Minimum Drinking Age Laws

Before the twentieth century, there were few legal restrictions on the consumption of alcoholic beverages by youth. Early in the twentieth century, laws prohibiting alcohol sales to minors began to be implemented, as part of a broader trend of increasing legal controls on adolescent behavior. The temperance movement succeeded in establishing national Prohibition in 1919 but when it was repealed in 1933, all states implemented legal minimum ages for alcohol purchase or consumption, with most states setting the age at 21.

From the 1930s through the 1960s, the issue received little public attention. In 1970, the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution lowered the voting age in federal elections from 21 to 18. By 1974, all fifty states had lowered their voting ages for state elections to 18. As part of this trend of lowering the "age of majority," twenty-nine states lowered their minimum drinking ages between 1970 and 1975, most setting the age at 18 or 19. In the mid-1970s, studies began to emerge that showed significant increases in the rate of young drivers' involvement in traffic accidents following the reductions in the legal drinking age. The trend toward lower drinking ages was reversed, with Maine being the first state to raise its legal drinking age from 18 to 20 in October 1977. Several other states soon followed, and research studies completed by the early 1980s found significant declines in youth traffic-crash involvement when states raised their legal drinking age. With the support of organized efforts by citizen-action groups such as REMOVE INTOXICATED DRIVERS and MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING, federal legislation was passed in 1984 that called for the withholding of a portion of federal highway-construction funds from any state that did not have a legal drinking age of 21 by October 1986. As a result, all the remaining states with a legal drinking age of below 21 raised their age to 21 by 1988. Thus, all states now have a uniform legal drinking age of 21, although details in regard to the purchase, possession, consumption, sales, and furnishing of alcohol to underage youth vary from state to state.

The legal drinking age became a major issue because of the serious consequences of young people's consumption of alcohol. Most teenagers drink; in addition, almost a third regularly become intoxicated. Damage resulting from the drinking of youth is extensive. Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teenagers (Baker et al., 1992), and one third to one half of the crashes involve alcohol (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1990). Other leading causes of disability and death among youth, such as suicide, homicide, assault, drowning, and recreational injury, involve alcohol in one quarter to three quarters of the cases (Wagenaar, 1992). Injuries are only part of the problem. Early use of alcohol appears to affect multiple dimensions of physical, social, and cognitive development (Semlitz & Gold, 1986). Alcohol use increases the odds of having unprotected sex (i.e., failure to use a condom), which increases the chance of pregnancy and catching sexually transmitted diseases, including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS (Plant, 1990; Strunin & Hingson, 1992). Many "date rape" situations involve individuals who have been drinking (Wagenaar et al., 1993a). Early use of alcohol increases the odds one will move on to using other drugs, such as MARIJUANA, COCAINE, or HEROIN (Kandel, 1989). Finally, the earlier one starts a pattern of regular drinking, the higher the chance of later serious problems with alcohol, including dependence (i.e., getting "hooked" so that it is very hard to quit). Despite the many problems associated with young people's drinking, the most obvious one, and the one that received the most attention in debates on the legal drinking age, is traffic-crash involvement.

EFFECTS OF THE DRINKING AGE ON CAR CRASHES

Seventeen studies of the effects of lowering the legal age for drinking on traffic crashes appeared between 1974 and 1982 (Wagenaar, 1983). Although results varied across studies and across states, most studies found significant increases in traffic crashes among youth after the drinking age had been lowered (usually from 21 to 18). Typically, lowering the drinking age resulted in 5 percent to 20 percent increases in fatal and injury-producing crashes likely to involve alcohol, such as single-vehicle crashes occurring at night.

Thirty-nine studies of the effects on traffic crashes of raising the legal age for drinking have appeared between 1979 and 1992 (Wagenaar, 1993). Twenty-eight of these studies found significant reductions in the involvement of youth in traffic crashes following increases in the legal drinking age. Typically, raising the drinking age resulted in 5 percent to 20 percent declines in fatal and injury-producing crashes likely to involve alcohol. With the aid of the better-designed studies with longer follow-up periods, it could be estimated that the long-term effects of raising the drinking age to 21 would be a 13 percent decline in single-vehicle nighttime crashes among those whose legal access to alcohol was removed (i.e., 18 to 20-year-olds).

The legal drinking age is probably the most extensively researched policy that is designed to reduce traffic crashes and other alcohol problems. Scientists and professionals in the field agree that lowering the legal age for drinking increased car crashes among youth, and that, subsequently, raising the legal age reversed the effect: It lowered car crashes among youth (United States General Accounting Office, 1987). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that, even when counting only those states that raised the legal age after 1982, the U.S. age-21 policy now saves over one thousand lives per year in reduced car crashes alone (Arnold, 1985).

EFFECTS OF THE DRINKING AGE ON OTHER PROBLEMS

Four studies have appeared on the effects on problems other than car crashes of raising the legal age to 21 (Wagenaar, 1993). One study found that vandalism was down 16 percent in four states that raised the drinking age, and another found that significant reductions in suicides, pedestrian injuries, and other unintentional injuries were associated with higher legal drinking ages. A study of two Australian states that lowered the legal drinking age found 22 percent to 40 percent increases in trauma-hospital admissions for causes other than car crashes, although another study did not confirm these findings. A Massachusetts study found no reductions in nontraffic trauma, suicide, and homicide deaths after the drinking age had been raised, perhaps because many of Massachusetts' residents lived close to bordering states that had lower drinking ages at the time of the study.

