For the second Common Hour event of the year, Dr. John McCardell presented “The 21-Year-Old Drinking Age: Defend It, Amend It, or End It?” McCardell is a professor of history at Middlebury College, President-Elect of the University of the South, and founder and president of Choose Responsibility.
During the presentation, McCardell stressed why the legal drinking age should be 18. However, he also noted that federal coercion is necessary to get us safely there.
The presentation began with McCardell emphasizing that him simply being at F&M suggests this issue is more than just a passing fad. McCardell informed his audience about the history of alcohol laws in the United States. He discussed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which said if a state lowered their drinking age below the age of twenty-one they would also forfeit 10% of their federal highway fund.
This was logical to McCardell, considering drunk driving was a major fatality to underage teens at that time. However, he argued still.
“We are still living with a law that was passed so long ago, yet other factors have significantly changed,” he said.
He also informed the audience that 60% of deaths related to underage drinking occur off the highways.
McCardell continued:
“The problem of 2010 is not traffic safety, the solution is not a continuation of a highway fund penalty… The problem is binge drinking,” he said.
McCardell defined binge drinking as goal-oriented, reckless, excessive, life and health-threatening alcohol consumption.
Though the law has not changed, McCardell noted while we haven’t solved the problem of drinking and driving, we have certainly wrestled it to the ground.
“Yet the data also show that in overwhelming numbers, those most affected by the law—18, 19 and 20 year olds—are still consuming alcohol,” he added.
In fact, he pointed to the statistic of 75% of high school seniors consuming alcohol before even arriving at college.
“This leaves the clandestine location—dorm room, apartment, farmer’s field, wherever—for these young adults to pregame, do shots, use funnels, play beer pong,” McCardell said.
Further, McCardell provided several examples of college students dying of alcohol poisoning, whose parents partly blame the drinking age.
While McCardell acknowledges the goal is to eliminate underage drinking, but the reality is it may not happen. He did provide a half dozen realistic ways to make a difference, ranging from mandatory alcohol education and parental involvement to maintenance of zero tolerance laws for all people under 21.
“Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young people. It cannot be denied, ignored, or legislated away,” McCardell said.
Finally, McCardell said society needs this public debate on underage drinking because it is hard for administrative and legal enforcers to send a unified message to college campuses.
“There is a chasm separating the professional community,” he concluded. “Preventionists and then those who believe we should reduce the harm because we know you are going to do it.”
For more information about Dr. John McCardell’s campaign about underage drinking, visit Choose Responsibility website atwww.chooseresponsibility.org. For more information about the next Common Hour event, visit www.fandm.edu/common-hour.
Sophomore Kelly Seeger is a staff writer. Her e-mail is kseeger@fandm.edu.
