Now that PJ Bottoms is closed for good, and Molly's Pub faces an emergency suspension of its liquor license, I think it is time we all took a deep, cathartic breath and admit that the legal drinking age of 21 is a stupid, impractical law.
I, for one, can no longer stand to hear the self-righteous sound bites from university administrators and local police who pretend that shutting down a place like PJ Bottoms has somehow served the greater good.
One less bar on Main Street, even if it was infamous for its underage crowd, will not stop freshmen from flocking to get drunk. Nor will it stem the acquisition and possession of alcohol by minors on campus. Instead, the closure will only perpetuate a cycle in which the bars are raided, so people go to house parties, but then police break up the Heights, so students drink more on campus, and then by the time it's warm enough to go outside again, there will be another bar just like PJ Bottoms that accepts crayon-written Post-It notes as IDs, and we're back to where we started.
There is no denying that alcohol abuse causes its share of problems. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the group practically responsible for the today's drinking age, argues that in 1982, when the law was still 18 in many states, over half of all fatal car crashes involving youths also involved alcohol. And when the laws were moved back to 21, MADD says researchers found teenage deaths dropped in fatal crashes by as much as 28 percent in some states.
But that doesn't mean the U.S. drinking age, which is the highest in the world, is effective. Simply put, a higher drinking age does not solve any of the problems associated with alcohol. One study done in New York when the drinking age was raised found the law to have no impact on underage students' consumption rates, intoxication, drinking attitudes, or drinking problems. Another even found that states with the higher drinking age had a higher frequency of single-vehicle fatalities.
What we have here is not only a terrible law, but, as many others have argued before me, it furthers bad social policy. In the words of John McCardell, professor and president emeritus of Middlebury College, it's a form of neo-prohibition. "Our latter-day prohibitionists," McCardell wrote in a 2004 op-ed column, "have driven drinking behind closed doors and underground." Some social conservatives would argue it's a slippery slope to reduce the drinking age, but it is a far slipperier path to automatically imply that drinking is somehow immoral. To promote "Just Say No" campaigns of abstinence from alcohol is to deny reality.
Even the police chief at the University of Colorado, which faced a tremendous scandal two years ago for rape and alcohol, said at the time that the "prohibitionist approach" to under-21 drinkers was failing. Why? Because nobody is talking about the approach itself. What is lacking is an honest discussion about responsible drinking, so no one should be surprised by an increased number of binge drinkers when you have an entire demographic suddenly turning 21 in a societal vacuum. To me, Canada has it right with the drinking age at 19, but simply lowering the law with no change in social attitudes would solve as many problems as raising it has. As McCardell wrote, "Would we expect a student who has been denied access to oil paint to graduate with an ability to paint a portrait in oil?"
To many students, the debate over the drinking age is a simple one that comes down to the college pastime of getting anywhere between enjoyably tipsy and wasted. But the conversation that surrounds "21" is a complex and earnest one rooted in the heart of our societal values. Ever actually read the law that set the current drinking age? It's called the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, and it's wonderfully schizophrenic. On one hand it makes the purchase and public possession of alcohol illegal, but on the other it offers no such ban on drinking itself. Why the hypocrisy? I believe it's a perfect reflection of our attitude towards alcohol. Look, but don't touch. Smell, but don't taste.
No one at UB or from the Buffalo police has exactly labeled under-21 drinkers as evildoers, but let's recognize two things here: one, there is no need to treat under-aged drinking like a heinous crime, and two, there are far worse things that could embarrass this university than a couple of drunk sophomores at PJ Bottoms.
It's telling that the law set in 1984 isn't a federal mandate. Setting the drinking age at 21 is totally the state's choice, but if a state doesn't enforce the minimum age, it loses money from the government for highways. What does that say about "21" if lawmakers had to sneak it in with the illusion of choice?
Please, let PJ Bottoms close with dignity and let's save our illusions for something far more important.
