Maryland Community Newspapers Online
During the 1970s, most states agreed that 18-year-olds who could sign contracts, enter military service and vote should also be allowed to drink. Believing the 18-year-old age of majority should be extended to drinking, many states, including Maryland, set their legal drinking age at 18.
Urged by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, safety and transportation experts and the stark fact that an inordinate number of auto drunk driving fatalities were caused by the 18 to 25 age group, Congress raised the legal drinking age to 21.
The National Minority Drinking Age Act also required states to raise their drinking age or lose 10 percent of their federal highway dollars. Within three years, all the states had complied.
Recently however, the current 21-year-old legal drinking age has been called into question by 129 college presidents. Each president has signed a petition urging a public debate on the current drinking age. Their goal is to lower the drinking age to 18 because they believe it will curb campus binge drinking. Petition signers in Maryland include the presidents of the University of Maryland System, Johns Hopkins University, Goucher College, Towson University and Washington College.
MADD, highway safety, transportation and alcohol abuse experts, as well as the president of McDaniel College do not agree with the logic or the goal of the petition.
They point out that the National Highway Safety Administration's records of auto fatalities, kept for over two decades, show that the 21 drinking age has saved a total of 25,000 lives — approximately 900 lives each year.
The Centers of Disease Control research points out the most binge drinking occurs among adults over the age of 25.
The National Institute of Drug Abuse reveals that most students who enter college have already had drinking and drunk experiences. Of high school students surveyed, 75 percent said they had tried alcohol and 50 percent admit to having been drunk.
I believe that no good will come from lowering the drinking age. I don't believe it will cut binge drinking. What lowering the age will do is promote more drunk driving, violence and highway deaths. With studies, surveys and reports as evidence, it's hard to believe that any good will come from lowering the legal drinking age to 18.
Eric M. Bromwell, Perry Hall
The writer, a Democrat, represents District 8 in the House of Delegates. He also is chairman of the Baltimore County delegation.