To some, it’s simply “to drink or not to drink.” To others, it really is “to [die] or not to [die].” For the first time in twenty-five years, it seems now is the time to rehash the question. But, before considering whether or not the current drinking age of 21 years should be adjusted, it is best to examine this issue from its roots to its shoots, so to speak. After a brief historical survey, I’ll opine away.
The History
While popular opinion would have you believe that this saga began in the 1920’s, contention on the topic began brewing much earlier. In 1629, the Virginia Colonial Assembly ruled that “Ministers shall not give themselves to excess in drinkinge, or riott, or spending their tyme idellye day or night.” In 1637, Massachusetts decreed that no one should stay in a tavern “longer than necessary occasions.” Meanwhile, Plymouth Colony outlawed the sale of alcohol to newly arrived strangers which cost “more than 2 pence.” These efforts to control excessive drinking are humorous, considering that Puritans took 42 tons of beer and 10,000 gallons of wine with them on the trip to Massachusetts – and only 14 tons of water.
Throughout the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries, the spectre of prohibition made its presence known only in efforts to control individual consumption. During the last quarter of the eighteen century, prohibitionists realized their efforts might be more successful if they attacked the source. Thus John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, denounced distilling as a sin and called for its Prohibition in 1773. Despite a burgeoning number of people denouncing alcohol altogether, the camp in favor of alcohol remained staunchly unconvinced. When Harvard students were “left ‘wanting beer betwixt brewings a week and a week and a half together,” the first master at Harvard was fired.
Politicians were also split on the subject. John Adams penned his concern into his diary. On February 29, 1760, he observed that taverns were “becoming the eternal haunt of loose, disorderly people.” Even worse, he saw taverns as a fecund environment for unethical politics:
“… These houses are become the nurseries of our legislators. An artful man, who has neither sense nor sentiments, may, by gaining a little sway among the rabble of the town, multiply taverns and dram shops and thereby secure the votes of taverner and retailer and of all; and the multiplication of taverns will make many, who may be induced to flip and rum, to vote for any man whatever.”
If the fact that politicians were so split on the subject of alcohol wasn’t enough to keep it in a state of perpetual limbo, the fact that their government profited from it certainly didn’t help. In 1791, as part of the Revenue Act, a tax was levelled against distilled liquors. A year later, Congress “added license fees for distilleries and taxes on liquors distilled from imported materials“. Of course, our government hadn’t yet learned that separating the people from its poison was a dangerous effort. Infuriated by these taxes, farmers in Western Pennsylvania began hijacking revenue collectors and armed themselves in preparation to defend their right to imbibe. 15,000 militiamen later, the “Whiskey Rebellion” was put down.
After this, prohibitionists began to coalesce into a palpable “movement.” Religious and secular organizations began publishing essays and materials declaiming the evils of drinking while others began lobbying lawmakers to end this debate once and for all. For the next century, the issue toggled back and forth between fame and infamy until finally, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, it became the target of too many special interest groups (most notably, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, led by Frances E Williard).
On January 16, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was ratified, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, transportation, importation, and exportation of intoxicating beverages. Fourteen years later, the Twenty-First Amendment repealed it. After the Twenty-First Amendment, the acceptable drinking age varied from state to sate. That is, until July 17, 1984, when the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed, which stipulated that funding would be withheld from any state without a law on the books preventing the sale of alcohol to those under 21 years of age. Thus, the modern day as we know it.
The Modern Picture
In recent years, however, tremors began to build of a movement to change the drinking age from 21 to 18.
Around 2004, after writing an Op-Ed for the New York Times, President Emeritus John M. McCardell of Middlebury College was approached by the Robertson Foundation – a private philanthropic foundation – with an opportunity to investigate the consequences of the 21 year-old drinking age. He agreed. In 2006, after a year of research by himself and a team of associates, McCardell published “The Effects of the 21 Year-Old Drinking Age: A White Paper.” Following its popular reception, Middlebury started Choose Responsibility, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to reopening the debate on the 21 year-old drinking age. In the summer of 2008 McCardell sent out an invitation to college presidents across American to join him in clamoring for a renewed debate. As a result, the Amethyst Initiative began. To date, 134 college presidents have joined the Amethyst Initiative and petitioned for our government to reconsider the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Last week, the Amethyst Initiative and Choose Responsibility got some national attention as they were interviewed on 60 minutes.
Of course, we could leave the issue alone and call it a day. But I think it’s fair to say that the 21 drinking age is not working in its current form. Perhaps no other law on the books is as fiercely debated (historically and currently) as this one. For reasons why we should change our current law (both for and against), I suggest reading material put together by people much more vested in the issue than I:
For Changing the Age:
Choose Responsibility: http://www.chooseresponsibility.org/home/
The Amethsyt Initiative: http://www.amethystinitiative.org/
Youth Rights: http://www.youthrights.org/drinkingage.php
Against Changing the Age:
The Prohibition Party: http://www.prohibition.org/
Women’s Christian Temperance Union: http://www.wctu.org/
(I couldn’t find any other good sources against changing the age. If you can, let me know).
To me, my biggest issue with the question is that our Age of Majority is out of synch.
Currently, eighteen years is the age at which American youths become American adults (the “age of majority”). They can vote, drive, smoke, gamble, fight (and die) for their country. If eighteen years is the age we feel they can make these choices about their bodies and it is the age we give them the power of life and death (fighting in the military) and expect them to unequivocally know right from wrong (they can be tried as adults), why are they incapable of choosing when to drink and how much? This is only of the simplest arguments to make towards adjusting the legal drinking age (and also the one I lean to most). However, the options as a result of this are twofold – and we normally only consider just the one. We can
1) Lower the drinking age to 18, which would be in synch with our Age of Majority (18).
2) We raise the Age of Majority to 21.
Frankly, I don’t care which we do. I care less for when people are able to drink than I do about the banality of our current law. In my mind, inconsistency is the surest sign that a law is not a good law.
[Note: the article, “History of Alcohol Prohibition” by Jane Lang McGrew was indispensible to this blog post. I found a majority of my sources through her work. Although blogging doesn’t require a strict citation policy, I wanted to acknowledge her excellent scholarship. If you’re interested in the subject of Prohibition, I strongly suggest reading her essay.]
Update 03.21.09: Check out John McCardell, from Choose Responsibility, on The Colbert Report