If you ask a random college student whether or not he or she thinks the law should permit 18-year-olds to purchase and consume alcohol, youíll probably get the answer youíre expecting: ìHell yes.” The enthusiasm with which this imaginary student reacts might even convince you that they should most definitely not be allowed to drink. Yet, chances are, theyíd drink less if it were legal.
How many times have you felt as if you simply had to have something after youíd been told it was off limits? I can remember being full after lunch as a child and then immediately desolate, starving for chocolate chip cookies, just because I was told I couldnít have any until after dinner.
Temptation is and will always be a constant problem for humanity. When thereís a rule, weíre tempted to break it, and most times itís not even important what it is. Our satisfaction often doesnít come from what we actually gain in disobedience. Itís just the rush, the high of rebellion. Drinking as a minor in America is much more attractive because it is illegal. Itís taboo, itís dangerous. Therefore, itís cool.
Our laws forbid drinking until the age of 21. Nevertheless, 41 percent of students have consumed alcohol by the time theyíve reached the age 13, in the eighth grade. High school students who completed the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey admitted to drinking within the past month. These are high school students ó most still live with their parents. Itís obvious on our own campus, every Wednesday and weekend in fact, how much more alcohol the freedom of college life allots students.
Iím willing to bet that many of the drinking minors, or criminals I suppose I could say, are not bad people. They probably vote, and hold respectable jobs on and around campus. Other than drinking illegally, theyíve probably never committed a crime in their entire lives. For the most part, these are fine upstanding citizens weíre referring to. But the laws in America would have them penalized. Isnít there crime to be concerned with elsewhere? Murder, terrorism, the sex trade and all that? Do we really need to waste police muscle on a student whoís had a few beers after completing his homework?
Granted ó drinking irresponsibly is a problem for some Americans of all ages. I donít mean to imply that teenage drinking canít be or hasnít been extremely dangerous. I believe however, that lowering the drinking age to 18 would encourage teenagers to drink more responsibly. Yes, initially, newly enabled minors may over-indulge themselves but eventually drinking would probably lose a great deal of its seductive appeal. In other countries, those in Western Europe for example, drinking is nowhere near as big of a deal. Parents often serve their children wine with dinner (a little wine every now and then is said to be very healthy, you know).
Sex is also discussed casually from a very young age and thereís more nudity in a lot of their movies.† These things may sound bad but thereís definitely a lesson to be learned. Statistics show that teenagers in Western Europe are not drinking as irresponsibly as American teenagers. Western Europe does not have the growing percentage of teenage pregnancies the way we do either. Kids arenít all that crazy about drinking all the time. Who wants to go out with friends and do what you do with your parents all the time? Likewise, sex isnít that big a deal; genitals are just genitals because theyíve been seeing them offhand for years by the time theyíre like, 16.
Yes, Iím sure Europeans still enjoy sex, and I know everybody likes a little buzz. But exposure to these things at a younger age would help minors gain the knowledge and familiarity necessary to drink responsibly. It would give parents a chance to be the ones to teach their children how to drink, and it would force us to find some other rule to break.
(Statistics found at http://healthvermont.gov and www2.potsdam.edu.)