Readers Question: Evaluate the case for raising the legal drinking age to 21. Will it be more effective than other methods for reducing the harmful effects of alcohol?
There are several reasons to be concerned about the over-consumption of alcohol, especially amongst young people. In the UK, abuse of alcohol has contributed to several social, economic and health problems, including:
- Alcohol-related accidents.
- Health problems
- Alcohol addiction is a major cause of family breakdown.
- According to a report, “Health First: An evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK”. “The personal, social and economic cost of alcohol has been estimated to be up to £55bn per year for England and £7.5bn for Scotland,”
- Research carried out by Sheffield University for the government shows a 45p minimum price would reduce the consumption of alcohol by 4.3%, leading to 2,000 fewer deaths and 66,000 hospital admissions after 10 years. Researchers also claim the number of crimes would drop by 24,000 a year.
From an economic perspective, we say that alcohol is a demerit good.
- People may underestimate the personal costs of drinking alcohol to excess (especially amongst young people)
- There are external costs to society, e.g. costs of health care, costs of treating accidents, days lost from work. Therefore the social cost of alcohol is greater than the private cost.
These two factors give a justification for government intervention to deal with some issues related to alcohol. Raising the legal drinking age could help reduce these personal and social costs because it is more difficult to purchase.
Arguments against raising the drinking age to 21
- At 18, people can vote and are considered adults, so we should allow them to have a personal decision on whether to consume alcohol.
- Alcohol in moderation isn’t necessarily harmful. Rather than a blanket ban, the government could focus on tackling binge drinking through making alcohol more expensive and tackling the drinking culture.
- Drinking alcohol is so embedded in the culture, raising the legal age to 21, will make the majority of young people break the law.
- It will encourage people to find ways to circumnavigate the law. Black market alcohol supplies, which may be harder to monitor.
- Arguably, there are better ways to deal with problems of alcohol.
Will raising the drinking age to 21 be effective?
Raising the drinking age to 21 will reduce consumption amongst young people because it will be harder to buy alcohol. Also, young people are the most likely group to misuse alcohol; e.g. drinking to excess, which causes accidents, death and health problems. If people start drinking later in life, they may be more likely to drink in moderation and not get addicted at an early age.
However, it will still be possible for young people to drink at home. People will find ways to avoid the legislation e.g. asking older people to buy alcohol for them. Nevertheless, it will be more difficult. For example, a 16-year-old may not be able to get away with drinking in a pub any more. If the age is 18, it is much easier for a 16 or 17-year-old to get away with drinking alcohol.
This policy doesn’t address the underlying problem of why people want to drink to excess. For that education may be a better solution; education could help to explain the dangers of excess drinking and therefore encourage young people to drink moderation. However, previous education policies have not seemed to be very effective. Young people don’t want to hear lectures from the government about the dangers of alcohol.
Other Solutions
Higher taxes increase the cost of alcohol and may have a significant effect in reducing demand amongst young people, who have lower disposable incomes. If demand is reduced by say 20% this may reduce many of the problems of over-consumption. This policy also raises revenue for the government. But, on the other hand, it may increase the incentive to import low duty alcohol from abroad. Demand for alcohol may also be inelastic and not effective in stopping consumption.
See also:
- Tax on alcohol
- Minimum price for alcohol – pros and cons
In practice, there is very little that the government can do to change social and individual attitudes to alcohol, which is the root cause of most alcohol abuse.
In the US the legal drinking age is 21. They still have many alcohol-related problems, but, it is significantly more difficult for young people to regularly drink alcohol.
What do you think – should alcohol be illegal for under 21s?
Hi all, I’m Chloe. I’m 15 i drink hardly ever only at partys and special occasions. I think that if the age is raised it will be harder for people under 20 do get fake ids therefor less people will drink illegally. 🙂
the drinking age is better at 18 because when you are 18 you can do almost anything (within the law)
Once again the minority spoiling it for the majority,
but the government ignoring it because they would loose out on alcohol tax and they wont do that
I think the legal drinking age should be increased to 21 years. Recently there have been far too many violent incidents amongst 18-20 year old which have been either alcohol induced or drug induced or even both.
