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Beer in Vending Machines -- What Drinking Age?
Matt NegrinPosted: Feb 21st 2009 12:03AM
Filed under: Culture, International News, Boston University, Advise & DissentAnimated disagreement between coworkers is a venerable tradition often denied to Bright Hall's far-flung, break room-less staff. Advise & Dissent is an attempt to fix that. Click here for past debates.
The idea behind lowering the U.S. drinking age to 18 is that it will let police focus on enforcing more serious crimes, while simultaneously removing the stigma of consuming alcohol among the underage. One consequence, however, could be that waves and waves of newly legal drinkers will endanger their lives and others by being careless.
But look around the world.
The United States is one of just a few countries with a drinking age as high as 21 years old. Some of the oldest countries in the world have lower drinking ages -- and higher expectations for youth.
Take Japan, where I've been studying for almost two months now. Next to every other soda and potato chip vending machine on the corner is a similar display for different brands of beer and cigarettes. The country's drinking age is officially 20, but practically it's anyone with 230 yen (about $2.50). There is very little police enforcement, and no laws forbidding public consumption, although it happens rarely. The reason is because there is a high moral and social expectation that most people will be responsible.
In France, the heart of the world's wine community, the legal age is 16, and the same goes for Germany, Indonesia, Denmark, Italy and a variety of African countries.
What about Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand? No drinking age whatsoever, which is actually common in a lot of smaller countries and islands in Europe and Asia.
India is the only country that restricts alcohol in some areas to those who aren't at least 25, the highest drinking age in the world. In Pakistan, Iran and Libya, among others, alcohol is actually illegal.
Just a handful of other countries have the same requirement as the United States, at 21: Armenia, Egypt and some islands near Australia.
So why is the land of the free nearly alone in this category? Its immediate neighbors are less restrictive: Canada's age is 19, while Mexico's is 18, the most common around the world.
But most of these countries didn't set their ages in the teens for the same reason that many advocates want to in the United States, most notably the Amethyst Initiative, a group of college presidents who say lowering the drinking age to 18 will be more effective than simply imposing "abstinence" education. The university chiefs say they have their students' health in their best interests, and that lowering the drinking age will constructively change their Animal House behavior.
Obviously a chief concern is drunken driving. In the United States, more than 13,000 people died in drunk-driving accidents in 2006. That alarming figure has triggered interest groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving to call for greater enforcement, and also oppose the Amethyst plan.
Yet in France, where the drinking age is 16, there were only 1,241 alcohol-related deaths on the streets in 2007. In Canada (19 to drink), about 1,000 die because of drunken driving every year. In Japan, fewer than 500 people a year die in motor accidents involving alcohol, even given the country's strict DUI enforcement.
Would lowering the U.S. drinking age be productive as long as teenagers are responsible? And if so, how do communities and the authorities guarantee better alcohol education? It seems that most college students either know someone or know a friend of someone who died in a drunk-driving crash. Anecdotal evidence is almost more powerful than the figure of 13,000 people each year getting in fatal crashes.
It's unlikely that the drinking age will change anytime soon, despite the United States' high age requirement compared to the rest of the world. There's just too much at risk.
The idea behind lowering the U.S. drinking age to 18 is that it will let police focus on enforcing more serious crimes, while simultaneously removing the stigma of consuming alcohol among the underage. One consequence, however, could be that waves and waves of newly legal drinkers will endanger their lives and others by being careless.
But look around the world.
The United States is one of just a few countries with a drinking age as high as 21 years old. Some of the oldest countries in the world have lower drinking ages -- and higher expectations for youth.
Take Japan, where I've been studying for almost two months now. Next to every other soda and potato chip vending machine on the corner is a similar display for different brands of beer and cigarettes. The country's drinking age is officially 20, but practically it's anyone with 230 yen (about $2.50). There is very little police enforcement, and no laws forbidding public consumption, although it happens rarely. The reason is because there is a high moral and social expectation that most people will be responsible.In France, the heart of the world's wine community, the legal age is 16, and the same goes for Germany, Indonesia, Denmark, Italy and a variety of African countries.
What about Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand? No drinking age whatsoever, which is actually common in a lot of smaller countries and islands in Europe and Asia.
India is the only country that restricts alcohol in some areas to those who aren't at least 25, the highest drinking age in the world. In Pakistan, Iran and Libya, among others, alcohol is actually illegal.
Just a handful of other countries have the same requirement as the United States, at 21: Armenia, Egypt and some islands near Australia.
