Issue date: 9/8/08 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Tiffany Tran [Click to enlarge]

On July 17, 1984, a date that lives in infamy, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Uniform Drinking Age Act, establishing a nationwide drinking age, 21. Looking at the information they had when making the decision, the move made sense at the time.

Prior to the Uniform Drinking Age Act - because the states individually set drinking ages - an unforeseen problem arose. Because the states had different drinking ages, youths who were underage in one state could drive across a border to a state with a lower minimum age to procure alcohol or have a drink at a bar. The act is innocent enough, but the result was horrifying: so many young people acting irresponsibly and dying in alcohol related incidents during these excursions that the areas where a high-age state met a low-age state earned the macabre nickname "blood borders." Something clearly had to be done, and the uniform minimum was the result. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data supports the move, claiming that setting the minimum age to 21 has cut traffic fatalities involving drivers ages 18-20 by 13 percent.

This isn't to say that the drinking age should be left where it is. Their organization, Amethyst Initiative, is championing the call for a renewed and objective discussion about drinking laws.

Experts are advocating change. According to Ruth C. Engs, a professor of applied health sciences at Indiana University, drinking and driving related variables among young people have been trending downward since 1980, before the law was passed. She contends that factors other than the drinking age and per person consumption contributed heavily to the decline in traffic fatalities, such as designated driver programs, increased seat belt and air bag usage, safer automobiles and lower speed limits. That assessment doesn't even include the impact of the elimination of "blood border" deaths, which are purged by a national, unified policy regardless of the drinking age.

The higher drinking age has problems of its own. There is a dangerous imbalance of enticement and restriction. Young adults under 21 are exposed to a popular culture in which binge drinking is celebrated, the weekend begins on Thursday night, and Animal House is held as the cinematic constitution of college life. Booze is the new cigarettes. It is cooler and infinitely more dangerous to our immediate health.

Continued...

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