  Many people over 21 would say yes, but upon closer examination these advantages actually come at a hefty price, even for people over 21.  Just think about social host liability laws, other annoying ancillary laws, millions of tax dollars wasted on enforcement, loss of social cohesion, and precedent that can be used to make our supposedly free country even more of a police state.  In fact, the only people over 21 who, on balance, really benefit from the status quo are the ones who least deserve to benefit--those who drive drunk or otherwise behave irresponsibly when it comes to alcohol, as well as those parents who would rather stick their heads in the sand than teach their kids how to drink responsibly.

Do you hear that?  That's (hopefully) the sound of the pro-21 crowd throwing up all of the proverbial Kool-Aid they drank long ago.

2022 UPDATE:  Ten years after writing this, we felt the need to update this list to also include tobacco and cannabis well.  The smoking age for the former was raised to 21 in recent years, and all the states that legalized cannabis set the age limit at 21 as well.

Do Movies Drive Adolescents to Drink?

Just in time for the new movie Project X, a new study comes out that suggests that movies with scenes of alcohol consumption apparently leads to more "binge" drinking among teenagers.  The cross-sectional study, conducted in six European nations (Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, and Scotland) did in fact find a statistically significant correlation in five of the six countries, and the mainstream media are really eating it up.

However, correlation is not the same as causation.  Famous 18th century philosopher David Hume's criteria for causation requires three criteria:  1) association (correlation), 2) temporal precedence (which came first), and 3) isolation (from all potentially confounding variables).  While the first one was found, the second was not (a cross-sectional study can never determine temporality), and while the third one was attempted, it is very difficult to do in practice, especially with a single study.   So, even the authors concede that the study does not in itself prove causation due to the lack of data on temporal precedence, which really is the sine qua non of causation.  And while criterion #3 (isolation) is arguably a very stringent standard to apply, this study doesn't even meet many of the Bradford-Hill criteria favored by epidemologists.   So we have good reason to be skeptical of this study.

Due to the lack of data on temporality, reverse causation remains a plausible explanation (i.e. “binge” drinkers are more likely to prefer to watch movies about drinking and partying like Animal House, Van Wilder, Superbad, and the new Project X rather than the other way around). And there is always the possibility of residual confounding.  Interestingly, the study only looked at whether participants ever consumed 5 or more drinks in an evening, not whether they currently do or how often.  Also, one of the countries (Iceland) saw no significant association (in fact, it had the "wrong" sign) after adjustment for confounders.  But we at Twenty-One Debunked must point out even if the relationship is truly causal, it does not follow that censorship is the answer.   Better education about both alcohol AND media literacy seems to be a better solution for a country that is supposed to be a free society.

In the USA and Canada (neither were included in the study), we know that self-reported teen drinking and “binge” drinking (except perhaps for American college students) has significantly declined in the past decade or so in spite of the apparent increase in these types of movies.  In fact, high school drinking is at a record low in both countries as of 2011.  In a similar vein, teen pregnancy rates in the USA, though still the highest in the industrialized world, are also at a record low despite the fact that TV and movies today are by far the raunchiest in history.

Perhaps we should listen to the wisdom of sociologist Mike Males.

A Critique of Barnum et al. (2012)

A new study by Barnum et al. (2012) on drinking age law enforcement was recently published online this month.  In this first-of-its-kind study, using data from 1975-2006 they find that birth cohorts exposed to tougher enforcement of PAULA (possession of alcohol under the legal age) laws (as measured by underage drinking arrest rates) from ages 15-20 had modestly lower arrest rates for assault and vandalism between the ages of 15-24.  This remained true even when age effects, period effects, relative cohort size, and percentage of nonmarital births were controlled for.   But was it really a causal relationship?

While the authors appear to be convinced that this relationship is causal, we at Twenty-One Debunked note that there are plenty of reasons that this relationship could easily be spurious.  For example:

• Several other potentially important variables were not controlled for, including ones that may not have been captured by age and period effects.
• State-to-state variation was not explored at all.
• Arrest rates may have given biased estimates due to underreporting and changes in reporting rates and police practices over time, which can yield specious inferences.
• The strengths of the underage drinking laws themselves were not explored, only the enforcement of such laws as measured by arrest rates.
• Cohorts exposed to drinking ages of 18, 19, 20, and 21 were all lumped together, with no attempt to distinguish between them.
• No other crimes were explored besides assault and vandalism, and no distinction was made between types of assault (i.e. simple vs. aggravated).
• Allocating more resources towards arresting underage drinkers (and those who commit other victimless crimes) takes away from resources used to fight real crime, including assault and vandalism.  So, an increase in the former could lead to a spurious decrease in arrests for the latter in the absence of any real change in the latter.

Even if we accept the authors' conlcusions at face value, arresting underage drinkers does not appear to be a particularly cost-effective crime reduction strategy from a public safety standpoint.  The study reported that for every full unit increase in underage drinking arrests, there was only a 0.125 unit decrease in assault arrests and a 0.134 unit decrease in vandalism arrests.  Other sources note that on average, for every 1000 or so incidents of underage drinking, only one PAULA arrest occurs, making it a highly inefficent use of resources.  Law enforcement resources would thus be better spent actually targeting real crimes rather than victimless ones like underage drinking.

The example of San Francisco is highly instructive in this regard.  In 1990-1992, they were a crack-infested, gang-ridden hellhole.  By 2000, violent crime had plummeted by half (and even more so for juveniles), and by 2009 they became one of the safest big cities in America.  And how did they manage to do this?  Did they employ a "broken-windows," zero-tolerance approach to the most minor offenses, especially by young people?  Hardly!  In fact, beginning in 1992 (the city's peak year for violent crime), they stopped enforcing their youth curfew law (which was completely abolished in 1995), and since then they have actually cut back on arresting young people for "status" offenses (such as underage drinking) and cannabis possession, making such offenses the lowest priorities.  In other words, "don't sweat the small stuff."   Meanwhile, the police freed up more resources to tackle serious crime, and managed to build better relations with the community.  While the exact reasons for the drop in crime are not entirely clear, and several other cities nationwide saw similar improvements, it certainly casts doubt on the authors' thesis that cracking down on underage drinking reduces crime.

