To the Editor:
Acting on the suggestion of David J. Hanson, Dwight B. Heath, and Joel S. Rudy that teenagers be allowed to get a “provisional drinking license” might ease college administrators’ headaches in enforcing drinking-age laws and promise increased sales for booze companies, but it would be a public-health and safety disaster for the rest of us (“The Misguided Prohibition That Governs U.S. Colleges,” The Review, August 10).
Binge drinking by high-school seniors declined in the 1980s and 1990s largely because of laws setting the drinking age at 21. Lowering the drinking age wouldn’t magically create responsible college drinkers, but it would make alcohol more available to teens. ...
Moreover, there is no evidence that teaching young people to drink at earlier ages reduces drinking problems. Assertions that European youths drink more responsibly than their American counterparts -- because they can legally drink sooner -- don’t hold water. A recent comparison of international data done for the U.S. Department of Justice shows that teenagers in most European countries drink more and get drunk more often than American teens. ...
Provisional licensing of teens to drink is not the answer to college students’ binge drinking. Instead, college presidents, parents, and policy makers would do better to focus on the industry’s aggressive marketing of alcohol to young people, cheap alcohol prices and low taxes, and weak enforcement of drinking-age laws. The authors’ views ... are no big surprise, given Hanson’s and Heath’s long-term, documented ties to the alcoholic-beverage industry.
George Hacker Director Alcohol Policies Project Center for Science in the Public Interest Washington
David J. Hanson operates a Web site that has received financial support from, among other sources, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Dwight B. Heath has been a consultant to various agencies, including the World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences, and the International Center for Alcohol Policies, a nonprofit organization whose funds come from 12 makers of alcoholic beverages. -- The Editor
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To the Editor:
Replace the age-21 drinking law with a system of gradual access to alcohol for teens? David Hanson, Dwight Heath, and Joel Rudy win points for creativity, but their proposal is built on faulty premises, would prove to be unworkable, and is unlikely to win broad public support.
Hanson et al. assert that the age-21 law has been ineffective, but that’s not true. The U.S. Department of Transportation states that, even with imperfect enforcement, moving the national drinking age to 21 saved 17,000 lives between 1975 and 1996 alone, and estimates that the law prevents 700 to 1,000 traffic deaths annually among persons under 21. ...
The gradual-access system that Hanson and his colleagues propose is too complex to work in practice. If a law is to deter dangerous behavior, it must be simple, easily understood, and easily remembered. In our view, a law that would allow young people to drink at certain times of day or in certain establishments but not others would blur the distinction between legal and illegal conduct and would have little or no deterrent effect in reducing high-risk drinking.
Will the public support this proposal? We doubt it. A recent poll released by the Associated Press indicates that two-thirds of both teens and adults in the United States support the age-21 drinking law, and fully three-fourths think there should be more-vigorous enforcement. ...
William DeJong Director
Jonathan Kastner Communications Assistant
Helen Stubbs Communications Coordinator Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention Newton, Mass.
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To the Editor:
“The Misguided Prohibition That Governs U.S. Colleges” added very little to addressing dangerous student drinking. ...
As chairman of the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, I have been conducting round-table discussions of the problems of high-risk drinking on the campuses of Indiana University, Purdue University, Ball State University, and the University of Notre Dame. ... Many of the themes that were mentioned in the article surfaced at the meetings. ... Some people advocated the false logic touted in the article -- prohibiting drinking under 21 does not work, so prohibiting it under 18 should.
But the proposal has three grave flaws. First, how could we provide equal protection to 18-year-olds who don’t go to college? ... Second, with the availability of fake ID’s, how could we police violations of moderate drinking? ... Finally, how could we make up the revenue shortfall created from the loss of federal highway funds that mandate a drinking age of 21?
I’d suggest a different solution. ... Our campuses should be rallying behind nondrinkers, not ignoring them while pouring drinks for the binge drinkers. Marketing research should study alcohol abuse and identify its causes, and marketers should reinforce the advantages that abstaining brings to the college experience. ...
Clifford A. Ong Chairman Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission Indianapolis
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To the Editor:
David Hanson, Dwight Heath, and Joel Rudy ... have an astoundingly narrow perspective on the issue. ... The minimum drinking age was raised in the 1980s because large numbers of youths were being injured and dying in drunk-driving accidents. ... Today, under an onslaught of alcohol advertising and increased availability, ... by the time they get to college, large numbers of young people have long histories of harmful drinking. ...
As more and more research indicates, college is still a time when students’ brains and bodies are rapidly changing and developing. Physiologically and emotionally, they are simply unable to handle alcohol in the way older adults do. ...
Finally, if licensing were feasible, and if we knew how to teach responsible drinking, sellers of alcohol would continue to sell to anyone -- licensed or not. In every state, illegal sales of alcohol to minors is a major problem. The profits from these sales are too great to resist.
Far superior prevention strategies would be to: limit the vast amount of alcohol advertising and promotions aimed at young children and college students, and finance counter-advertising messages that discuss alcohol’s risks; restrict or reduce the proliferation of bars surrounding campuses; limit or ban drink specials that encourage heavy drinking; and enforce the minimum legal drinking age, which has saved thousands of lives.
Richard A. Yoast Director Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse American Medical Association Chicago
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To the Editor:
David Hanson, Dwight Heath, and Joel Rudy argue for lowering the legal minimum-drinking age by providing graduated licenses to 19- and 20-year-olds to drink in certain settings. ...
We have tried lowering the age. In the early 1970s, 29 states lowered the legal age. But, by the late 1970s, states began a broad movement returning the age to 21 after experiencing significantly increased drinking problems and more deaths among youths. There is a substantial scientific literature that clearly demonstrates that the higher legal age reduces injury and death rates among youths. ...
The laws setting a minimum legal drinking age need to be strengthened and more consistently enforced, not weakened and riddled with complicating amendments.
Ralph W. Hingson Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences Boston University Boston
Harold D. Holder Senior Scientist Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation Berkeley, Calif.
Alex C. Wagenaar Professor of Epidemiology University of Minnesota Minneapolis
Henry Wechsler Director College Alcohol Study Harvard School of Public Health Boston
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Page: B4