by Lisa Frederiksen
One of the areas covered in the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2007 Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking is a presentation of data from the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Drugs, 2003, on binge drinking by European students ages 15-16. As you likely have read, there is an effort by American university and college presidents, called the Amethyst Initiative, that urges a debate on lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. The belief is that a lower drinking age will remove the temptation to binge drink because alcohol consumption would be legal for students at age 18 (i.e., no need to drink as much as possible when an occasion arises because access will be legal and readily available).
As shown in Figure 7 on page 9 of the Surgeon General’s report, many European countries have a significant proportion of young people ages 15–16 reporting they binge drink. Binge drinking is defined in this report as 5+ drinks on one occasion. Percentages of students reporting binge drinking on 1-2 occasions in the past 30 days in Denmark, Finland, Russia, Greece, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Iceland, the UK, Ukraine and Norway EXCEEDED students reporting similar binge drinking in the United States. In all of the countries listed, the minimum legal drinking age is lower than in the United States.
These data seem to call into question the suggestion that having a lower minimum legal drinking age, as they do in many European countries, results in less problem drinking by adolescents.
More food for thought for this discussion.
Actually, it’s the Amethyst Initiative, and what it’s really proposing is a lowering of the drinking age ALONG WITH real alcohol education, education about acceptable, social, moderate drinking. So there is no “suggestion that having a lower minimum legal drinking age, as they do in many European countries, results in less problem drinking by adolescents.” That would be your suggestion, not that of the Amethyst Initiative.
The Amethyst Initiative has already succeeded, to some extent. There has been more serious discussion of the legal drinking age in the past year than in the fifteen previous years. Such discussion, and debate, is healthy, normal, and beneficial. Trying to suppress the discussion — as various anti-alcohol groups such as PIRE, the Marin Institute, and MADD did — is not helpful.
Alcohol education only makes sense. We teach our children how to cross the street, how to be safe around strangers, how to drive safely, how to have safe sex…but we tell them alcohol is BAD until you turn 21, and then we shove them through the bar door, here you go, see ya! That’s not just a bad idea, it’s horribly irresponsible. Millions of Americans drink safely. Proper education — other than “Alcohol bad, must not do” — could keep millions of Americans from drinking unsafely. Why not embrace that?
Hi Lew,
You are so right, “Amethyst” Initiative — for those wanting to learn more about it, here is their website link, http://www.amethystinitiative.org/.
To your point about about my stating the Initiative effort suggests that “having a lower minimum legal drinking age…results in less problem drinking by adolescents” — I drew this conclusion based on what’s written on the Initiative’s website:
“It’s time to rethink the drinking age.
In 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposed a penalty of 10% of a state’s federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.
Twenty-four years later, our experience as college and university presidents convinces us that…
Twenty-one is not working
A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.
Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.
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.”
I fully embrace the idea of education and discussion and agree that millions of Americans drink safely — in fact, 35% do not drink at all. However, there is new research on brain development, ages 12 – 25, that is showing the impact of alcohol abuse on that brain development. Additionally, early alcohol use, independent of other risk factors, strongly predicts the development of alcohol addiction (NIAAA), and each year [between the ages of 13 and 21] that consumption is put off, the probability of becoming alcohol dependent drops by 14% (SAMHSA-TooSmarttoStart).
This link to another of my posts presents some of this brain development research, http://www.breakingthecycles.com/blog/2009/05/28/how-teens-can-become-alcoholics-before-age-21/
I really appreciate you commenting on this post!!
Lisa
P.S. I have one college age daughter and one who has graduated from college and both drank/drink in college, so I understand this dilemma and agree that talking about it is so important.
FYI Readers…I went ahead and changed the word Amherst to Amethyst and changed the link from an article to that of the Initiative’s website to cut down on confusion for future readers. Lew was correct, however, the original word, Amherst, was wrong.
Cheers, Lisa.
My problem with this brain research is that it’s largely speculative, and ignores the gross empirical evidence: if drinking under the age of 21 is harmful to developing brains, where’s the epidemic of brain damage in Europe, Asia, and Canada? I can’t square the claims of this research with the claims of educational research that US students are consistently outdone by European students. The answer, of course, is that there are multiple factors at work in both situations.
I’ve read the adolescent alcohol brain research, and it’s almost all based on heavy drinking: exactly the kind of thing that is a problem no matter what age the drinker is. There are also studies that find while alcohol does more cognitive damage to the teen brain than to the adult brain, the damage is temporary and the teen brain recovers faster. Beyond that…if the brain is still developing to age 25, why isn’t anyone proposing a health-based drinking age of 25?
I’m also familiar with the NIAAA study, and found their accounting for other risk factors to be optimistic at best. I’m not at all convinced that they’ve found a causal link rather than a correlative one. In other words, I’m not sure it’s a surprise that someone who would start drinking at age 13 — for reasons of nature and nurture — would be more likely to become an alcoholic than one who started at 19. The question is whether drinking at 13 contributed to it, or CHOOSING
Sorry, hit the wrong button! Pretty much done, anyway.
Anyway, as I said…the very best part of the Amethyst Initiative is that it is fostering this debate, and demanding better science. It’s too important a topic to do anything else.
I really appreciate you adding further comments, Lew.