Our dysfunctional drinking laws

The United States should change its drinking laws.

Yeah, yeah, this argument is about as cliché as they come, but I am confident I would maintain this view even if I were not an underage American.

When I was younger, I totally supported the magic age of 21. I agreed with the idea that alcohol is an impediment to brain development and thought the law was an effective way to protect kids. Then, in high school, I felt little to no pressure to partake, and it definitely was not an expectation.

This was not the case when I got to college. Our culture touts college as a time for experimentation. You are supposed to go out, get drunk and make mistakes. Adults often look back fondly on their “crazy college years.”

This is the culture that has encouraged and will continue to encourage underage drinking at IU.

Our laws fly in the face of that culture. A drinking age of 21 forces students to tread a weird middle ground in which they have to pretend they are not drinking while everyone knows they are. They are walking on a balance beam between what is expected and what is allowed.

It is pretty hard for drunks to balance. They inevitably fall, and fall farther than they would if drinking laws were different.

Because they cannot buy their own alcohol, underage students often end up at strangers’ parties drinking strangers’ beer.

While it is fun to meet new people, in this context it can be dangerous. Maybe these strangers want to take advantage of freshmen seeking alcohol.

It is a risk students will take to participate in the “college experience.”

Because they are not supposed to be drinking alcohol, drunk students are afraid to return to the dorms for fear of getting caught by a resident assistant. Instead of going home, they may end up on some creeper’s couch for the night.

Students who have walked miles to get to the party with the free beer sometimes can’t walk home at the end of the night and will take rides with someone whose name they don’t even know.

The most serious case is when someone has alcohol poisoning and their friends are afraid they will get in trouble if they call for help.

Of course, the Indiana Lifeline Law provides immunity for students in this situation, but can we trust a freaked out drunk student to remember this recent piece of legislation?
They will definitely remember that they are drunk and underage, and that is against the law.

We force students to sneak around, and in sneaking around, students get hurt.
Something needs to change.

Maybe college campuses could be exempt from the drinking age. Maybe high school graduates could be fast-tracked toward legal alcohol access. Maybe we could simply lower the drinking age to 18.

Whatever the path, laws need to change, because I doubt students will.

­— casefarr@indiana.edu