Interestingly, 'Frisco teens also show significantly lower rates of violence, "binge" drinking, driving after drinking, drinking in general, cannabis use, huffing, and crack/cocaine use compared with the national average according to the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.   Furthermore, the rates in San Francisco are comparable to or lower than those in NYC (and dropped at a similar or faster rate) despite the latter city's notoriously heavy-handed police tactics under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg.

Who Says Alcohol Education Doesn't Work?

Whenever the issue of lowering the drinking age comes up, proponents often feel compelled to fill the "void" by offering other policy solutions.   Aside from getting tougher on drunk driving (and drunk violence), the most common alternative touted is increased alcohol education.  Predictably, the opponents respond with claims that "education doesn't work" to actually change behavior or reduce alcohol-related harm.  And because it is nearly impossible to prove a negative, when pressed repeatedly they offer the caveat that there is simply "not enough evidence" either way to draw a firm conclusion about their effectiveness. 

Fortunately, nothing can be further from the truth.  The main reason why many alcohol "education" programs (especially school-based ones such as DARE) have tended to show little to no success is that they tend to be little more than a temperance lecture.   They typically fail to distinguish between use and abuse, and are often based on faulty assumptions.  In fact, many such programs are just plain disingenuous and often resort to exaggerated scare tactics.  Also, nearly every study of alcohol education programs looks only at short-term effects, and the absence of short-term effects does not imply the absence of longer-term benefits.  Some programs just need to be given more time to have their desired effects.

On the contrary, there ARE effective programs out there, ones that have been proven repeatedly to reduce dangerous drinking behaviors in both high school and college.  Some of them have even won awards for their effectiveness.  Examples of which include:

1)  The Hobart and William Smith Colleges' Alcohol Education Project, whose foundation is social norms marketing.  Devised by H. Wesley Perkins, it has been proven to reduce risky drinking behavior among college students in general, especially high-risk groups such as student athletes.   Immediate and persistent reductions in heavy drinking and its consequences were noted following implementation of this program.

2)  Web-based programs such as AlcoholEdu by Outside the Classroom.   Both the high school and college versions of the program have shown measurable benefits in reducing risky drinking behavior as well as changing students' attitudes about alcohol.  The user-friendly programs only take at most a few hours (typically two hours) to complete, and show immediate and often persistent effects despite the very short length of the programs. 

So why doesn't every high school and college utilize programs such as these?  One reason could be that some neoprohibitionists continue to denounce them as ineffective, though such claims are dubious at best.  Another reason is resistance to change, which can be observed in several other aspects of life as well.  But whatever the reason, it is simply false to claim that "education doesn't work".  Because it does--as long as it is conducted properly.  And our children--that is, our future--deserve nothing less.

On the other side of the pond, British social anthropologist Kate Fox has an even more controversial view of why many traditional alcohol education programs have had such meager success.  That is, exaggerating the "disinhibitory" effects of alcohol may actually promote alcohol-related misbehavior, and make alcohol seem more exciting and interesting to young people than it actually is.  Perhaps she is right.

The Twenty-One Debunked Creed

It has recently occured to us that, despite the fact that Twenty-One Debunked has existed for nearly two years, we have had yet to post an explicit and concise statement of what it is we actually believe aside from our relatively vague-sounding call to lower the drinking age to 18.  Ergo, here it is, the Twenty-One Debunked Creed:

We believe that 18-20 year olds are adults, not children, and should have the same rights and responsibilities that people over 21 currently enjoy, whether it involves alcohol or otherwise.

We believe that all adults over 18 are sovereign in body and mind, and that the onus is on the state to show that this is not true for a particular individual.  We believe it is wrong to punish all for the actions of the few.

We believe that consumption of alcoholic beverages by consenting adults age 18-20, in and of itself, is a victimless crime and is not sufficiently different from the same by adults over 21 to justify its prohibition.

We are 100% against driving under the influence of alcohol at ANY age, or any other acts that actually harm others (or create a definite and significant risk of harm to others), and believe there is absolutely no excuse for doing so.  We support tougher penalties and enforcement for those who drive or operate machinery while impaired, as well as those who commit acts of violence or other crimes while under the influence.  Alcohol-related misbehavior is a conscious choice and should be treated as such.

As much as we are fighting for the right to drink, we will fight twice as hard for the right NOT to drink, as well as the right to not be harmed by irresponsible drinkers of ANY age.

We believe that the United States of America was intended to be a free country, and those who can't handle living in a free society should take advantage of the best freedom we have to offer--the freedom to leave.

And that's the basic creed, in a nutshell.   It has much in common with the philosopher John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty.  That is:

The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

But what about the children, you ask?   Again, we defer to Mill's wisdom:

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood. Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury.

And generally speaking, the age of majority (adulthood) is currently 18 in the USA.  While we do not take a position on whether the drinking age should at some point in the future be made even lower than 18 (e.g. 16 like in some European nations), we currently do not believe that it is a worthwhile goal at the present time.   If and when the drinking age is lowered to 18, we support all reasonable efforts to enforce the new drinking age, but even so we do not support the use of harsh criminal penalties on the underage drinkers themselves.   Nor do we support any sort of social host laws that punish those who simply allow underage drinking on their private property without physically furnishing the alcohol.  Also, we believe that parents should be allowed to give alcohol to their own under-18 children (within reason).

