Speakers Discuss Drinking Age

John McCardell Jr., president and founder of the organization Choose Responsibility, along with James Fell, M.D., of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, expressed opposing viewpoints on lowering the legal drinking age in America on Wednesday night in the Rat.

As a central figure in Choose Responsibility, an organization dedicated to stimulating conversation on drinking culture, McCardell said he believes that the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, which threatened states that did not adopt a 21-year-old drinking age with a 10 percent cut on federal highway funds, is outdated.

"Cultural attitudes change over time," McCardell said. "And current policy for the drinking age has locked us into the culture of 1984." McCardell argued that drinking has become a central part of social life for adults age 18-20, and this is a fact that needs to be faced."
"Creating the safest possible environment for the reality and not denying the reality" needs to be the main goal, McCardell said.

He defended his point by  citing facts such as how 10 percent of all underage drinking is binge drinking. He also presented arguments based on other responsibilities afforded to minors. "If you can sit in a jury, you can buy a beer."

McCardell, who has been featured on programs such as 60 Minutes and The Colbert Report, said that he did recognize the risks involved in drinking at any age. He suggested mandatory alcohol education and legal supervised drinking so teens can learn how to drink more responsibly.

Fell said that numerous studies have shown that lowering the drinking age will lower the age people start to drink illegally, and will lead to an increase in alcohol-related incidents such as car accidents and homicides.

He included facts such as how there has been a 62 percent decrease in underage drivers involved in fatal crashes between 1982 and 2009. Fell also addressed what he called the "European drinking age myth."

"The lower drinking ages in Europe don't mean the kids don't get drunk," Fell said.
He also pointed out that 26 European countries have higher rates of adolescent intoxication than the United States. Fell agreed with McCardell that college binge drinking is a cultural phenomenon.

Yet, Fell argued that this could not be changed by the drinking age and therefore, would not be an effective solution. "There needs to be policy, and there needs to be enforcement," Fell said.

He also said that restricted alcohol advertising and the "denormalization" of binge drinking in society could help limit alcohol-related problems.

Fell said he feels that the current drinking age is appropriate, if too low, because the brain is generally not fully developed until someone's mid-20s.

Fell said, "28,000 lives have been saved so far," in reference to the age increase policy of 1984. Yet, McCardell refuted this statistic and said, "The precision implied is merely implied," and the fact was simply "an exercise in statistics and probability."