There is no doubt that many youth rights issues are not well represented to those who have the most resources and abilities to make change on a county, state, or federal level. The issues of drinking and smoking age are no different and I firmly believe that spreading out support over as many districts and states as possible for this very issue is our very best bet at raising awareness on this issue and getting Senators and Congresspeople alike.
It is fairly easy to get the contact information of your state senators and your local representatives, you will generally find a mailing address on their websites, although there is usually not an email to send letters through. Often sending a letter by mail is what I found to work best. It may also work to get in contact with the office, and see if you can email your letter to the office and have the caseworkers handle it from there.
I have provided here a letter template with all the context and sources cited, all you have to do in insert your name, the person you’re sending to and all the following information. The template will guide you on what to fill in.
I sincerely hope you take the time to share the pressing issue of the drinking age to your Senators and Representatives, and to spread the word in regions throughout the country.
I am a teenager and i 100% agree with this article. With the drinking age being 3 years after the legalization age, it creates discrimination against teenagers and young adults. If the legal drinking age was lowered to 18, it would allow safer consumption. This is because the fact that drinking is illegal for anyone under 21, it makes them want it more. This could result in unsafe consumption because teenagers and young adults could get someone to buy alcohol for a party or an event that is unsupervised. With the drinking age lowered, it would allow supervision and for them to act more as adults because they are being treated as adults.
1. Allowing 18-year-olds to drink makes sense. The first thing to ask is when are people considered adults? Whatever age you choose, should be the age that all the rights (including those awarded to those 21 or older) should be given. At 18, you can vote in elections, get married without parental consent, buy firearms, sign legally binding contracts, get a full driver’s license, enlist in the army (and register for selective service if you’re a male) act in pornography, serve on a jury, be sentenced to adult prison, and get the death penalty in states that allow it, you can own property and make a will, you have the right to make your own medical decisions, legally leave your parent’s residence and make decisions without their interference, and generally conduct yourself as an adult except when it comes to choosing your own vices. If you’re declared an adult who is responsible for his or her actions, choosing what legal substances you put in your body is no different.
2.) Allowing 18-20-year-olds to drink legally moves the ability to drink to regulated environments. (i.e bars, pubs, restaurants). Many in that age group drink “underground” (i.e someone’s basement, locked dorm rooms, college frat parties, etc.) for fear of getting caught and cited and/or arrested. This often leads them to binge drink and generally creates an unsafe environment. You may have someone that drinks more than they should to the point of unconsciousness, and many young adults are afraid to get help for said person because of fear of punishment from authorities (even though many states have amnesty laws, where if a person calls for help, they won’t be punished). The answer is not prohibition, but advocating for the responsible use of alcohol and that drinking in moderation and not excess is okay.
3.) The drunk driving statistics are not what they appear to be. The big reason for the change in the drinking age was what the nation and MADD saw as an increase in traffic fatalities in 18-20-year old drivers. What is often not mentioned is that before 1984, many states had different drinking ages. For example, in 1975 the states of New York and New Jersey had a drinking age of 18 while neighboring Pennsylvania still kept it at 21. Texas also had a drinking age of 18 while neighboring New Mexico and Arizona had a minimum age of 19. This is known as “blood borders”. Since there was no consistent age across the country, if a young adult didn’t meet the cutoff age in their state, they would travel to the next where they were old enough to drink (and admittedly drink beyond reasonable limits) and then travel back to their home state creating havoc. Generally, (or at least we pretend) that we practice federalism with states having the right to make their own laws to govern their respective citizens, which includes choosing their own drinking age which explains the different patchwork of laws prior to the passing of the National Minimum Age Drinking Act (1984). In 1984, the US government in response to reduce auto-fatalities of those under 21, mandated that all 50 states set age 21 as their minimum drinking age (including purchase and possession), or they could keep it lower, but lose 10% of their highway funding as a result. Eventually, many states complied. Although, I agree with the concept of federalism, in this instance it would be appropriate to set a national age, but 18, instead of 21. If the age was 18 in every state, the amount of young adults feeling the need to drive to another state to drink legally would be reduced. Most people would stay in their home state. Furthermore, 21-24-year-olds who are allowed to drink, have the highest drunk driving crash rates than any other age group.
“Car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens, and about a quarter of those crashes involve an underage drinking driver. In 2018, 24% of young drivers 15 to 20 years old who were killed in crashes had BACs of .01 g/dL or higher. To reduce alcohol-related fatal crashes among youth, all states have adopted a minimum legal drinking age of 21. NHTSA estimates that minimum-drinking-age laws have saved 31,959 lives from 1975 to 2017. Yet in 2018 the highest percentage of drunk drivers (with BACs of .08 g/dL or higher) were 21- to 24-year-olds, at 27%, followed by 25- to 34-year-olds, at 26%. Men are most likely to be involved in this type of crash, with 4 male drunk drivers for every female drunk driver.” (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2018.) It is absolutely unacceptable for anyone to drive drunk and I won’t be the first to advocate for it, however, if the catalyst for changing the drinking age was drunk driving, why are we only penalizing 18-20-year-olds and not 21-24-year-olds? Both of these age groups are legally adults under the law, and yet one group receives unequal treatment? Why aren’t males between 21-24-year-olds banned from drinking? It’s one thing to argue about saving lives, but for argument’s sake (because I’m not necessarily advocating for it) you should raise the drinking age to 25 and ban males in that category from drinking if you are genuinely interested in “saving lives”. Realistically, you’re not going to save everyone. We all have to decide how much risk vs reward we are willing to accept and what risks we may accept in the name of freedom.