What about those compromises we have mentioned or alluded to in other posts about zero tolerance laws and other alcohol restrictions on 18-20 year olds?  Actually, those are primarily based on pragmatism more than anything else.  For zero-tolerance DUI laws, we support keeping the status quo (age limit of 21) for now as any attempt to lower the drinking age would be certain to fail if that was changed as well.  However, we support reducing the penalties for very low BAC drivers (i.e. below 0.05) while at the same time dramatically raising them on higher BAC drivers of any age (see previous post).  The fact that driving after one drink is punished the same as ten drinks for drivers under 21 in some states is just plain ludicrous.   And while Twenty-One Debunked ideally wants the drinking age lowered to 18 across the board, we feel that another reasonable compromise would be to keep the purchase age at 20 or 21 for kegs, cases, or any other large bulk quantities of alcohol while otherwise lowering it to 18.   That should alleviate any hyped-up fears of increased high-school keggers, while still allowing 18-20 year olds to buy their own six-packs and go to bars.  But we will not make any other compromises, period.  And unlike Choose Responsibility, we do NOT support the idea of requiring a drinking license for 18-20 year olds.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

A New List of 39 Recommendations (Updated)

In 1982, President Reagan appointed a special commission to study the problem of drunk driving in America. They came up with 39 recommendations, #8 of which was to raise the drinking age to 21 in all 50 states. Of all the recommendations, that was the one that got the most attention, often at the expense of the others. Most of the other 38 were just simple common sense measures, and many of these were implemented to some extent in both the United States and Canada. 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 fact, the decline was slightly faster in Canada (ditto for the UK and Australia as well, who remained at 18).  And fatalities declined in all age groups, not just those under 21.  While the problem of drunk driving has been greatly reduced in both the US and Canada, it remains persistent.  We still hear all too often about innocent people killed by drunk drivers who already have multiple DUIs on their record, in addition to countless others who simply weren't caught until it was too late.

More than a quarter-century later, a new set of 39 recommendations is long overdue. We know a lot more about the problem now than we did in 1982, and have a better sense of what works in the long run and what does not. The nature of the problem has also changed, with most of the deaths caused by so-called "hardcore" DUI offenders who drive drunk repeatedly.  By the time someone finally gets caught even once, they had already driven drunk an average of 88 times--often hundreds of times.  And it's an open secret that the vast majority (nearly 9 out of 10) of them are over 21, with 21-24 year olds being the worst offenders of all.  Thus a multifaceted and wholehearted approach is essential. But what is currently being done is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive, and progress has stalled until very recently.  And as long as we keep following outdated methods, we will surely fail to see any further progress in the future.  The updated list, devised by Twenty-One Debunked, is as follows, with those in red being the highest priorities:

1. Lower the drinking age to 18, ideally in all 50 states and DC. The more states, the better.
2. Raise and equalize all of the federal alcohol taxes to the 1991 real value of the liquor tax. That would be $21.33/proof-gallon for all beverages, proportional to alcohol content.   Use the bulk of the revenue for education, treatment, and DUI enforcement.
3. Lower the blood alcohol limit to 0.05 BAC for administrative penalties, while keep the BAC limit 0.08 for criminal penalties, as some Canadian provinces have done.   Maintain a Zero Tolerance law (0.02 BAC) for drivers under 21 and/or all drivers with less than 3-5 years of licensed driving. 
4. Increase the number of roving patrols and sobriety checkpoints for DUI enforcement, and their publicity.  Checkpoints should be considered a supplement to patrols, not a substitute.
5. Increase alcohol education programs, but make them more honest and comprehensive. An excellent model is AlcoholEdu, by Outside the Classroom. This can also be combined with social norms marketing campaigns.
6. Toughen the penalties for driving under the influence, with graduated penalties based on BAC.  See the chart below. 
7. Make fines for DUI proportional to the relative risk at a particular BAC. For example, 0.15 would be 50-100 times higher than 0.05. 
8. Restrict alcohol advertising to no more than what is currently allowed for tobacco. That means no TV, radio, or billboards.
9. Increase alcohol treatment. Require all DUI offenders to undergo an alcohol assesment to determine if they have an alcohol use disorder. If so, force them into treatment via DUI court and monitor them electronically with a SCRAM bracelet, in addition to other penalties.
10. Use fines and fees from offenders to pay for enforcement of DUI laws, to make the program completely self-sustaining.
11. For the eight states that currently lack it, institute administrative license suspension/revocation. The administrative penalty for refusing a breathalyzer or any other test should be greater than or equal to that for failing it.
12. Have mandatory jail time for all DUI offenses of 0.08 or greater, including first offenses. Make driving with 0.15 BAC or higher a felony on the first offense, and 0.08 or higher a felony on the second offense, punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
13. Those who kill or seriously injure someone else in an alcohol-related, at-fault crash should get a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison, permanent license revocation, and forfeiture of any and all vehicles owned by that person upon conviction.
14. Do not allow plea bargains for any DUI offense.
15. For anyone convicted of drunk driving, drunk violence, or repeated drunk and disorderly conduct, blacklist them from buying alcohol or even entering a bar for at least a year or until age 21, whichever is longer.  Do the same for anyone furnishing alcohol to anyone under 18 that is not one's own child.
16. De-register any car owned (or registered) by a DUI offender, boot it, and confiscate the plates upon arrest.  Or better yet, impound the vehicle at the offender's expense.  When (if) they get their license back, or get a conditional license, give them special "scarlet letter" DUI plates. 
17. Require ignition interlocks for all conditional licenses, and for any DUI offender that gets their license back, forever.
18. Make ignition interlocks standard on all newly manufactured vehicles sold in the USA, with use and maintenance of these devices voluntary for non-offenders.
19. Abolish the "assigned risk" pools for auto insurance, or at least forbid any DUI offenders from joining them.
20. Repeal all "alcohol exclusion" laws for insurance, which have been shown to do more harm than good.
21. Make it a federal crime to drive drunk across state lines.  Punishable by a mandatory 5 years hard labor in federal prison.
22. Eliminate any rules of evidence that prohibit admission of chemical test refusals--it should be used against a DUI defendant in court.
23. Make the road test tougher--an hour long like it is in the UK.
24. Make licenses easier to lose for moving violations, especially during the first two years.
25. Bring back free driver's ed classes for all high school and college students.
26. Require all drivers involved in fatal accidents to be tested for alcohol and drugs.
27. Lift state-mandated smoking bans in bars, which have been shown to increase DUI fatalities.
28. Extend bar hours to 3 am or later, but have a one-way door policy after 1 or 2 to reduce late night bar-hopping. Or let the locals decide rather than the state.
29. Raise the gas tax by a penny each week until it is $1.00 higher than it currently is.  Call it "a penny for progress."
30. Improve public transportation, especially very late at night. Use the alcohol and gas taxes to pay for it.
31. Lift any cap on the number of taxicabs wherever it exists, or better yet, subsidize taxi service to reduce the costs.
32. Encourage the hospitality industry to set up "safe rider" programs, particularly in rural areas.
33. Limit or reduce alcohol outlet density in cities and other high-density areas, but increase it in rural areas. More rural bars within walking distance = less drunk driving deaths.
34. Dry counties and towns should go wet, especially if their neighbors are wet.
35. Abolish all social host laws, both civil and criminal. Furnishing alcohol to minors should not include merely providing a safer location to drink.
36. Put a price floor on alcoholic beverages, especially for off-premises sales.
37. Kegs and cases of beer should be sold only in beer distributors, which should close at 10 pm. A purchase age limit higher than 18 may be desirable for such bulk quantities, which are very unlikely to be for personal use. Ditto for very large quantities (i.e. multiple liters) of hard liquor.
38. Increase media campaigns against drunk driving, similar to the Australian model.
39. Last but not least, park a police car in front of every bar possible to watch for drunks getting into their cars about to drive.  Then nail them.  It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Recomendation #1 implies that, at the very least, we should repeal the federal highway funding penalty for doing so, and let the states use their Constitutional rights to decide for themselves. Recommendations #3, #4, and especially #21 should take care of any potential adverse effects of unequal drinking ages across states or internationally, as well as dry counties that refuse to go wet.

