It’s not hard to walk around campus and find plenty of 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds who would like nothing more than for the drinking age to be lowered to suit them. It’s easy to understand why. There are plenty of rights afforded to those students, and it doesn’t always make sense they students have so many rights, but are still unable to drink legally.
Those arguments were weighed at a debate on Thursday night at Worsham Theatre, as John McCardell and James Fell argued the merits and shortcomings of the current drinking age, according to a Nov. 13 Kernel article.
But in the simplest terms, lowering the drinking age doesn’t make sense for safety reasons. It’s hard to believe that lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 would have a noticeable effect on binge drinking, as McCardell argued while saying that lowering the drinking age is the right thing to do.
Young people — especially in a college environment — would still be apt to binge drink, and that problem goes beyond the legal limitations put on the under-21 crowd.
Lowering the drinking age would also make alcohol increasingly accessible to an even younger group of people, and some of the problems now associated with 18-year-olds drinking might well shift to 16-year-olds, instead of disappearing if the age were to be lowered.
“When the drinking age is lowered, problems increase,” Fell said. “The drinking age saves lives.”
McCardell was unable to cite any statistics throughout the debate on any positives lowering the drinking age might have, but Fell was able to use numbers to show that not lowering the drinking age increased safety in several areas.
“There is no evidence the drinking age has been harmful,” Fell said. “No data suggests (the law) increases alcohol poisoning, binge drinking or alcohol-related injuries.”
While Kentucky and other states don’t have to comply with the federal under-21 law and can set their own drinking age, that doesn’t make any sense either.
Doing so would cost the state a significant sum of federal funding for highways, and that isn’t anything Kentucky can afford. With Kentucky’s current budget shortcomings and the struggle to find enough money for things like higher education, taking free federal money away from a state just so people could drink at 18 instead of 21 would be incomprehensibly foolish.
But in the end, the most important thing is keeping the drinking age at 21 is what keeps people safe. Putting people’s lives at risk for such a trivial matter would be thoughtless and could have repercussions beyond what anyone could foresee. With something as invaluable as the life of young people at stake, it simply doesn’t make sense to try and change the drinking age now. It can be difficult for young people to accept, and their frustrations with the law are more than understandable.
Students should remember that safety is paramount. Keeping people out of harm’s way is the primary objective of the drinking age, and it has done that successfully. There’s no reason to lower the drinking age as long it keeps people safe, and that’s what people should have taken away from Thursday’s debate.
Yes, keep everyone safe. 18 year old ADULTS obviously can’t make decisions for themselves, we need the government to step in and do that. While we’re at it, let’s ban tobacco, fast food, fast cars, knives, guns….forget a drinking age, let’s juts ban alcohol…..if it’ll keep people safe then it’s ok, right?
Don’t give up rights and liberty for safety…unfortunately too many people see things your way
Im 20 years old and even I dont think the drinking age should be lowered. Instead of people drinking, they should read a book!! there’s young adults like us in Japan and India who are studying day and night to achieve greatness, and everyone here fools around in college and consumes a massive amount of alcohol. It’s such a waste of time in my opinion. Once you establish yourself, go ahead and drink all you want!!