After Prohibition, almost all states exceeded the Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) of 21. However, between 1970 and 1975, 29 states lowered the MLDA to 18, 19 or 20 years, mainly in response to the change in voting age. Studies conducted at the time showed that traffic accidents among teenagers increased as states reduced their MLDA. In addition, the “blood borders” between states with different MLDAs have attracted public attention after high-profile accidents in which teenagers under the legal drinking age traveled to a neighboring state with a lower MLDA, drank legally, and crashed on their way home. Stakeholders called on States to increase their MLDA to 21. Some did so in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but others did not. To promote a national age of alcohol consumption, Congress enacted the National MLDA. A review conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1988 found that increasing the age of alcohol consumption reduced alcohol in adolescents, driving after drinking, and alcohol-related traffic accidents in adolescents. The repeal of the ban by the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933, allowed each state to establish its own laws on alcohol consumption.
At the time, most states set the legal drinking age (MLDA) for alcohol at 21. The Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) laws set the minimum legal age at which a person can purchase alcoholic beverages. The MLDA in the United States is 21 years old. However, prior to the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, the legal age at which alcohol could be purchased varied from state to state.1 The United States has one of the highest legal drinking ages in the world. Believe it or not, Franklin Roosevelt helped bring about change in a rather heavy way. FDR approved lowering the minimum age for conscription from 21 to 18 during World War II. As Vietnam-era conscription unfolded, people were naturally a little upset by the fact that 18-year-old men were mature enough to fight, but not old enough to vote. In 1971, for example, states ratified the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. Lawmakers have begun to apply the same logic to alcohol consumption.
The age of alcohol consumption, that of 21 years. The constitutional amendment placed under the responsibility of individual states began to decline throughout the country. However, as the legal drinking age fell across the country in the `70s, alarm bells began ringing, notes licensed clinical psychologist Suzette Glasner-Edwards, PhD, an associate professor at UCLA`s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. “Research conducted after this period strongly suggests that an increase in traffic accidents among young people is linked to this change in the lowering of the legal drinking age,” she told Teen Vogue. “As a result, citizens` efforts to encourage states to reintroduce 21 to the legal minimum age have begun. The passage of the Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 forced states to raise their legal age to buy or publicly possess alcohol to 21 or risk losing millions of dollars in federal money on highways. By 1988, all 50 states had increased their MLDA to 21. In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed, which stipulated that federal funds for highways were withheld by U.S.
states that had not restored the legal drinking age to 21. By 1988, all States had introduced the minimum age. History says no. When U.S. states had a lower legal drinking age, the alcohol problem was worse for minors.3 For example, before the introduction of the legal drinking age of 21 by all states, underage drunk drivers were involved in more than twice as many fatal traffic accidents as they are today.3 References 3. Fell, James. Excerpt from “Chapter 2: Federalism: Solved, the Federal Government Should Restore the Freedom of Every State to Set Its Drinking Age.” in Ellis, Richard and Nelson, Michael (eds.) Debating Reform. CQPress Publishers, Fall 2009. In fact, young people in Europe have higher rates of intoxication than in the United States, and less than a quarter had lower or equivalent rates than in the United States.
In addition, a higher percentage of young people in much of Europe report drinking alcohol more frequently than their American counterparts. 1-2 Most European teenagers have higher rates of alcohol-related problems due to their heavy alcohol consumption. Perhaps the best example of facts versus myths is what happened in New Zealand. In 1999, New Zealand lowered its purchase age from 20 to 18. Not only have drunk traffic accidents increased, but adolescents have started drinking earlier, excessive alcohol consumption has intensified, and in the 12 months following the lowering of the legal drinking age, there has been a 50% increase in the number of intoxicated patients aged 18 and 19 in the auckland hospital emergency room.3 References 1. ESPAD Report 2003 on the consumption of alcohol and other drugs among students in 35 European countries. Published in 2004. Read excerpts here. 2. Johnston, L.D., O`Malley, P. M., Bachman, J.
G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2004). Monitoring the Future national results on adolescent drug use: Overview of key findings, 2003 (publication des NIH n° 04-5506). Bethesda, MD: Nationales Institut für Drogenmissbrauch.