To avoid collateral damage, recommendation #2 should not apply to microbrewers. Their beer is already relatively expensive anyway, and those who abuse alcohol tend to go for the mass-produced, cheap stuff.

If all 39 of these recommendations were followed, the alcohol-related fatality rates should be cut by at least half in the first year alone. If only the ones in red were followed, or even just the first six, there would still be a dramatic drop in fatalities in both the short and long term. Some of them, such as #1, are a bit counterintuitive (the whole purpose of this blog explains in detail why #1 is actually a good thing rather than something to fear).

When we say graduated penalties, the table below is a good guide to what they should be:

BAC Threshold	First offense	Subsequent offenses within 10 years
0.02-0.08 (under 21 or novice, administrative only)	$250 fine ($500 if over 0.05) 30 day suspension (90 day if over 0.05) 3 day impoundment	$500 fine 6 month suspension (2nd), 1 year revocation or until 21 (3rd or 2nd over 0.05) 7 day impoundment Ignition interlock 1 year or until 21
0.05-0.08 (administrative only)	$500 fine 3 day suspension 3 day impoundment	$750 fine (2nd), $1000 (3rd) 30 day suspension (2nd), 1 year revocation (3rd) 7 day impoundment (2nd), 30 day impoundment (3rd) Ignition interlock 1+ year
0.08-0.10 (criminal)	$1000 fine Minimum 1 year revocation (or until 21, whatever is longer) Mandatory 30 days in jail, up to 6 months Ignition interlock 5+ years after re-license	$2500 fine License revoked for at least 10 years (forever for 3rd offense) Mandatory 1+ year in jail (possible felony) Possible vehicle forfeiture upon conviction
0.10-0.15 (criminal)	$5000 fine Minimum 5 year revocation Mandatory 6 months jail, up to 1 year Ignition interlock forever	$7500 fine License revoked forever Mandatory 5 years prison (felony) Vehicle forfeiture upon conviction
0.15+ (felony)	$10,000 fine Minimum 10 year revocation Mandatory 1 year in prison, up to 5 years Ignition interlock forever	$20,000 fine License revoked forever Mandatory 5+ years prison (felony) Vehicle forfeiture upon conviction

In addition to (and independently of) criminal penalties, those who blow above 0.08 or refuse the test should be given the following immediate adminstrative penalties upon arrest:

Test failure, first offense:  90 day suspension, 7 day impoundment
Test failure, second offense in 5 years: 1 year suspension, 30 day impoundment
Test refusal, any offense:  1 year suspension, 30 day impoundment 

Conditional licenses should only be given for grave reasons, be highly restricted, and require ignition interlocks.

All offenses would require completion of an alcohol education program and alcohol abuse screening, paid for by the offender. 

Driving with a  BAC above 0.08 with kids under 16 in the car should be an automatic felony, and treated like 0.15+.

In other words, though we've clearly wrestled the problem to the ground, we have unfortunately allowed ourselves to become complacent and distracted.  It's time to finish the job.

Common Sense in Alberta, Canada

The Canadian province of Alberta (just north of Montana) has had a legal drinking age of 18 since 1970, when it was first lowered from 21 along with the age of majority.  Recently, a few police chiefs have been talking about wanting to raise the drinking age to 19, which it currently is in most other provinces except for Manitoba and Quebec.  They claim it would reduce binge drinking, drunk driving, and other alcohol-related problems among young people.  However, the current Tory government of the province doesn't buy that line of reasoning, and states that they have no intention to raise the drinking age.   Premier Alison Redford says that the move is "off the table", and we at Twenty-One Debunked couldn't agree more.

Instead, the provincial government is moving forward with plans to toughen up their DUI laws and make them similar to the successful model found in their neighboring province, British Columbia.  A previous post discusses the BC success story in more detail.

Before You Go Out Drinking--Watch This:

Here is a great Australian video everyone should watch about the dangers of driving under the influence, regardless of age.  It just might make you think twice before taking such a risk.  (Warning--contains some graphic images)



Moral of the story:  Drunk driving is like Russian roulette, and you never know who will be hit with the proverbial bullet when you play.  In fact it's worse because it all too often kills innocent people who aren't playing that stupid game.  It's actually very simple to avoid:  if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  Thus, there is no excuse.

ARRIVE ALIVE, DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE!!!

ATVs to Stop Underage Drinking? Really?