So why is the land of the free nearly alone in this category? Its immediate neighbors are less restrictive: Canada's age is 19, while Mexico's is 18, the most common around the world.
But most of these countries didn't set their ages in the teens for the same reason that many advocates want to in the United States, most notably the Amethyst Initiative, a group of college presidents who say lowering the drinking age to 18 will be more effective than simply imposing "abstinence" education. The university chiefs say they have their students' health in their best interests, and that lowering the drinking age will constructively change their Animal House behavior.
Obviously a chief concern is drunken driving. In the United States, more than 13,000 people died in drunk-driving accidents in 2006. That alarming figure has triggered interest groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving to call for greater enforcement, and also oppose the Amethyst plan.
Yet in France, where the drinking age is 16, there were only 1,241 alcohol-related deaths on the streets in 2007. In Canada (19 to drink), about 1,000 die because of drunken driving every year. In Japan, fewer than 500 people a year die in motor accidents involving alcohol, even given the country's strict DUI enforcement.
Would lowering the U.S. drinking age be productive as long as teenagers are responsible? And if so, how do communities and the authorities guarantee better alcohol education? It seems that most college students either know someone or know a friend of someone who died in a drunk-driving crash. Anecdotal evidence is almost more powerful than the figure of 13,000 people each year getting in fatal crashes.
It's unlikely that the drinking age will change anytime soon, despite the United States' high age requirement compared to the rest of the world. There's just too much at risk.
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Angiebaby
9:36AM 9:36AM Feb 21st 2009
Good morning, Grasshopper. Clearly, you no better at math than slightly addled, middle-age woman. Today's lesson: Comparing apples to apples, not oranges. With your math figures, US deaths from DD less than 0.04 % of population. France DDD (drunk driving deaths) 0.02%, Canada DDD 0.03%, and Japan DDD 0.0003. France population only about 1/5 of US population, but DDD's only 1/2 of US number, while Canada population less than 1/10th of US, DDD's only 0.01% lower. Japan DDD rate low, but remember, Grasshopper, primary mode of transportation in Japan mass transit. Today's math professor not support drunk driving, but number of DDD's in US actually very tiny, and not much greater in number than other countries with lower drinking age. Common sense say, if legal drinking age lowered, number of DDD's higher. But then, if old enough to serve country in time of war, why cannot have a beer?
They very good at math in Japan, Grasshopper. Perhaps you get tutor. Remember: Man who try to get same from apples and oranges, get neither apple juice, nor orange juice; just tasty booboo.
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Matt
4:36AM 4:36AM Feb 22nd 2009
Man who go to bed with itchy butt wake up with smelly finger
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Angiebaby
8:52AM 8:52AM Feb 22nd 2009
Ahh. Consequences to actions, my friend. Man who go to bed with nasty, itchy butt deserve to wake up with smelly finger.
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jessica
12:33PM 12:33PM Feb 22nd 2009
Your information changes everything. Hmm... Journalism is a strange thing.
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Angiebaby
1:59PM 1:59PM Feb 22nd 2009
I agree with you, Jessica. Journalism, if we dare call it that, is a strange thing indeed. Instead of reporting honest, unbiased information which we citizens can depend on to spur critical thinking and objective decision making, it is almost a form of propaganda used to get us to react in certain ways to advance special interest agendas. The truth, or the "whole picture" doesn't matter any more. Sadly, it is mainstream media in its entirety, not any particular form of journalism. (Print, broadcast, film, etc.)
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Ernest
10:00PM 10:00PM Feb 22nd 2009
I firmly beleive we will have more responsible and mature acting youth in the future if we lower the drinking age to 18. When I travel to my native Italy and Canada, I see young people who are more mature in their view and consumption of beer, alcohol and cigarettes. In my own family I see it with my younger family members that enjoy wine with the older adults. The vast majority of American young people are immature in the behaviors toward alcohol, beer, cigarettes and sex because we as a country do not expose our children to these things and show them how to enjoy them responsibly and in a mature, balanced manner. We just keep them away from it and then wonder why they binge when they are out of their parents control...
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Angiebaby
10:02AM 10:02AM Feb 23rd 2009
Ernest, I think one of the intangible lessons learned from traveling is being able to see a "same" situation in a different light. In your example, the "same" is the question of alcohol consumption, and the difference, as you mentioned, is the role family plays in modeling by actions, not just words. It used to be that way here.
