There are certain clichéd expressions that I have always bothered me. Like “We can put a man on the moon but we can’t create a comfortable high heel?” or “Insanity is repeating the same behavior expecting different results.” Neither of these phrases makes any sense. There is a woman who goes to one of my 12-step meetings and sporadically shrieks and sports a full goatee. That is insanity; not me holding out hope that my mother will some day decide to love me. But the saying suggests I should be locked up in a loony bin while Greta Goatee is free to roam the streets with poop in her pants. And since when is exploring life on other planets in the same priority bracket as fashionable footwear? I mean, just because it should be doesn’t mean it its. Well, Vox recently ran a story addressing another one of these annoying and nonsensical sayings: “If I can vote and serve in the military, then why can’t I legally drink?”
Comparing Apples to Apple Martinis
First of all, how did the act of showing up to a poll and punching a ballot get into the same sentence as being on the front lines of battle? If the argument is how people can be granted certain responsibilities and not others then it would be just as easy to say that if a 12-year old can become a mother, why can’t she drive a car? To put it frankly, it’s because having a baby is your business but putting a tween behind the wheel of a motor vehicle is ours.
The same goes for drinking. Eighteen-year-olds may have been deemed mature enough to handle alcohol back in the early 1900s, when many states set the drinking age post-prohibition, but times have most definitely changed. Sometimes even the idea of a 21-year old buying booze at a bar terrifies me. Not because I care about their well-being but because I care about my own. I was 21 once (for a minute I think) and Lord knows I shouldn’t have been drinking or driving, let alone mixing the two together.
They say 30 is the new 20 and I would agree; so shouldn’t the legal drinking age follow suit? All in favor of making the drinking age 31 say “aye!”
Alas, budding boozers have no fear. Age restrictions on drinking were federalized and bumped up to 21 years old in 1984—as a result of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act— and they haven’t budged since. And despite what most parents and all Mormons may want, it probably won’t. But they definitely aren’t going to lower the drinking age again either.
Reduction Isn’t Just for Balsamic
When it comes to this business of “I can vote so why can’t I get shitfaced?” there is actually a lot more to it than grown-ups being mean. According to Richard Bonnie, University of Virginia professor of health and law, there is overwhelming evidence that a higher drinking age reduces consumption, even though it definitely doesn’t prevent it. With the CDC reporting that, between 2006 and 2010, approximately 88,000 Americans died each year from alcohol-related causes, any reduction in these numbers (estimated to be several hundred) is certainly welcome.
However, despite the research, there are still those who argue that forbidding people to do something will only make them do it more, albeit in private. And my response to that is, great! While the ideal scenario is that legal limitations cause people to avoid certain behavior, no law can prevent anyone from doing what they want to do. But it does tend to make them want to be smarter about it. So if a gaggle of 18-year old college kids get wasted at a frat party they may feel less cocky about driving home and chose to take a cab instead. The other poor choices they make, like ordering Moons Over My Hammy at 4 am, really isn’t anyone else’s problem.
But, of course, there are a lot worse decisions drunk people make than gorging on saturated fat and refined sugar. Since voters and soldiers don’t tend to create havoc in the lives of others by fulfilling their patriotic duty, I think it’s time we accept that 18 is great for elections, enlistment and even consensual sex but the higher the drinking age, the better.
Sponsored DISCLAIMER: This is a paid advertisement for California Behavioral Health, LLC, a CA licensed substance abuse treatment provider and not a service provided by The Fix. Calls to this number are answered by CBH, free and without obligation to the consumer. No one who answers the call receives a fee based upon the consumer’s choice to enter treatment. For additional info on other treatment providers and options visit www.samhsa.gov.