Police apparently have a new weapon in the perennial (and futile) crusade against "underage" drinking:  all-terrain vehicles.   Apparently raising the drinking age to 21, and the ever-toughening enforcement of this law, has (predictably) pushed teen drinking further and further into the woods than in the past, often into areas where cop cars can't enter.  But now, in some places (such as Enfield, CT) the police will use ATVs to patrol remote wooded areas to check for teen drinking parties.  No word yet on whether this has actually been successful in curbing "underage" drinking, but I think we already know the answer to that question, especially as far as 18-20 year olds are concerned.

In a word:  NO.

Instead of patrolling the woods in an attempt to ferret out "underage" drinkers, wouldn't it be better to use those resources to patrol the roads to hunt down drunk drivers of all ages?  That would save far more lives, but that would make too much sense, wouldn't it?

Have A Safe And Happy New Year

With the New Year's Eve festivities approaching, we at Twenty-One Debunked want to remind everyone to celebrate responsibly.  There is absolutely no excuse for drunk driving at any age, period.  We cannot stress this enough.  It's very simple--if you plan to drive, don't drink, and if you plan to drink, don't drive.  And there are numerous ways to avoid mixing the two.  Designate a sober driver, take a cab, use public transportation, crash on the couch, or even walk if you have to.  Or stay home and celebrate there.  Or don't drink--nobody's got a gun to your head.

The Truth is In: Swift Justice Works

According to the latest traffic fatality statistics, there was a 40% drop in alcohol-related traffic deaths in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) in the twelve months ending on September 30, 2011 compared to the same period a year ago.  Such a massive drop in a single year is quite noteworthy indeed.  While part of that may be due to significantly higher gas prices in 2011, the decrease in fatalities was apparently much larger in BC than the rest of the nation.  So it had to be something specific to that province as well.

About a year ago, there were significant changes to BC's impaired driving laws.  For example, under the new laws, if a driver is stopped by police and blows 0.05-0.08 BAC, the driver will immediately lose his or her license for three days for a first offense, a week for a second offense, and 30 days for a third offense.  Vehicles may be impounded for up to the same number of days each time.  If a driver blows 0.08 or higher, or refuses to be tested, he or she will lose his or her license for 90 days and the car may be impounded for up to 30 days.   There are also stiff fines and towing and storage costs, and an ignition interlock device must be installed (at the driver's expense) when the impoundment ends.  Thus, total costs can range from $600 to $4060 depending on the severity and number of offenses, and that alone can be a deterrent in itself for many people. 

These administrative roadside penalties are also quicker and easier to enforce (and process) than the Criminal Code penalties as well due to their streamlined nature.  Prior to the law change in September 2010, numerous drunk drivers (in fact the majority) were getting off relatively easily with only a 24-hour driving ban, while only relatively few were nailed with criminal charges and convictions.  Like the rest of Canada, there were fairly tough laws on the books, but enforcement of those laws was another story.  But since then, things have gotten much more consistent, and since police have spent less time processing suspects, they have had more time to catch drunk drivers.  And if you look at the data, you will see a decrease in criminal charges (despite presumably increased enforcement) since then along with the decrease in deaths.  It has been so successful that now the neighboring province of Alberta wants to adopt similar laws.

However, in November the BC Supreme Court had blocked some of these penalties from being enforced, after ruling that it violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because there was "no adequate avenue for review." Effectively, that aspect of the law was held to be unconstitutional by Canadian standards due to lack of recourse (i.e. due process) for those busted.  The three-day license suspensions and impoundments, on the other hand, can still be enforced for those who blow in the "warn" range of 0.05-0.08, along with the rest of the penalties, but for those who blow above 0.08, things will revert back to the old law until the current law is rewritten to comply with the Charter.  It remains to be seen whether these sanctions will be reinstated, and if not, what effect this will have on traffic fatalities in the future.

In the USA, most states have at least a milder version of what BC had instituted in 2010, usually minus the vehicle impoundment.  Called "administrative license suspension/revocation" (ALS/ALR), it has generally held up in the courts provided that there is at least some semblance of due process, which is typically just an informal DMV hearing.   This type of law has proven to be highly cost-effective in reducing traffic deaths.  And while a temporary license is generally given pending the hearing, short-term impoundment of the vehicle and the driver immediately following arrest is not unprecedented (see "John's Law") and can very easily occur in some states.  But all of these laws need to be strengthened and enforced better, as alcohol-related traffic fatalities remain unacceptably high despite being at a record low.   Since we now know what works and what doesn't, what are we waiting for?

UPDATE:  On Dec 23, just in time for the holidays, the judge who struck down parts of the controversial BC law ruled that the entire law can temporarily remain in effect as written until June 30, 2012, citing public safety concerns.  The province has until that date to amend the law so it will comply with the Charter, or else it will be automatically void after that date.  Which can and should be easily done simply by creating some kind of appeals process, and confirming any failed roadside breath tests with a more accurate machine.  That said, all penalties are back on the menu for now, so drunk drivers beware.

So Where Do Very Underage Drinkers Get Their Booze?

All 50 states and DC have a legal drinking age of 21 thanks to federal coercion, but apparently there are some parts of the country where the average age of onset of drinking is as low as 12.  Think about that for a moment--that's nine years below the legal age, and that's the average in some communities!

So with all of this very underage drinking going on, with numerous kids starting to drink nearly a decade before they are legal, where are they getting all that booze?  The answers can be found in a survey of kids in one such community in South Dakota.  And 37% of the kids surveyed said that friends over age 21 would buy it for them, while 8% got strangers to buy for them and 4% had other means.  But wait--wasn't raising the drinking age to 21 supposed to stop kids under 18 from getting their older friends to buy for them?  Guess not.