Instead of just focusing on age, implement stricter drunk driving laws for everyone. Lower the permissible blood alcohol level (BAC) from the standard .08 to .05 or lower. Another option is to lower the drinking age but maybe keep the zero-tolerance requirement for under 21s as a compromise. Let’s look at Canada (whose roadways and driving patterns are very similar to the US) real quick. For example, in the Canadian province of Quebec, you may buy and drink alcohol at 18 but there are zero-tolerance requirements for those under 22 if you are driving. In the province of Ontario, the drinking age is 19, but there are zero-tolerance BAC requirements for those under age 22 behind the wheel as well. The provinces of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick also have a drinking age of 19 but have zero-tolerance BAC rules for those under 21. In Alberta, you can drink at 18, and while their BAC requirement is .08, drunk driving sanctions start at .05 or higher for all drivers regardless of age. In British Columbia, who lowered their BAC requirement conducted a follow-up study where they found that “the 0.05 warn range in British Columbia in Canada (a 3-day administrative license suspension for driving with a BAC from 0.05 to 0.07) was associated with a 40% decrease in alcohol-related fatal crashes.” I bring all this up to say that you can have safety in mind without targeting a specific group or age category being the only option.
4.) I go back to the idea of advocating for responsibility. If you treat adults like adults with basic rules in place, they will behave as such. Treating alcohol as taboo and infantilizing young adults is not going to help instill responsibility. 21 is not going to be some magic age that suddenly makes young adults more responsible if you are not at least willing to have open conversations about responsible alcohol use and demystifying the use of it while they are most likely at home under the supervision of a parent. Besides the age factor, the culture and perceptions of alcohol have to change before anything else at the end of the day, considering we were a nation that practiced prohibition. Baby steps, I guess.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
What’s wrong with this post?
1) You speak of “Allowing,” as if it was by the indulgence of one class of citizens that another enjoys the exercise of their inherent natural rights.
2) You analyze drunk driving statistics, ignoring the fact, not the opinion, that each person is a distinct individual and a distinct transaction. If 99 percent of the 18 to 20 age group drives drunk, that’s no excuse to impose the drinking age on the rest of them. Impose probation on the drunk drivers, and make abstaining from alcoholic drinks a term of the probation.
By the way, did you ever notice that the supposedly had to raise the drinking age to 21 in the 1980’s to save lives on the road, and then they abolished the nation-wide 55-m.p.h. speed limit? That speed limit saved a lot of lives, but it was abolished because it was inconvenient to persons who matter.
I invite everybody to take a few hours to watch my YouTube playlist, “The Lecture That Makes Sense” at https://tinyurl.com/tltms to understand the forces at work.
The ONLY 18-21 year olds that should be allowed to drink, smoke, VOTE, and any other privilege of ADULTHOOD are those that are actively serving in our country’s military. Those people have PROVEN the ability, maturity, integrity, courage, and common sense to have ALL of the privileges that younger skulls full of mush do not posses.
The 26th amendment needs to be repealed. No one under the age of 18 should be allowed adult privileges EXCEPT those ACTIVELY serving in our countries military. Scientists have concluded that the brains of young people do not fully develop until about age 25/26. That being said those who are mature, and brave enough to sign a blank check made to the United States of America for an amount, up to and including their life…..should have EVERY right and privilege of adulthood. The American voters lost their minds when the fell for that old theory that if a person was ‘old enough to fight and die for our country, they were old enough to vote. THAT was the most STUPID thing the American electorate ever did.
The problem with the 26th amendment is that it did not give the rights and privileges of adulthood to ONLY those who were ACTUALLY in the military and could be fighting and dying tomorrow. The sum total of those young hero’s is less than 1/2 of one percent of the young people that age. WHY did the voters, in 1973 give the rights of adulthood to EVERYBODY age 18 and older? It was a STUPID thing to do and to prove it just pick up a newspaper in any city in the country and read it.
The 26th amendment to the Constitution should be amended to include ONLY those 18-21 year old ADULTS actively serving in our countries military. Every one else should be made to wait until at LEAST 21, and more appropriately 25 before they are allowed the privileges of adulthood. Younger that that they are still kids who have trouble knowing their butts from first base.
You use the word “allowed” as if it was by the indulgence of one class of citizens that another enjoys the exercise of their inherent natural rights. Unalienable rights, such as liberty, by definition of “unalienable,” preempt the Rule of Law whenever the two things conflict with each other. Across the top of pages 50 and 51 of my U.S. passport there is a quote from the Dude on the Deuce, saying “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”
I wish to continue helping this fight and make it into a ballot i strongly believe that the age should be 18
All of the absurd excuses for the drinking age are debunked on my website at https://udadd.com, which stands for Underage Drinkers Against Drunk Drivers. I especially call your attention to the Memorial to Double Victims, namely, persons age at least 15 but less than 21 years old who were doing nothing wrong and were killed by D.W.I. drivers 21 and older, who can freely but all the booze they want.
If you want a safer prom night, tell your principal to hold a student assembly to watch my YouTube video playlist, “Without Further Comment-High School Edition” which shows one TV news clip after another. Also, never brag about how much alcohol you can drink, don’t worry if somebody else can out-drink you, and never let anybody brag to you about how much alcohol he or she can drink. If you brag now, tomorrow you’ll be bragging to your cellmate about the number you blew. If you drink alcoholic beverages, drink to enjoy, never to compete.