Bob Ross wrote:By studying state-by-state data, the authors found that most of the reduction in fatalities came from states that had raised the drinking age before the federal law went on the books; in states that raised the drinking age to comply with the federal pressure, there was little effect.
This is exactly what I would have expected to happen. The drinkers i the states that raised the age early are the ones who were driving across state lines to imbibe. When the other state raised its drinking age also, there was no longer any motivation to go there to do drinking.
Furthermore, fatalities in states that raised the age early dipped only briefly; in the other states, they either remained steady or increased after the age was changed. The authors conclude that the overall reduction in traffic deaths has had more to do with safer cars and better medical treatment for accident victims than with policies handed down from on high.
This is the more compelling part of the argument, IMO. It would seem that underage drinkers went back to finding clandestine sources for booze, once the legal alternative was removed.
I was a senior in high school at the time that Connecticut and Massachusetts lowered the drinking age from 21 to 18, and in grad school when it was put back up again. So I got to observe this period first-hand.
The lowering of the drinking age led to a sticky situation at our high school's graduation dinner, when some students who were of the (recently lowered) legal age tried to order beer and wine. The teachers chaperoning the event objected, but the restaurant said that legally they couldn't refuse to serve them.
My freshman year in college was the first year that it was legal for just about everyone on campus to drink alcohol. Prior to that, alcohol had been fairly freely available on campus. The college sanctioned it on the legal grounds of "in loco parentis". This was a somewhat shaky legal stance, but the local authorities never cracked down on it. This was the era of campus riots (there had been a student takeover of the administration building the spring before my first year), and they probably (and correctly) figured that any crackdown would provoke a riot.
My junior year the college started selling beer and wine officially in the student union. One of the conditions for obtaining the liquor license was the abolishment of in loco parentis and a ban on sale or distribution elsewhere on campus (such as dorm common rooms, which had become de facto pubs). There was a dramatic decrease in weekend rowdiness and vandalism problems on campus.
My own experience from the 1970s is that offering those in the 18-20 age group a legal and civilized source of alcohol promoted more civilized drinking behavior. The reason at the time for raising the drinking age again was traffic carnage. If it really is true that the change in policy was ineffective, then I am in favor of lowering the age to 18 again.
-Paul W.