Of course, the average age of onset in the USA as a whole has generally been in the 16-17 range since 1965 despite fluctuations in the legal drinking age.  And the average age at first drink actually dropped from 16.6 in 1980 to 16.2 in 2002.  Even 8th graders (13 year olds!) can apparently their hands on alcohol more easily than even cigarettes, which have an age limit 18 in 46 states (and often poorly enforced).  There seems to be little to no correlation between the legal drinking age and the average age of onset of drinking.  But if not that, what does explain why some communities drink earlier (and/or more so) than others?  Like the above-referenced article points out, a combination of socioeconomic disadvantage, low alcohol prices, and the drinking patterns of their parents and grandparents seems to be the main culprit.  And there is nothing at all surprising about that.

A community group has made recommendations to address the problem.  Such recommendations include restricting alcohol advertising in the area, raising alcohol taxes, working with retailers on pricing and the placement of alcohol in stores, and increasing compliance checks on retailers by law enforcement.  We at Twenty-One Debunked believe that these commonsense measures are a good idea overall, and would support them even more if the drinking age was lowered to 18 as well.  Remember that the success story of Puerto Rico did not require a drinking age of 21 to succeed.  And nor did America's experience with tobacco use reduction over the past few decades require an increase in the smoking age to 21.

Happy 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 Thanksgiving Eve.

Thus, last year 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 (or until the sun goes down, whichever occurs earlier).  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 continue to observe this holiday until the drinking age is lowered to 18 in all 50 states.

Yet Another Sketchy Study--DEBUNKED!

A recent study now claims that raising the drinking age to 21 saves the lives of roughly 1200 women per year who otherwise would have died of suicide or homicide, including later in life as well.  The pro-21 crowd (and the media) are really eating it up.  But is it really true, or should we be skeptical?

It turns out that there are in fact several reasons one should be skeptical of such an audacious claim.  First of all, there was no noticeable effect of the drinking age on suicide and homicide rates among the general population exposed to the law change--only when the results were separated by gender was any sort of pattern noticed, and only among women born after 1960.  The fact that men (who tend to drink more than women, and who also are more likely to kill themselves and others) were completely unaffected is very difficult to explain away assuming the effect is genuine.  Secondly, the odds ratios were fairly small, 1.12 and 1.15, and any odds ratios less than 2.0 ought to be taken with a grain of salt (if not a whole pound).  It could very likely be the result of chance, bias, or confounding factors.  Thirdly, the study only looked at where the individuals were born, not where they lived at age 18. Fourthly, comparing the USA with countries with lower drinking ages does not appear to support the claim that allowing 18-20 year olds to drink results in higher homicide and suicide rates.  For example, Canadians of both genders have lower homicide rates than Americans, and suicide rates that are intermediate between the lower 48 states and Alaska.

Unfortunately, we were unable to access the full text of the study, so we don't know what confounders (if any) the authors attempted to adjust for, except for state and birth-year fixed effects.   However, since summaries of the study say that the effect was seen in 38 out of 39 states, that implies that the 12 states that did not change the drinking age at all (remained at 21 throughout) were not included.  This is important since that would be a rudimentary way to test for secular trends, as we have done in this previous post.  So many other things have changed during that time, making it difficult to tease out the impact of the drinking age change.  And why weren't women (or men for that matter) born before 1960 affected?  This study seems to leave the reader with more questions than answers.

The true believers in the 21 drinking age will need a lot more convincing in the error of their ways, however. That's why we took the initiative and looked up the mortality data ourselves in the publicly available CDC WONDER database. And here is what we found:

Female homicides, all USA:

Female suicides, all USA:

Female homicides, "always-21" states:

Female suicides, "always-21" states:

Female homicides, "18 at some time" states

Female suicides, "18 at some time" states

The above charts look at the female homicide and suicide rates of various age cohorts (15-19, 20-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54) for the years 1979-1998.  The study we are critiquing used the years 1990-2004 instead of 1979-1998, but we felt the latter would be more appropriate since a) the WONDER data are grouped into 1979-1998 and 1999-2007, each with somewhat different death codes, and b) more cohorts would be included.  Voila--there is essentially no difference in the patterns of either rate over time between the various groups of states (all states, states that were always 21, and states that were 18 at some time) despite changes in the legal drinking age.

It is really transparent and obvious why a study like this would come out now, at a time when many policymakers are seriously considering lowering the drinking age.  After the arguments about drunk driving fatalities have been debunked time and time again, it was necessary to come up with other "public health" arguments for continuing to violate the civil rights of 18-20 year old young adults.  But make no mistake--these arguments are really just a more socially acceptable way of saying that some people's rights are more important than others.  That is, the antithesis of what America supposedly stands for.

Australia Revisited

Every once in a while, it seems that a vocal minority of Australians want to raise their country's drinking age (currently 18) to 21.  Recently, this issue has been revisited due to the nation's notorious drinking problem, in a land where binge drinking is an art form among all ages.  But many Australians are not at all convinced that raising the drinking age will solve anything. 

A case in point is the New South Wales Police Commissioner, Andrew Scipione, who originally suggested that the drinking age should be raised but is now against the idea.  He knows that it would not fix anything, and that the real problems have other solutions.  For example, Professor Sandra Jones (University of Wollongong) notes that raising the prices of alcohol (i.e. through taxes and/or a price floor), reducing overall availability, and reducing advertising would all go a long way to reducing Australia's drinking problem, citing the nation's experience with cigarettes.  But more fundamentally, the problem is largely a cultural one that raising the drinking age simply won't do jack to fix.  And all they have to do to is come to America to see what we mean.

For more info about Australia's drinking age debate, see our previous post about this issue.

Still More Things Underage Drinkers Didn't Do (Part 4)

See previous posts. In the past week or so:

An underage drinker did NOT injure six innocent children at once while driving drunk.

An underage drinker did NOT drunkenly flip her vehicle with her 4 year old inside, fleeing the scene alone with the child still inside (while her other two kids were left home alone).

An underage drinker did NOT get in a drunken rage and rip the door off of a house and assault her boyfriend because he refused to have sex with her. (Yes, you read that correctly!)

An underage drinker did NOT go to a bar and start two separate fights--with his 9 month old baby in tow.

An underage drinking couple did NOT get sloshed at a Cleveland Browns game, get into a fight, and leave their 9 year old foster son with some strangers.

