I am glad someone realized that maturity and self-control as pertained to drinking has little to do with age. I am sadden by the increased in binge drinking among college students yet I am not surprised. Last week I was watching Gossip Girl, they are in college now, and I don’t think there has been one single episode in which they haven’t been drinking. Obviously they are underage! and the media is endorsing such behavior as reckless as it is. I think part of the solution lies on educating the youth on the effects of alcohol consumption.

Thank you for exploring this topic on your blog.

Correct! There is a double standard and it is very bizarre to be trusted so many responsibilities by the fragile age of 18, but denied the responsibility to make decisions for yourself when it comes to alcohol. By 18, as you said, you are encouraged to vote and work. You can move out of your parents’ place and, of course, drive a car. You can go to Iraq, kill or be killed. Yet, ‘no alcohol for you, young man.’

You are right in saying peer pressure is stronger in the age group of late teens (much stronger than among young adults). I also agree with the following: “a glass, two or three later, I highly doubt the cognitive ability of an individual to make decisions, based largely on lessons taught in school and at home vs. real life experiences.” Still, I feel that the real life experiences will help you make a good decision before you’ve consumed a glass, or two or three. No age and experience can guarantee a smart move when intoxication is a fact.

I would support the current age limit of 21, if it meant that younger people ARE NOT drinking. But everything shows that THEY ARE. The question then becomes another – how do we help these young violators of the law? If getting drunk would be the bad decision you’ve made today, it would be a worse decision if you did so while also perpetrating a crime. And we know this usually happens in secrecy and hiding, where no help is readily available.

If we try to educate young people we have to be very very careful of the methods we are going to use. There are many examples where well-intentioned education programs have backfired.

Project D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) was a very popular and costly drug education program. Police officers visited classrooms (from kindergarden through highschool) discussing the harmfulness of drugs. In addition they showed videos of the “frightening consequences of illegal drug abuse” (Berger, 2007). However, years later we found the program did not promote abstinence from drug use. “In fact, 10 years later, drug use was similar between one group of highschool students who had experienced D.A.R.E. and another group who did not. The only difference was that the D.A.R.E. group had lower self-esteem than the non-D.A.R.E. group. Drug use was similar, but the D.A.R.E. group felt worse about themselves, perhaps because they were more fearful or guilty (Berger, 2007; Lynam et al., 1999).

Another example of message warning backfiring is antimarijuana advertisements. Research found that some of these anti- advertisements actually make smoking marijuana seem more attractive (Fishbein et al., 2002).

We are understanding that our attempts to educate or prohibit are not as effective as planned.

So far, researchers have found that the key factors to drug education are: active problem-solving style of coping (Wills et al., 2001) and sense of competence and well-being (Griffin et al., 2001). These might prove more important than the legal age limit. One thing is clear, this is a tough call: How old is ‘too young’?

I thought this was unfair. It was hard to understand why the double standard.

One big difference is that all of the above-mentioned responsibilities imply and require a clear mind that is not influenced by alcohol or any other substance.

And while the beginning of the drinking process does indeed suggest a previously clear mind, one glass later this is no longer the case (albeit the level of impairment is indeed different). So, a glass, two or three later, I highly doubt the cognitive ability of an individual to make decisions, based largely on lessons taught in school and at home vs. real life experiences.

Additionally, the peer pressure, so important and so prevalent around many vices, is arguably a lot bigger at 18 than at any other age.

People act stupidly when they are drunk at any age. I don’t think that anyone can argue the opposite. Yet, this extra few years of experience, I think, come in very handy (at least in most people) when it’s time to make decisions.

By the way, according to a recent commentary on CNN.com “In the 1970s when many states reduced their drinking ages, drinking-related deaths among young people increased. When the drinking age of 21 was restored, deaths declined. This effect is not simply a historical artifact explained by advances in safety technology and other policies.” (http://www.edition.cnn.com/2009/US/09/29/nelson.retain.drinking.age/index.html)