18 should be the new 21

This campus is brimming with hippies. Don't let the designer handbags and gaudy Greek rush events fool you. This campus is full of rabble-rousing, free-spirited law breakers willing to face-down the man.

In fact, most of us are part of one of the nation's largest civil-disobedience movements.

We drink alcohol.

We often don't think about it until someone gets caught. Yet, just last semester, Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board agents conducted a surprise raid at MarBar and nailed more underage drinkers than a St. As brother.

The MarBar bust reminds us that anachronistic state and federal drinking laws have turned almost every college student in the country into a criminal.

Purchasing, consuming, transporting or bathing with liquor is illegal in Pennsylvania if you are under 21. You can also be prosecuted for so much as verbally lying about your age.

Each year, the laws get stricter at the behest of well-intentioned but misguided social advocacy groups which believe that keeping the drinking age at 21 is guaranteed to save lives or prevent the moral collapse of the next generation.

These groups are already feasting on a report published this month in the American Journal of Public Health. This study asserts that lowering the drinking age in New Zealand to 18 led to an increase in automobile deaths among 15 to 18 year olds.

As critics have pointed out, drivers are more likely to get into accidents soon after they begin drinking, no matter what the drinking age is.

The age at which people start drinking is not as important as how mature and educated they are about alcohol.

The mandated drinking age of 21 robs us of this maturity.

Current liquor laws throw college social life into the wrong hands: skuzzy bars, the Greek system and anyone else willing to serve liquor to a minor.

By keeping alcohol just out of reach of most college students, drinking becomes something that can be enjoyed, but never on one's own terms.

Binge drinking, drunk driving and all the other ugly highlights of college life result from the fact that the drinking age creates two castes at American colleges: those with drinks and those who want drinks.

For the sake of saving lives and a better college experience, we need to do something about this.

This year is an election year, which means that various politicians will visit Penn to flirt with us.

They will encourage us to take stands on the war in Iraq, Supreme Court nominations, teaching evolution in schools and a variety of other issues.

Afterward, they will go back to the legislatures and fund programs such as the Justice Department's Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws Program. This program distributes grants from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to fund underage-drinking enforcement.

The federal government allocates $25 million per year to the OJJDP for this program, which is up for renewal in the 2006 budget.

You can bet that the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board will cite the MarBar raid as an example of "Delinquency Prevention" in its next OJJDP grant request.

We are not delinquents, we are not drunks, and we are not babies. We are voters.

The overwhelming majority of college students want a lower drinking age.

The College Democrats and College Republicans should remember that they are college political organizations and formulate unambiguous positions on this matter.

After they come to a decision, our campus political groups should query local and state politicians about their positions on the drinking age.

These politicians -- some of whom will be benefiting from Penn volunteers for their elections -- would be wise to respond.

Whichever group does this first will get a bottle of vodka from me.

Unfortunately, they will have to wait until Spring Fling, as I don't turn 21 until April 24.

Hopefully, they will be in the mood for a drink by then.

Eric Obenzinger is a junior history major from New York. Quaker Shaker appears on Wednesdays.

Comments (11)

I AM European! As a recent (four years since!) American citizen, I don't think you can call me biased towards Europe...or against America Kevin, your point is totally irrelevant to this article. You're talking about how the federal government enforces the drinking age...I thought Eric's point was that we should maybe change that enforcement. Now, Tom, driving is as major issue. But, like Eric said, people tend to drink and drive soon after they are legal. No matter what. So maybe we should forget about the age and start trying to make people responsible drinkers? Just an idea... C to the Tina, student upenn

It is a semantic point, and Eric obviously was going for rhetorical bite, but I do have to call him on the "...have turned almost every college student in the country into a criminal" statement -- mostly because it is a increasingly commonly accepted way of looking at things that I think is insidious. The fact of the matter is that breaking laws make people into criminals. It is one thing if a law is changed such that a person's long-standing behavior now becomes criminal, but it is a different thing if people decide to deliberately violate a long-standing law, whatever that law's "merit." They become criminals willingly and knowingly. james, alum philly

Your article ignored the serious health problems alcohol causes. I drink sometimes - it's fun, uninhibitory, self-destructive. All appealing reasons. But it is still a toxin which affects body and mind (if you care to separate the two), and maybe rather than try to legalize alcohol for youth (which is very likely a waste of political energy anyway), the youth should consider drinking less*. Furthermore, after 21** brain growth slows dramatically. Repeated alcohol intoxication prior to 21 dramatically impairs brain development and increases growth of addiction pathways in the brain when compared with growth in post-formative years. I think students often forget that alcohol is addictive, and yet it is highly so. People who drink in their youth can develop an alcohol dependency in the course of one year. Cheers -Adam *:I'm not advocating abstinence. **:This is of course person to person, but as a general rule, 21 is a fair generalization. cereal apf@seas.upenn.edu

This article misses a major point. While I am inclined to agree that lowering the drinking age to 19 might have some beneficial effects, you neglect to mention a reason that many states raised the drinking age: federal money. In addition to the substantive policy reasons -- such as the observed decline in accident deaths -- one major reason that states increased their drinking age to 21 was a federal requirement to do so if the states wanted any money for highways, which is something that no state can afford to give up. As such, this is now effectively a federal issue, and talking to local and state politicians (as you suggest) will truly accomplish nothing. Kevin, Penn Senior collinsk@sas.upenn.edu

Ok tom, then explain the periodic strict enforcement on college campuses where .000001 percent of underage drinkers are driving home. I'm waiting.................. p

Nice article, Eric, but unfortunately you missed (or ignored) the real reason why the drinking age was raised to 21 from 18. Far too many American kids were getting drunk and then driving home, often crashing into something along the way. Unlike our European friends, America is a car based society. The European youths take the subway or tram to the city center where they engage in drinking (and very much often binge drinking as well, I have lived in Europe and can testify that binge drinking and public drunkedness is alive over there), and when the time comes, these drunken youths will take the subway back home. In America, we drive. Your typical suburban 18 y/o isn't going to take the subway home, because most teenagers, unlike you, don't live in Manhattan or downtown Boston. We have enough teens dying in alcohol related accidents, legalizing sale of alcohol to 18 year olds would only open the floodgates. Tom

C, i think thats a common misconception. All of my abroad travels have seen internationals quite drunk as a result of binge drinking. The international students at Penn that you speak of are either lying, in denial, or just trying to be anti-american/penn. p

International students come to the US and are shocked by our binge drinking ways. Why? Because in Europe 18 is the drinking age, and alcohol is not seen as a big deal. Once steps are taken to regulate and teach people about drinking responsibly, we'll have less accidents, deaths etc from irresponsible drinking habits. Nicely written and researched Eric !!! C to the Tina, student upenn

100% right. Where do I sign up? :-) Sarah, Student/Intern Washington, DC

well written and well thought out...it makes sense.....I'd rather have my young person walk to a bar on campus ( like I did in the 70s ), and walk home rather than get in a car, go to a bar far away from the campus,( to avoid illogical stings) and present much more dangerous situations to themselves and others. I think the only way you will accomplish this goal is to create a movement among all university populations, as well as get the necessary research and funding to prove this is actually a statistically safer situation than the present one of 21 yrs old. The other issue is HS drinking. These immature 18 yos present the other side of the coin, so maybe the final answer is that " 19 is the new 21 " so that no HS age students will reach the age of majority prior to entering college or the work force. dave, Parent / Doctor NY

I liked this editorial. I thought it was well-written, well-thought out, and respectful. Thanks for writing. student

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