The presumably drunk homeless man who allegedly raped an elderly woman that was trying to help him was well over 21.

An underage drinker did NOT leave her 9 month old twin babies home alone in a playpen so she could go out on a drinking binge.

An underage drinker did NOT drive so wasted that he stopped at green lights and ran the red ones, and eventually killed an elderly man.

An underage drinker did NOT drive drunk and kill two pedestrians on a bridge.

And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Still More Things Underage Drinkers Didn't Do (Part 3)

See previous post.  In the past few weeks or so:

An underage drinker did NOT take two naked men hostage the morning after a night of forgotten drunken sexual activity "in case she was raped".

An underage drinker did NOT get sloshed and then get busted committing the apparent "crime" of "impersonating a stripper" at the local "gentleman's club".

An underage drinker did NOT get busted TWICE for DUI within a span of two days, with her kids in the car, after rear-ending another car on the road.

An underage drinker did NOT give his daughter a black eye and then drunkenly wreck his vehicle with his kids inside, abandoning it with the kids still inside, and then resist arrest when busted.

An underage drinker did NOT drunkenly rear-end another vehicle in his SUV while more than double the legal BAC limit, with his 5 year old son in the car with him.

An underage drinker did NOT drunkenly hit and injure a police bicycle officer with his van.

An underage drinker did NOT drunkenly crash into a police cruiser and try to drive away.

An underage drinker did NOT drunkenly crash into and kill two people who were riding a motorcycle--but both of the victims were under 21, and thus never got a chance to drink legally.

And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.  Funny how what people over 21 do is their own business, but whatever an 18-20 year old does is used to justify abridging the civil rights of all 12 million 18-20 year olds. Honestly, does that really make any sense?

"Liquorlining" is a Bad Idea

New research from the UK (where the drinking age is 18) shows that, as the number of off-premise alcohol outlets in an area increases, the number of people under 18 who end up in the hospital for alcohol-related reasons also increases.  This study adds to the substantial body of research in several countries (including the USA) that high outlet density increases alcohol-related problems (and crime) for all ages.  And there is really nothing at all surprising about this fact, as teen drinking behaviors closely track those of the adults in their families and communities more than anything else.

There is no sound reason to have liquor stores on every corner, and you would think that reducing outlet density (even marginally) would be a top priority at least for the more holier-than-thou members of the pro-21 crowd.  But apparently it is not, and again we are not surprised, as money is the roach of all evil and the hypocrisy of the pro-21 crowd is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

We do not have a "teen drinking problem", we have an American drinking problem which affects all ages.  And it demands real solutions based on real science, not cowardly age discrimination and scapegoating based on junk science.

More Things Underage Drinkers Didn't Do (Part 2)

See previous post.  This time, in the past few weeks or so:

An underage drinker did NOT beat his wife's head in with a rock in a drunken rage, killing her.

An underage drinker did NOT stomp his fiancee's Yorkshire terrier to death in a drunken rage.

An underage drinker did NOT get so wasted he thought it was a good idea to let his 8 year old son drive instead--but then again, at least his son was (hopefully) sober.

The cop who got a DUI while pulling a DARE trailer, of all things, was well over 21.

An underage drinker did NOT force a 40-ounce bottle of beer on her 4 year old son and give her 10 month old daughter a baby bottle that likely contained booze.

An underage drinker did NOT kill five Amish people when he drunkenly sideswiped a van.

An underage drinker did NOT get passed-out drunk in his filthy trailer while his 18 month old son (you read that right) was left outside to drink from open beer bottles scattered about on the porch.

An underage drinker did NOT cause a three-vehicle crash that sent a bus colliding into a McDonalds.

An underage drinker did NOT cause a six-car pile-up when he drunkenly crashed his semi-truck on the highway.

An underage drinker did NOT put a career Marine on life support after drunkenly crashing into him.

And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

21 Turns 27

This past Sunday, July 17, was the 27th anniversary of the signing of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act.   This was the law that coerced states to raise the drinking age to 21 or lose 10% of their annual highway funding.  It was signed by President Reagan--so much for "states' rights" and "limited government."  Every state except Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and (until 2010) Guam had sold out and went with the flow.  We would have though for sure that the southern states would have at least threatened to secede as a result, but money is the roach of all evil.  It was upheld by the highest court in the land when some states decided to fight it, and those states eventually capitulated.   But that was not all--the precedent was set for further federal financial coercion, even when it was not directly related to the funding.  Thus, a piece of America died that day.

One can only hope this un-American law will join the "Forever 27 club."

Let America be America again, and lower the drinking age to 18.  If you're old enough to go to war, you're old enough to go to the bar.  'Nuff said.

Things Underage Drinkers Didn't Do (Part 1)

Dave Hitt has a great website, Quick Hitts, with a section titled, "Things Atheists Didn't Do."  It is a list of recent, high-profile cases of the crimes, follies, and misadventures of religious fanatics.  We at Twenty-One Debunked have decided to do something similar.  From time to time, we will post "Things Underage Drinkers Didn't Do", a (partial) list of all the high-profile drunken crimes, follies, and misadventures involving people age 21 and over during the past week or so.  Every case we list occurred in the USA or one of the few other countries where the drinking age is 21, and nearly all cases have no mention of other substances involved.  All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

PART ONE

An underage drinker did NOT "misplace" his baby on the sidewalk after drinking.

An underage drinker did NOT get naked and take a dump in his neighbor's garage.

An underage drinker did NOT kill her teenage son in a drunk-driving crash.

An underage drinker did NOT try to kidnap two teenage girls like this creep did.

An underage drinker did NOT need to be tasered after drunkenly killing a young man and injuring another at 100 mph.

An underage drinker did NOT leave her 3 year old son alone at the pool to get beer money so she could get wasted.

An underage drinker did NOT possibly set a new record for Georgia's highest BAC level (FIVE TIMES the legal limit!) while driving with one's kids in the car in broad daylight.

An underage drinker did NOT drunkenly drive her SUV and smash into a fire station, injuring her teenage daughter who was riding with her.

