Increase the legal drinking age to 21? Why stop there? When neuroscience tells us that young people don’t reach maturity until 25 — and when higher age limits are proven to decrease booze-related fatalities — go ahead and hike it from 18 to 25. There is fat chance of this happening — I can already hear the cries about a nanny state — but anyone serious about tackling Australia’s destructive relationship with grog knows that what is being done currently is simply not enough.
Nicholas Talley, president of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, has told a Senate inquiry into alcohol-fueled violence that immediate and drastic measures are needed. A higher minimum age to buy alcohol is just one of the RACP’s recommendations. The idea has merit. It’s worked elsewhere. In 1984, the US government under Ronald Reagan lifted the drinking age from 18 to 21. States which fought it had their funding for highways withheld. By 1988, all had complied.
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Raising the age limit by three years was reported to have resulted in a 16 per cent fall in the number of crashes involving young people. A review of no less than 57 studies by University of Minnesota researchers came to the same conclusion: raising the drinking age saves lives. So successful, in fact, has it been in reducing harm to youth that it has been adopted by the anti-smoking lobby — last month, in liberal California, it became illegal for anyone under 21 to buy cigarettes. When people see things working, they are more likely to support them.
A recent Nationwide Insurance poll found three in four American adults believed underage drinking laws should be further toughened. And every year there is at least one announcement that the legal age will rise to 25. Admittedly, these “news stories” that go viral on the internet are hoaxes — some finish with a photo of a cocktail-swirling Leonardo DiCaprio, in a scene from The Great Gatsby, declaring that you’ve been tricked. But the tricks are telling because they fire up debate. One contends that “21-year-olds are too young to make decisions” and “not mentally responsible to drink”. Neuroscience would agree.
We now know the brain, once thought to be fully formed after puberty, is still evolving into the mid to late 20s and, says neuroscientist Jay Giedd, people manage risk and make decisions better in their 30s. Additionally, the impact of alcohol on a developing brain is far more acute than on a mature one, as is the risk of addiction. The earlier people start drinking, the more likely it is that they will be hazardous boozers later in life.
Most Aussie kids begin experimenting with alcohol by 14, according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies. In other research, 40 per cent of 16 to 17-year-olds admit they drink to get drunk. With 18-24 year olds, this ignoble pursuit jumps to 63 per cent. One in 10 kids aged 12-17 binge drink and most get their grog from friends or family — almost half say their parents buy it for them. While it is not illegal for parents to supply children with alcohol in a private residence, it’s time we got smarter with how we treat alcohol. Of course, those who prefer to ignore the facts would keep the legal age at 18. If people are old enough to go to war, vote or drive a car, they reason they should be able to have a beer. And if booze were taboo until 21 — as it was before 1974 — then drinking would be driven underground and bingeing would get worse. These arguments are irrational and ill-informed. Find me a doctor, psychologist, paramedic, street chaplain or police officer at the coalface of a typical Friday night who thinks otherwise.
Adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg supports a rise in the drinking age but admits it would be difficult to enforce; so does the outspoken Gordian Fulde, head of A&E at Sydney’s St Vincent Hospital. Would politicians get on board if the public broadly supported it and if they had the temerity to stand up to the powerful alcohol industry? The RACP not only wants a new minimum purchase age for alcohol, it is pushing for increased taxes on alcoholic drinks with higher health risks and the revenue to be used on alcohol treatment and harm prevention programs. It is calling on local councils to be given the power to reduce the number of licensed premises in their communities, for sports sponsorship by alcohol companies to be banned and for alcohol packaging to carry warning labels.
The legal drinking age is only one piece of a complex puzzle, complex because at its heart is a deeply flawed yet culturally entrenched bond with booze. Alcohol is not the only drug harming young people, but it is the most socially accepted. Yet problem drinking doesn’t only affect the drinker, it impacts families and communities and the socio-economic cost is exorbitant and unsustainable. Young people deserve the best shot at life, and if lifting the legal drinking age will help, then let’s give it due consideration instead of dismissing it as an attempt by the fun police to stymie personal freedom.
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