By John Dresty

At 18, one can vote, drive a car, buy a gun, get married, serve in the state legislatures, gamble, buy tobacco, be tried as an adult (and given the death penalty), get a plane license, and be expected to die for our freedom. At that age, however, one cannot legally drink alcohol because of the “neo-prohibitionist” forces. The leader among those is MADD. Now MADD of course was founded on a noble goal, dealing with drunk driving. But the founding member of MADD, Candy Lightner, resigned in disgust when her organization turned anti-alcohol. “It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned,” she says. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.” MADD now sells a graphic showing two empty glasses of alcohol surrounded by the words assault, drowning, burns, rape and suicide. Better yet, MADD sells a television ad insisting that “if you think there’s no difference” between heroin and alcohol, “you’re dead wrong.” (See www.getmadd.com.)

As a nation, we have tried prohibition legislation twice in the past for controlling irresponsible drinking problems. These were during national prohibition in the 1920s and state prohibitions during the 1850s. These laws were finally repealed because they were unenforceable and because the backlash towards them caused other social problems. Francis Willard and Carrie Nation were members of MADD’s predecessor, the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTM). Carrie Nation, six feet tall and famous for wielding a hatchet when destroying liquor containers, who once described herself as “a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” felt divinely ordained to forcefully promote temperance. Her famous cry was “Smash, ladies, smash!” Odd that Jesus who drank wine had a “bulldog” barking at wine drinkers.

Neo-Prohibitionists are trying again, but by more covert methods. The new emphasis is on “enforcing” the drinking age. Nowadays, under-aged drinking when no car is even possible to commandeer is seen as a crime worth serious consequences. As for the actual age, the Texas branch of MADD has suggested raising it to 25.

The origin of the national drinking age was in the 1980s, just after the Vietnam War ended. Remember, only states can enact drinking ages under their police power. The federal government has no power to do so (and indeed the 21 age is not federal). However, Congress can use extortion. In 1984 Congress passed the highway funding act, which withheld 10 percent of a states’ federal highway grants if that state did not raise the drinking age. By 1988, all states had fallen in line. The act was challenged as unconstitutional (which it is), but was upheld as okay because, as Justice William Rehnquist put it, “here Congress has offered relatively mild encouragement to the states to enact higher minimum drinking ages than they would otherwise choose.” “Mild” means that states could forgo the 10 percent and lower the drinking age to 18. That 10 percent is millions and millions of dollars and is thus not really “mild” (and thus not really constitutional). Vermont is currently thinking about lowering the drinking age but has commissioned a report that has said it simply cannot afford to lose those highway funds.

Interestingly, there is evidence that a lower drinking age would actually improve certain alcohol problems. Some researchers across the country have said that the higher drinking age has in some ways made drinking more dangerous. When legal, drinking can be supervised (like in a bar). The “underground” drinking (on college campuses for example), which is as inevitable as speakeasies were during prohibition, is the more dangerous form, where binge drinking occurs. After the law change: students reporting “vomiting after drinking” increased from 45 percent to 50 percent; “cutting class after drinking” jumped from 9 percent to 12 percent; “missing class because of hangover” went from 26 percent to 28 percent; “getting lower grades due to drinking” rose from 5 percent to 7 percent; and “been in a fight after drinking” increased from 12 percent to 17 percent. This increase in abusive drinking behavior is due to young men and women learning to drink in an “underground” (and thus irresponsible) drinking environment.

Meanwhile the decline in drunk driving accidents been attributed to other factors such as: education about drunk driving, designated driver programs, seat belts, air bags, safer automobiles, lower speed limits, free taxi services, and tough drunk driving laws (that apply to everyone). Finally, I would suggest that a DUI conviction result in a 10 year license suspension on the first time. A consequence such as that would do more to affect drunk driving (among every age group) than what age people can buy liquor.

The point is that those safe minded teetotalers are correct that abstinence from booze will save you from such annoyances as cirrhosis of the liver, but not only is it culturally acceptable to drink in America (and the world) but banning alcohol does not even work in Iran, so forget it here. In fact, insofar as the 21st amendment repeals prohibition, it is our constitutional right to drink booze if we so choose. Furthermore, bullets are far more dangerous than cirrhosis. If a man is old enough to die for the teetotalers’ freedom, then he is old enough to drink if he so chooses.