Lowering the “Bar” in Virginia Beach   

In Virginia, a person must be at least 21 years of age to purchase or publicly possess alcoholic beverages. The law also covers military personnel stationed in Virginia. The National Drinking Age Act of 1984 which established the Legal Drinking Age (LDA) “requires that States prohibit persons under 21 years of age from purchasing or publicly possessing alcoholic beverages as a condition of receiving State highway funds.” Prompted by the upcoming renewal of the National Drinking Age Act; a special group, consisting of national college presidents, launched an initiative to debate law’s effectiveness and whether it is time to lower the drinking age to 18. The group Amethyst Initiative, is comprise of over one hundred college presidents, including presidents from five private Virginia Colleges (Hollins and Washington, Lee universities, Randolph-Macon, Hampden-Sydney and Sweet Briar). However, mounting a strong opposition is the group called Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), claiming that statistics prove keeping the LDA to 21 saves lives. Lowering legal drinking age in the state of Virginia will have great ramification to the city of Virginia Beach in terms of increased number of alcohol drinkers (local residents and members of military), increased police involvement, and potential rise in drunk-driving and other alcohol-related incidents. 

The statement issued by the Amethyst Initiative group contends in part that “TWENTY-ONE IS NOT WORKING”, adding that “A culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking, often conducted off-campus has developed”.  Furthermore, the group claims “Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.” Additionally, the group reasoned that “Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer. By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.” Although these things truly do happen, the Amethyst Initiative did not offer evidence in terms of statistics or surveys to back their statement. It seems their main driving point is that maintaining the legal drinking age at 21 makes it even more tempting for younger people to break the law which leads to binge-drinking.

In countering the Amethyst Initiative, MADD claims that the current drinking age limit of 21 saves lives. According to Laura Dean-Mooney, National President of MADD, the organization believes in basing public health policy on sound medical research and is committed to highlighting the lifesaving impact of the 21 drinking age”. She went on to say “Twenty-one isn't just an arbitrary number set by Congress--more than 20 states already had laws setting the drinking age there in 1984”. Reinforcing her argument, Dean-Mooney presented statistical facts which show that since implementation of the 21 law, “…the number of young people killed annually in crashes involving drunk drivers under 21 has been cut in half, from more than 5,000 individuals in the early 1980s to around 2,000 in 2005. By the end of 2005, the 21 drinking age had saved nearly 25,000 American lives--approximately 1,000 lives a year.”

Although the groups strongly disagree over the right drinking age limit, both of them acknowledged that the real concern is the binge-drinking that goes on in the privacy of homes that often leads to health problems and disorderly conduct by underage drinkers. The Amethyst Initiative claims that alcohol education has not resulted in constructive behavioral change but provided no specific facts or elaboration. Alcohol Education at school may not have been sufficient but parental supervision and counseling must also be injected to make education effective.  Teen age kids drink alcohol because of peer pressure, or to imitate what they see on televisions and movies. These are the areas where parents can play a big role by close supervision and constantly reminding their children of the perils of alcohol.  According to KidsHealth, a website providing advice for teens about health, relationships, and growing up, other reasons why people drink include:

• they want to know what it’s like to drink alcohol
• they believe that it will make them feel good, not realizing it could just as easily make them sick
• they may look at alcohol as a way to reduce stress, even though it can end up creating more stress
• they want to feel older"

Other more serious effects of binge drinking according to KidsHealth include Alcohol Poisoning, Impaired Judgment, Physical and Mental Health, and Addiction. These areas should be of major concern to parents and their teenage children. The most common immediate effect of Alcohol Poisoning according to KidsHealth includes “extreme confusion, inability to be awakened, vomiting, seizures, slow or irregular breathing, low body temperature and bluish or pale skin”.

Equally alarming and even more dangerous is the alcohol’s effect on judgment. Adults suffer impaired judgment when they consume alcohol or take certain medications. However, in most cases, they are able to neutralize some of the impairment due to their past experiences which enables them to avoid risky situation. For example,  adult drinkers usually are wise enough to designate a non-drinker to drive them home. Young people on the other hand do not have enough experience to make prudent decision when their judgment is impaired – likely to take risks which often result to serious consequence. In spite of this, some people still believes that time is ripe for the drinking age to be lowered. In her article “New Approach to drinking deserves that old college try”, Dougherty reminisces about her old college days when drinking is socially acceptable to younger people. She stated that “Instead of wasting their time on temperance, college administrators should battle binge drinking – a deadly practice that seems to be on the rise”. To this, Dougherty offered some recommendations to curb drinking and drunk driving. However, she seems to agree with the Amethyst Initiative group that the law needs revision. She wrote that according to the Amethyst group, it works like this: “Students who aren’t old enough to drink legally will “pregame.” That is, they guzzle alcohol behind closed doors before heading out for the night to bars or parties.”  She continued that “if they were allowed to drink legally, they might be more inclined to sip more moderately and spread their consumption out through the evening.” However, this statement is only a supposition and not back by evidence. Maybe on the first few occasion, an underage drinker may indeed learn how to drink moderately. The problem arises once their young bodies get accustomed to having 3 or 4 drinks without apparent negative effect, thus the urge to move up the ante by increasing consumption the next time around. And it’s all downhill from that point on.

With many pros and cons emerging pertaining the Legal Drinking Age limit, it is important to understand why it was set to 21 in the first place. According to American Medical Association (AMA), the 21 age minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) limit was established after Prohibition.  AMA stated that “Between 1970 and 1975, however, 29 states lowered the MLDA to 18, 19 or 20.” “…Scientist began studying the effects of lowered MLDA, focusing particularly on the incidence of motor vehicle crashes, the leading cause of death among teenagers. Several studies in the 1970s found that motor vehicle crashes increased significantly among teens when the MLDA was lowered.” As a result of these findings, many citizen advocacy groups pressured their states to restore the MLDA to 21. Their actions eventually led to the federal government’s creation of National Drinking Age Act of 1984, ultimately setting the limit to 21.

Virginia Beach already has had a number of drunk-driving incidents that claimed many lives. The perpetrators include both civilian and military people, young and old. Besides alcohol-related accidents, other potential danger of underage drinking includes unsafe sex, rape, assault and hospitalization. School and job performance, as well as family relations will also suffer. Lowering the legal drinking age to 18 will only worsen above consequences with the addition of 18 to 20 years old kids from both the civilian population and military community. This increase in legal-aged alcohol drinkers will require additional law enforcement or surveillance, putting undue burden to the local police force. There is no supporting evidence or study that shows lowering the minimum legal drinking age would make sense and benefit our young citizens, or make our community and streets safer. Therefore, the current drinking age limit of 21 should be preserve for the state of Virginia, especially the city of Virginia Beach and surrounding communities.

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Works Cited:

American Medical Association (AMA) web page. “Minimum Legal Drinking Age” <http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13246.html>      (February 12, 2008)

Amethyst Initiative web page. <http://www.amethystinitiative.org/statement/>

Dean-Mooney, Laura. “A Lower Age Would Be Unsafe” U.S. News & World Report.  9/15/2008, Vol. 145 Issue 6,  p10-10

Dougherty, Kerry. “New Approach to drinking deserves that old college try”. The Virginian Pilot.  August 24, 2008

KidsHealth web page. “Binge Drinking”  <http://kidshealth.org/teen/drug_alcohol/alcohol/binge_drink.html>

The National Drinking Age Act of 1984.

 <http://www.alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/index.asp?SEC=%7B9937ACFC-DB3A-4159-B068-A302CEEE0EDF%7D&Type=B_BASIC>