EFFECTS OF THE DRINKING AGE ON ALCOHOL USE

Seven studies examined the effect of the legal drinking age on aggregate alcoholic-beverage sales. Effects were mixed—some studies found that alcohol sales were related to the legal age, but others did not find such a relationship. These studies were difficult to interpret because alcohol sales to young drinkers could not be distinguished from sales to older drinkers.

Surveys of the effects on alcohol use among youth of lowering or raising the drinking age have produced conflicting results. Some have found that there was little effect of the legal drinking age on young people's drinking, whereas others have found that lower rates of youth drinking resulted when the legal drinking age was higher (see Wagenaar, 1993, for a review of the fourteen survey studies to date). A major limitation of many of these studies was their use of nonrandom samples of youth from particular high schools, colleges, and local communities rather than samples that were broadly representative of the youth in a state. Surveys of college students, which are usually limited to students in introductory social sciences courses, frequently report finding little effect of the legal drinking age on drinking patterns. In contrast, surveys of random samples of high school seniors and 18- to 20-year-olds across many states, including those entering college and those in the work force, report finding significant reductions in drinking that are associated with higher legal drinking ages (Maisto & Rachal, 1980; O'Malley & Wagenaar, 1991). It appears, on the basis of the best-designed studies, that raising the legal drinking age results in reductions in young people's drinking. The age-21 policy, however, by no means eliminates this drinking by youth.

ENFORCEMENT OF THE MINIMUM DRINKING AGE

Although drinking among youth is now significantly down from its peak in 1980, when questioned, 54 percent of high school seniors still reported drinking in the last month, and 30 percent reported having had five or more drinks at a time at least once in the previous two weeks (Figures 1 and 2; data from Johnston, O'Malley, & Bachman, 1991). Among the many reasons that youth continue to drink, one important reason is that alcohol remains easily available to them, despite the minimum drinking age law. A recent study by Wagenaar and associates (1993b) indicated that only two of every one thousand episodes of underage drinking resulted in an arrest of the youth involved. More important, only five of every hundred thousand episodes of drinking by underage youth resulted in any action being taken against a store, restaurant, or bar for selling or serving alcohol to a minor. Because the chance of getting caught was so low, half or more of all alcohol outlets tested sold alcohol to youth without requesting any age identification (Preusser & Williams, 1991; Forster et al., 1993).

CONCLUSIONS

Evidence that showed that raising the drinking age to 21 reduced deaths and injuries in car crashes was a major factor in the debate about the drinking age. Other arguments were also heard, such as: Is it unconstitutional to discriminate solely on the basis of age? Federal courts have ruled that the drinking age is not discriminatory, because (1) drinking is not a fundamental right, (2) age is not an inherently suspect criterion for discrimination, (3) and the higher drinking age has a "rational basis" and is "reasonably related" to a legitimate goal of the state to reduce death and injury from traffic crashes (Guy, 1978). In a democracy, laws should have the support of the governed. Repeated polls have shown that the majority of the public clearly supports a legal drinking age of 21. Even among youth under the age of 21, some polls have shown majority support for the minimum drinking age of 21.

Is it logical to set the legal age of drinking at 21, when other rights and privileges of adulthood (e.g., voting, signing legally binding contracts) begin at age 18? The answer is yes, because we have many different legal ages, varying from 12 to 21, for voting, driving, sale and use of tobacco, legal consent for sexual intercourse, marriage, access to contraception without parental consent, compulsory school attendance, and so forth. Minimum ages are not set uniformly; they depend on the specific behavior involved, and they are arrived at by balancing the dangers and benefits of establishing the particular age.

Some have argued that a minimum drinking age of 21 will make things worse when young people finally get legal access to alcohol. This is the "rubber band" theory whereby it is claimed that prohibiting teenagers from drinking will cause a pent-up demand for the forbidden fruit. At 21, they will break loose and drink at significantly higher rates than they would have if they had been introduced to alcohol earlier. This theory is clearly not supported by research. For example, O'Malley and Wagenaar (1991) found just the opposite results in their nationwide study—that is, persons aged 21 to 24 drank at lower rates if they had to wait until 21 to have legal access to alcohol. A frequently heard related argument is that a minimum drinking age of 21 may reduce car crashes among teenagers, but this will only be a temporary effect if it simply delays those problems until the teenagers reach age 21. This argument is also false. The minimum age of 21 significantly, reduces car crashes among 18- to 20-year-olds, and those injuries and deaths are permanently saved. There is, furthermore, no rebound effect at age 21; in fact, the higher legal age appears to produce benefits, in terms of reduced drinking, that continue into a person's early twenties.

The debate surrounding the legal age for drinking appears settled in the United States. However, other countries (particularly in Europe where drinking ages are typically set at 18) are now examining the research and experience of the United States with increasing interest. Professionals in the areas of public health and traffic safety, as well as other professionals and citizens, are beginning to see the benefits of the age-21 drinking law in the United States, and they are initiating in their own countries the debate on the most appropriate age for legal access to alcohol.

(SEE ALSO: Accidents and Injuries from Alcohol; Driving, Alcohol, and Drugs; Driving Under the Influence; Social Costs of Alcohol and Drug Abuse)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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WAGENAAR, A. C., ET AL. (1993b). Enforcement of the legal minimum drinking age. Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.

ALEXANDER C. WAGENAAR