When I was a child, I shared beer and sardines on crackers with my grandfather. I would almost bet I'm the only grandchild who did. Lucky, lucky me. Of course, I may have been the only kid who liked beer and sardines, but to be included in that "grown up" ritual with my grandfather, I would have choked them down no matter what. My father ordered wine for everyone at dinner when I was a teenager. It was a mature dinner setting, and I see nothing wrong with it to this day. And you know what? I wasn't ruined for life by these moments.
Now, we tend to err on the side of self righteousness, and become fixated on a number (18 or 21) to decide at what age one can handle drinking, or sexual relations, rather than teach responsibility through parental behavior. And rather than including our kids as part of a working family, as in working together, we treat them as exalted princes and princesses. Sometimes I want to cry when I realize just how much we, as American families, have just given up, especially when I see families thriving in other cultures. Cultures which don't allow tv, movies, radio, and video games to teach their kids about family, love, responsibility, sexual intimacy, alcohol consumption, morals, values, and manners.
Sadly, we expect nothing from our kids, and that's exactly what we get.
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Morgan
12:21PM 12:21PM Feb 21st 2009
I don't know about the other countries, but certainly fewer people drive in France than in the US - one sees a lot of drunken minors on the mass transit system.
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Dennis
11:55AM 11:55AM Feb 21st 2009
MADD has become a runaway organization, always looking for something else to ban.
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chubbygayguy
12:02PM 12:02PM Feb 21st 2009
People should rememebr that making change is rarely easy. If we lowered the drinking age back to 18 or eliminated it there would probably be a spike in the amount of drunk driving accidents and and then over a few years it would level back down, probably down below what it currently is now. Though I have no facts to prove it, but if something is no longer taboo, the younger kids would no longer find it such fun to do and therefore it would seem logical that many would never even try drinking to begin with, since the taste of most alcohol is an aquired taste.
Just my thought on the the whole thing, and just so you know this come from a 43 year old non drinker who has never been drunk. :-)
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Big Boy
5:22PM 5:22PM Feb 21st 2009
Real simple. If you are old enuff to leave your life's blood in the sands of some God forsaken shithole, in the name of the USA, vote for the President of the USA, and buy nicotine across the counter, are you not considered an adult? If you're old enuff to wear green in the Great Green Killing Machine, you should be allowed to buy a beer, if you are so inclined. Either lower the drinking age, or raise the voting and enlistment age.
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KJ
2:07AM 2:07AM Feb 22nd 2009
K, Um, Yeah. US is Ass-Backwards IMO. Drinking age should be lower/abondoned while the driving age should be HIGHER. IMHO if the drinking age was lowered or abandoned by the time teens/young adults reached the driving age (which would be higher) they prob. most likely would have already been through that naughty drinking "phase". NOTE: Getting a drivers license is CAKE here in US compared to other countries. However HUGE prob.would be getting society to approve/back a major change. For some twisted, messed up, BIZZARE reason society seems to think that lowering the drinking age would somehow/way condone drinking. just like handing out condoms is condoning sex n just like handing out CLEAN needles is encouraging ppl. to slam drugs. It's not condoning ANYTHING cept maybe, um, safety? I been to Europe n it just seems to me that US is behind the times compared to other countries. Perhaps we should catch up *shrug*
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ANNETTE CORRIVEAU
3:32PM 3:32PM Feb 22nd 2009
A boy can go fight for his country at 18.. Can drive at 16..But has to be 21 to buy a booze..
I dont drink and Iam not for it at all. But if a boy is old enough to go fight for what he believes in THEN HE IS OLD ENOUGH TO BUY BEER.
I think they should be older than 16 to get to drive.THATS TO YOUNG...
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Tracie Smith
2:30PM 2:30PM Mar 9th 2009
This IS AMERICA, not EUROPE!!!! Okay, if the arguement is about serving in the military and not old enough to drink. Raise the age to join the military to 21, at least then a person should be old enough to make an intelligent decision about the future of his life. How many 15 year olds do you know who are responsible enough NOT to text and talk on the cell while driving? Add to that, drinking, texting and driving. That is a tragedy waiting to happen. Keep it at 21.
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Tracie Smith
2:32PM 2:32PM Mar 9th 2009
Yeah, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, that's ALWAYS a healthy choice. More reason for socialized healthcare, right?
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justin
2:25PM 2:25PM Apr 30th 2009
The simple fact is that the Government SHOULD NOT BE TAKING CARE OF YOUR CHILDREN!!! It is the parents responsibility to teach their children about these things. Americans suck at parenting. The government shouldn't have to teach your kids about sex in school and they shouldn't have to implement a drinking age to try and stop them from drinking. And guess what? you aren't going to stop them no matter what. They are going to do it anyway, so you better teach them about it.
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