An underage drinker did NOT get so incredibly wasted that he was completely oblivious that the pedestrian he hit while driving drunk (and landed inside his car) was dead.

An underage drinker did NOT kill a Red Cross volunteer in a drunk-driving crash.

An underage drinker did NOT kill his passenger when he drunkenly sideswiped a train.

The Melrose Place actress who allegedly drove drunk and killed an (almost) elderly New Jersey woman and actually had the audacity to laugh afterwards was well over 21.

Also, none of the police officers recently busted for DUI (one of which drove with his 3 year old son) were underage either.

And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Excellent Alternet Post about the Drinking Age

The recent post on Alternet about the drinking age is probably one of the few (if not the only) occasion the progressive alternative news site wrote an article about this issue.   It is surprising that they don't discuss it more frequently, especially given their very liberal stance on the legalization of other psychoactive substances.  It is truly refreshing to see them be in favor of liberty and justice for all, not liberty for "just us" like some so-called "progressives" and drug-law reformers.

The article, which is clearly in favor of lowering the drinking age, does almost as good a job at debunking the latest Carpenter and Dobkin study as we did back in May.  It also discusses the wisdom of Barrett Seaman, author of Binge: What Your College Student Won't Tell You and current president of Choose Responsibility.  Seaman knows what a failure the 21 drinking age has been, especially on college campuses.  In addition, the article points out just how out of step America is with the rest of the civilized world.

As for the book Binge, while we at Twenty-One Debunked agree wholeheartedly with Seaman's evaluation of the failure of the 21 drinking age and how the law appears to throw gasoline on a fire (so to speak), the author does seem to over-egg the pudding a bit on the other issues he discusses when comparing today's campus life to the way it was in the 1960s when he was in college in upstate New York.  Yes there are kernels of truth in what he says, but we hardly believe that today's students are embroiled in the kind of crisis he appears to suggest they are in.  There is definitely a nostalgia bias at work here.  And while we question whether technology really deserves much of the blame for the apparent "disconnection" he notes, we certainly agree that the 21 drinking age (which artificially and arbitrarily divides members of the college community) certainly isn't helping.

What is it about July?

July is just around the corner, and we thought you should know some interesting facts about the seventh month of the year.

• When drinking age laws have been changed in the past, July is the month in which it has historically occured the most.
• The National Minimum Drinking Age Act was signed into law on July 17, 1984.
• Wyoming, the last state to raise the drinking age to 21, signed its bill into law on July 1, 1988.
• The territory of Guam raised its drinking age from 18 to 21 on July 8, 2010, effective immediately.
• The two most dangerous days of the year in terms of traffic fatalities are July 3 and July 4, despite the fact that the most dangerous month is August.
• And of course, July 4 is Independence Day in the United States, and July 1 is Canada Day north of the border.

Latest News Roundup

There have been several relevant news stories lately, including the following:

1)  Scotland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom with a notorious drinking and violence problem, has officially allowed (and is trying to encourage) certain local authorities to locally ban off-premise alcohol sales to 18-20 year olds, while leaving the on-premise purchase age and overall drinking age at 18.  While some welcome the move, others feel it is a backdoor attempt at a blanket ban on alcohol purchase by 18-20 year olds.  But will Scotland Yard* actually enforce it?

2)  The Indian state of Maharashtra, in which Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) is located, has just raised the drinking age to 21 for beer and 25 for liquor.  Previously, it was 18 for beer and 21 for hard liquor.  However, there is one massive loophole that renders it a joke overall:  there is still no age limit for wine, and there never was before either.  As for enforcement, don't hold your breath:  in Delhi, one of the states where the drinking age has been 25 for years, the law is flouted so much that on a busy night, as many as 90% of bar partons are underage.  They simply don't have the resources or political will to do so.  Ditto for the long-standing law in Maharashtra where anyone who buys alcohol is required to have a permit to do so--almost no one bothers to get one.  In fact, it turns out that the age limit on the books for liquor has already been 25 since 1949--but no one seemed to know it until yesterday!  Currently, out of India's 28 states, there are three that set the drinking age at 18 across the board, two that set it at 25 across the board, three which are totally dry for all ages, and the remainder are either 21 across the board or have a split drinking age like Maharashtra.

3)  New Zealand still has yet to raise the drinking age, as was recently proposed.  But a new report by Sir Peter Gluckman may add fuel to the fire, encouraging the country to raise the drinking age to 21.  Don't worry, though--there's nothing in it that we haven't already debunked before.  Before they even think about raising the drinking age from 18 to 21, perhaps they should actually start enforcing the current law and closing its loopholes.

4)  Apparently Baby Boomers (ages 50-65) in the USA are still drinking too much.  You know, the same generation that hypocritcally denied todays young people the same freedom they had when they were younger.  No surprise there.  Of course, there is always that vexing question of whether they drink so much now because they were allowed to drink at 18 and got hooked more as a result.  If so, there may be some slight justification for their hypocrisy.  However, we at Twenty-One Debunked tested that hypothesis ourselves, using alcohol rehab admission statistics from the SAMHDA database from 1992-2008.  Comparing affected age cohorts in the national data does appear to superficially support that hypothesis, but it falls flat when one notices that there was essentially no difference in such patterns between states that kept the drinking age at 21 (such as California and Pennsylvania) throughout versus similar states that changed their drinking ages (such as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts) as well as the nation as a whole.  This is true for both alcohol-specific cases as well as total cases.  Thus, it appears to be a Boomer effect rather than a law effect, and the hypocrisy is not justified in the least.

We at Twenty-One Debunked feel that any attempt to raise the drinking age in any nation is a fool's errand, and will not solve any drinking problems in the long run.  In fact, the focus on 18-20 year olds can lead a nation to ignore the pink elephant in the room.  There has never been any society where adults drink but teens do not, nor has the reverse ever been true.  It's time to stop scapegoating young people for adult problems.

(*That was a test to see if you are paying attention.  Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the London Police Department, which has nothing at all to do with Scotland itself.)