Alcohol was used for survival in the 1800s.
Kids younger than 18 used to drink seven gallons of it per year.
So why is alcohol barred against anyone younger than 21?
And is your state one of the few who’s considering switching the law around?
Keep watching to find out!
The United States of America is nearly unique among other countries of the world in that
its legal drinking age is 21.
By comparison, just about all of Western Europe, most of South America, and most of sub-Saharan
Africa have a legal drinking age of 18 or lower — among other places.
These variations have to do with local drinking cultures, the ages at which different cultures
believe people are legally adults who are capable of making their own decisions, and
a host of other factors.
In the U.S., the legal drinking age has been all over the place over the centuries, from
nonexistent to 18 to 21, and just about everything in between.
Officially there’s no federal law mandating a legal drinking age of 21 in all 50 states.
The de facto legal drinking age of 21 exists because the federal government holds the purse
strings.
This is because a law passed in 1984 ties federal highway funds to setting the minimum
legal drinking age, known as the MLDA, at 21.
There was a time in American history when, save for a few teetotalers, just about everybody
drank, including male children.
The early colonists pretty much had to drink beer in order to stay alive, as beer contains
calories, which are absolutely critical when food is scarce.
Further still, the alcohol within kills microorganisms that could be contained in water and might
sicken the drinker — although it would be centuries before anyone connected the microbiological
dots.
According to PBS by 1830, Americans were guzzling alcohol to the point that even 15-year-old
boys were knocking back seven gallons per year — about three times what the average
American adult drinks today.
Prohibition put an end to all of that, but it didn't really stop anyone from drinking.
What it did do was shine a light on matters of alcohol abuse and related issues.
When Prohibition was repealed, the states, keen to keep kids and teens away from alcohol,
began setting their own MLDAs.
The result was a mishmash of conflicting state laws that existed until 1984.
There were MLDA laws prior to Prohibition, though.
For example, Wisconsin passed a law in 1839 that made it illegal to sell wine or liquor
to anyone under 18.
After Prohibition, the laws could change dramatically when you crossed state lines, but the law
became a little more consistent around the late 1960s and early 1970s.
That's when the 26th Amendment was passed, which lowered the voting age to 18, and the
states figured that if people were old enough to vote at 18, they were old enough to drink
at 18 too.
During the years in which states began lowering their drinking ages to 18, the U.S. saw a
dramatic increase in traffic accidents among teenagers.
This, and other factors, led to the National Minimum Age Drinking Act of 1984, which set
the MLDA at 21 in all 50 states.
The act doesn't specifically set the minimum drinking age at 21.
If it did, there would be thorny Constitutional issues related to state sovereignty and interstate
commerce.
Instead, it withholds federal highway funds from those states that don't comply.
All 50 states have therefore set their MLDA to 21, although there are exceptions and slight
variations from state-to-state.
Four decades after the passage of the National Minimum Age Drinking Act, some states are
wrestling with whether or not keeping their drinking age at 21 is working.
For example, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and California have all taken a second look at
their drinking laws in recent years.
"When you're capable of buying a house, the idea that you're somehow incapable of determining
whether to buy a six pack is profoundly silly."
The debate itself is both philosophical and practical.
In a philosophical sense, if someone is considered an adult at age 18 then why shouldn't they
be able to imbibe?
However, in a practical sense, the statistics don't lie, and the data points to lives being
saved by keeping the legal drinking age at 21.
Those keen to see the age lowered to 18 posit that the higher age just leads to binge-drinking
and fake IDs, however.
Further, it costs states revenue from taxes on alcohol sales as well as putting young
people into legal trouble simply for trying to have a good time.
Either way, it seems like this debate is set to continue for some time yet.
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