Jack Lakis | Rethinking 21: Alcohol and adulthood should begin at 18

I have always said that if I were elected president, three goals would dominate my political agenda: (1) abolish the death penalty, (2) strengthen civic education, and (3) lower the legal drinking age. Today, the United States is one of the few countries in the world that regulates alcohol consumption beyond age 18. This phenomenon leaves American adulthood in an awkward and incongruous limbo. You’ve probably heard this before, but as adults, we can go to war or take out a six-figure student loan, but we can’t have a glass of wine.

The fact is that we throw 18-year-olds into mature situations that make them grow in real time. With full responsibility should come all the privileges. Even if we look beyond these more cliché arguments, there are real dangers posed to college students when alcohol remains illegal.

We live in a culture where going to college requires more than just buying dorm supplies. Today, many students carry fake IDs on their shopping lists. This phenomenon means that at least one-third of college students routinely use fake IDs to purchase or consume alcohol. This is no small problem. In fact, even using a fake ID as a misdemeanor can carry a jail sentence in many states. Incarcerating students for a socially necessary activity is clearly unacceptable. Why should we punish young adults for an activity that is so widely accepted and prevalent in American life?

Peer pressure to drink and have a fake ID causes stress for students and can hurt their overall college experience. However, college students rarely avoid alcohol. Having to use a fake ID to do something that most young adults do is very unpopular. Perhaps it goes without saying that students rarely support regulations that limit their freedoms.

Students aren’t the only ones who support lowering the drinking age, though. In 2008, 136 American college leaders banded together to form the Amethyst Initiative, an organization that urges lawmakers to allow their students to drink. The group’s founder, John McCardell, explained that laws mandating that alcohol consumption be limited to abstinence “have not allowed for any constructive change in college student behavior.” That shouldn’t be surprising, though. Newsflash: We tried prohibition, and it didn’t work the first time.

The Amethyst Initiative reinforces its argument by saying that even despite medical amnesty rules, clandestine alcohol use is ever-present and rarely reported. These situations put young adults at risk. If students were allowed to engage more openly in alcohol use, it would be a much safer excuse than the status quo. Given research showing that the prevalence of unsupervised alcohol use has led to unsafe conditions for students, lowering the drinking age is a constructive change that would lead to accountability and minimize many of the current risks. It is clear that when young adults are given the opportunity to have more adult experiences, they develop more mature habits.

It’s not that lawmakers don’t trust young people when it comes to alcohol. In many states, it’s legal for teens to serve alcohol and monitor other people’s drinking, long before they’re allowed to drink themselves. In addition, state lawmakers have recently begun proposing a wave of reforms to the mandatory legal drinking age.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 21-year-old drinking age requirement. At this point, the policy is outdated and ineffective. There are many ways to keep college students safe, but making unavoidable behavior illegal simply isn’t one of them.

Jack Lakis is a sophomore studying political science and communications at Kennesaw, GeorgiaYour email is [email protected].