Jack Lakis | Rethinking 21: Alcohol and adulthood should start at 18

I have always said that three goals would guide my policy agenda if elected president: (1) abolishing the death penalty, (2) strengthening civic education, and (3) lowering the minimum drinking age. Today, the United States is one of the few countries in the world where alcohol consumption is regulated beyond 18. This phenomenon leaves American adult life in an uncomfortable, incongruent limbo. You've probably heard this before, but as adults, we can go to war or take out a six-figure student loan, but we can't afford a glass of wine.

The fact is, we are putting 18-year-olds in mature situations where they are growing up in real time. With full-fledged responsibility should come full-fledged privilege. Even if we look beyond these rather cliched arguments, there is a real danger for college students if alcohol remains illegal.

We live in a culture where college requires more than just purchasing dorm supplies. These days, fake IDs are on many college students' shopping lists. This phenomenon means that at least one-third of college students regularly use fake IDs to purchase or consume alcohol. This is not a minor problem. In fact, even using a fake ID as a misdemeanor can result in jail time in many states. Incarcerating students for a socially necessary activity is simply unacceptable. Why do we need to punish young adults for an activity that is so widely accepted and prevalent in American life?

Peer pressure to drink alcohol and have a fake ID causes stress among students and can affect their overall college experience. Yet college students rarely shy away from alcohol. Having to use a fake ID for something most young adults do is very unpopular. Perhaps this is because students rarely support the regulations that restrict their freedoms.

But college students aren't the only ones who support lowering the drinking age. In 2008, 136 American college leaders joined forces to form the Amethyst Initiative, an organization that calls on lawmakers to allow their students to drink. The group's founder, John McCardell, stated that laws aimed solely at abstinence “have failed to facilitate constructive behavior change among college students.” But that shouldn't be surprising. Breaking news: We tried prohibition, and it didn't work the first time.

The Amethyst Initiative further elaborates on its point by saying that despite medical amnesty policies, clandestine drinking is common and rarely reported. These situations put young adults at risk. Allowing students to drink more openly would be a much safer excuse than the status quo. Given research showing that the prevalence of unsupervised drinking has created unsafe conditions for students, lowering the drinking age is a constructive change that would create space for responsibility and minimize many of the current risks. Giving young adults the opportunity to have more adult experiences obviously leads them to develop more mature habits.

It's not that politicians don't trust young people to handle alcohol. In many states, teenagers are legally allowed to serve alcohol and monitor the drinking of others long before they are allowed to drink themselves. In addition, state legislators have recently begun proposing a number of reforms to the legal drinking age.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 21-year-old drinking age, and the law has become outdated and ineffective. There are many ways to keep college students safe, but banning unavoidable behavior is simply not one of them.

JACK LAKIS is a sophomore studying political science and communications at Kennesaw University. GaHis email is [email protected].