Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young Americans. It cannot be denied, ignored, or legislated away.
Choose Responsibility supports a series of changes to treat 18, 19 and 20 year-olds as the young adults the law otherwise says they are. Current drinking laws infantilize young adults. We should not be surprised, then, by infantile behavior from otherwise responsible adults.
We support a series of changes that will allow 18-20 year-old adults to purchase, posses and consume alcoholic beverages.
We propose a multi-faceted approach that combines education, certification, and provisional licensing for 18-20 year-old high school graduates who choose to consume alcohol.
We envision an overarching program that combines appropriate incentive and reward for responsible, lawful behavior by adolescents, and punitive measures for illegal, irresponsible behavior.
The best venue for experimentation, innovation, and critical evaluation of the proposed program is at the state level; however, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act ties states to a minimum drinking age of 21 in order to avoid a 10% reduction in a state’s federal highway appropriation. Choose Responsibility believes federal legislation should not penalize states who choose to participate in a pilot alcohol education program based on a minimum drinking age of 18.
Thus, it is our belief that:
- States that present a plan for educating and licensing young adults that can maintain low levels of fatalities while lowering the drinking age ought to be granted a waiver of the 10% reduction penalty for a minimum of five years.
- States should create a mechanism to collect relevant data required to monitor the effects of the change in law.
- State should submit these statistics to Congress (or its designate), along with an analysis of the effects of the waiver from its inception, and may or may not request either an extension of he waiver.
- Individual state proposals must include the guidelines for eligibility and suspension of licenses proposed in the model program.
This solution is adapted from content originally published on the Choose Responsibility website, where you can read more about it.