DRINKING AGE LIMITS
INTRODUCTION
Drinking age laws cover a broad spectrum of behaviors concerned with where, when and under what circumstances beverage alcohol can be purchased and consumed. The minimum legal drinking age refers to the minimum age at which beverage alcohol can be consumed. This may be different from the minimum age at which beverage alcohol can be purchased. Some countries, including Greece and Indonesia, focus their legislation solely on the legal age of purchase of beverage alcohol, and do not address a minimum age for consumption. Legislation for the minimum drinking age in United States varied from state to state over a decade ago, ranging from 18 to 21. Driven largely by the desire to curb traffic fatalities associated with alcohol consumption, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 required all states to raise their purchase and public possession of alcohol age to 21, or risk losing federal highway funds under the Federal Highway Aid Act. By 1987 all states had complied with the 21 minimum age law. A large body of research exists regarding the impact of raising the minimum drinking age to 21 in the United States. Some of the research focuses specifically on whether the new law has had the desired effect of lowering traffic fatalities. Other studies have looked at the law’s impact on patterns of youth drinking especially at the college level and specifically binge drinking.
This should be seen in context of a 28% drop in alcohol related traffic fatalities in the general population. From 1982 through 1986 when minimum purchasing and public possession age laws varied from 18 to 21, alcohol-related traffic fatalities for people under 21 dropped by 14% (from 6,329 alcohol-related fatalities to 5,455). Alcohol-related traffic fatalities for the general population during this period dropped by 4%. In NHSTA's view, the minimum 21 age laws "have had greater impact over the years as the drinking ages in the states have increased, affecting more drivers aged 18 to 20." Recognition of a direct correlation between the raising of the MLDA (minimum legal drinking age) and lower alcohol-related fatalities is not shared by all researchers. Vingilis and De Genova, for example, argue that the alcohol-relatedness of automobile accidents is based on police impressions and thus is purely subjective. Richard Zylman has also noted similar methodological concerns. Huges and Dodder point out that higher accident rates may be due to factors other than young people’s drinking behavior. Changes in the economy, freedom to drive at an earlier age, changes in the price of gasoline and more young people owning automobiles could, they argue, account for increases in automobile accidents. The Kathryn Stewart Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in its review of prevention strategies for young adults state that "[m]any other countries find this strategy [the raising of the minimum purchase age] to be culturally unacceptable." The paper references, for example, Simpson, Meyhew and Beirness who conducted research on alcohol-related traffic fatalities in Canada where the MLDA varies between 18 and 19 depending on the Province, who point out "that similar reductions in alcohol-related traffic crashes have occurred among young drivers without raising the minimum purchase age."This observation, the report concludes, "does not indicate that raising the minimum purchase age is not effective, but rather that other strategies have been effective in Canada or that other influences have been at work." Indeed, while Mayhew, Simpson and Beirness find that "the magnitude of the drinking-driving problem decreased significantly in Canada during the 1980s", they conclude that "while it might be comforting to speculate that the observed changes in the magnitude of the problem were somehow induced by the combined impact of all the drinking and driving initiatives, it is also possible the changes were unrelated to them."