Thirty years after federal legislation established 21 as a uniform minimum age to drink alcohol in all states, Americans are widely opposed to lowering the legal drinking age to 18. Seventy-four percent say they would oppose such legislation, while 25% would favor it. The level of opposition is similar to what Gallup has measured in the past.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill that withheld a portion of federal highway funds from states that did not have a minimum drinking age of 21. A Gallup Poll conducted weeks before Reagan signed the law found Americans widely favored raising the drinking age to 21, by 79% to 18%.
[...]
Despite the progress made in reducing traffic deaths involving alcohol, drunk driving remains a factor in many automobile fatalities. Also, one of the major concerns with alcohol today is binge drinking among young adults, and it is not clear that having a higher drinking age helps in that regard. Rather, some experts suggest lowering the drinking age, and teaching teens and young adults to drink responsibly at a younger age, would help to reduce the allure of alcohol to those forbidden by law to possess it.
But Americans are either not aware of or not persuaded by such arguments, given that public support for a minimum drinking age of 21 seems pretty solid and consistent over the past three decades.
[...]
[...]
Implications
It is widely known that underage drinking remains common in the U.S., despite the uniform minimum drinking age of 21 in all states. One proposed solution to the problem is to lower the drinking age to 18. Although such a move could be seen as giving in to law-breaking, it may also encourage those under 21 who drink to do so in public settings where their alcohol intake can be better monitored.
The United States' minimum age of 21 is higher than in nearly every other country. Further, there are questions about why those under 21 cannot legally drink alcohol when they are permitted to drive, vote, and serve in the military. In fact, that was the rationale that led many states to lower the drinking age to below 21 in the 1970s. Of course, those changes in the law created their own set of problems with drunk driving, although that may have been partly a result of the lack of uniformity in state drinking laws as well as irresponsible drinking by those between the ages of 18 and 20.
In any case, the public is widely opposed to lowering the drinking age, and has been for some time. Thus, any proposed legislation to legalize drinking at the age of 18 is unlikely to succeed unless Americans' attitudes on the proper minimum drinking change. Even change in public attitudes alone may not be enough to change the law, as tying federal highway funds to a minimum drinking age of 21 is an incentive for states to leave their laws unchanged.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by BUTSRSLY
Connect With Us