I agree with that and
Changing the legal age to 21 will not stop underage drink it will just extend underage drinking to adults of 18, 19 and 20 years of age.
that as well
what we need is to educate the ignorant part of society to drink responsible!
i mean education is the key if parents are irresponsible and ignorant to let their children get wasted then hopefully if you educate them at school they won’t do it!
2 WAYS THAT PEOPLE DRINK IN 2 DIFFERENT CLASS
1 WAY, DRINK TO GET RELAX AND HAVE FUN AT THE PUB INTELLIGENT CLASS WISE PEOPLE
2 WAY, DRINK TO GET DRUNK AND NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IGNORANT PEOPLE CLASS OF STUPID AND IRRESPONSIBLE PEOPLE! (PEOPLE NOT MATURE USUALLY)
BASIC AT 18 MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT MATURE ENOUGH TO DRINK AS MATTER OF FACT THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS THAT WE HAVE IT’S WITH THEM TEEN’S SO JUST INCREASE THE DRINKING AGE AND FOR GOD SAKE GET THE GOVERNMENT TAX AND EDUCATE THE PEOPLE !
SINCERELY
P. Luis H. R. Kreische
Personally I believe that the legal drinking age should be raised to 21 because at 18 people haven’t fully matured , as proven by scientists peoples brains fully develop around the age of 25 so raising the age to 21 will still be compromising but if thats what we need to do to get alcohol related violence out of our community thats what we will do.
I myself am not a drinker and I will NEVER drink but since everyone has a different lifestyle I can’t just force my way of life over others thats why I agree that the drinking age should be raised to 21.
Alyssa ♥
eish its rily a brilliant idea,dont drink under the age of 18 coz its very dangerous to ur helth lifestyle…mwah
we already have under agee drinkers so if you raise the age then even more people will be ddrinking under age!!
Heyy guyys drinking underage is like not cool
LOL
ily
I think that we should lower the drinking age to 10 becoz I smke and drink and im 9 so what is the point. If you have cool parents they giv you all the stuff and you will forget about all yo problemz like my gf that I dumped. anyway lower the drinking age <3 ily
yeah, drinking under age is not cool, no matter what your friends tell you! also dont pressure your friends to drink or do anything they dont want to do, its definatley not cool!
look, the whole underage drinking thing is real annoying. im a teen, and a majority of my friends think its cool to “drink” copius amounts of alcohol, and if the drinking age were to raise to 21 then we would only be increasing the amount of teens that drink instead of reducing it, which is what the government seems to think is what would happen if they did raise the legal drinking age. but now what im going to propse may seem weird but i think it might work. what if we were to introduce drinking laws like those in germany, where teens aged 14-18 are allowed to drink but arent allowed to drink any heavy alcohol, i.e straight vodka, rum, etc etc. until they hit the age of 18 then they can drink whatever. now what would also need to be proposed would be a limit to what they could drink, so e.g 3-4 standard drinks, that way it cant be seen as binge drinking. now this would allow the kids that drink already, to keep drinking but not to the amount that they used to.
It should be lowered to 15.
awesome!
Dude, i get smashed off of my face every day, and im 10
why do you drink what is the point in it? u may not care about what i say but u r doing urself a lot of harm. do u want to die early? ur young u have a lot 2 live for dont let drinking hold u down. coz once u start u cant stop then u’ll b saying bye bye 2 the world(in quite a few cases)
“once you start you cant stop” mmm dont think so, im 17 and i first drank alcohol and 15. after many times drinking after that i made a personal decision to stop. i started and i stopped, drinking is a part of our culture so we may as well find better ways of controlling it and keeping it safe for people that are underage and unexpired. raising it is only going to make it even more taboo and something that teenagers are going to want to rebel against