Psst...drinking law is mini-prohibition
B. Berry - Editor SPJ (10/17/97)

Underage and irresponsible drinking are again in the public dialogue.

National and state stories in recent weeks have focused on college students drinking themselves to death's door.

One suggestion in Madison these days is to tie drinking violations to suspension or revocation of driver's licenses. The thinking goes that driving privileges are the most prized possessions in the teen world. The thinking is probably on the mark.

Most universities and colleges have programs designed to encourage responsible drinking. Those programs go under the microscope whenever drinking tragedies occur. But, really, how are universities to teach responsible drinking when the majority of university students aren't supposed to be drinking at all?

The 21-year-old drinking age, enacted across the country under considerable pressure from the federal government, has created a subset of people who we pretty much treat as adults except when it comes to alcohol.

This may not be politically correct, but it's a fact: The 21-year-old drinking age is a sham, a smaller version of Prohibition that produces similar results. The latter didn't work, and if the goal of the 21-year-old law is to keep the post HS crowd from drinking, it's a dismal failure.

Younger teens, those under 18, are the best argument for the law. One of the goals of the 21-year-old law, enacted in Wisconsin a decade ago, was to reduce younger teens' access to alcohol. The thinking was that many 16-year-olds were members of peer groups that included 18-year-olds. Since the older ones could buy alcohol, their younger friends had easy access, too. To the extent that the law keeps alcohol out of the hands of these young teens, it has to be called a success.

As for the older group, those between 18 and 21, it's a bust. It has served to move drinking from a controlled environment like a licensed tavern to any number of clandestine environments, be they keg parties in the basements of university housing or country roads that are accessed, of course, by car. It has also created a subset of young adult law breakers.

In a culture that promotes beer drinking as a rite of adulthood, something that's fun, sexy and exciting, what would we expect these young "prohibition adults" to do? And what kind of respect does this promote for the other laws of the land?

The major stated goal of the 21-year-old drinking age was to reduce drinking-related highway deaths, a noble goal, indeed. Given the relative value of a driver's license, couldn't that goal be accomplished, perhaps better, by requiring absolute sobriety behind the wheel for those 18 and 21, while providing that group some limited drinking rights?

Let's face it, this group is going to use alcohol anyway. Let them walk to a supervised, licensed facility instead of forcing them to break the law while doing what people their age have been doing for decades.