“The Drinking Age Debate”
This 60 minutes segments brings up various solutions to the ever present issue of binge or extreme drinking among the underage demographic. The authorities that claim that the law on the drinking age being 21 as unenforceable is correct. There is no way that every underage kid could be arrested for underage drinking; on any given weekend on any college campus there would be countless underclassmen in jail all night. There are simply too many underage drinkers, not enough cops, and not enough jail space or time to arrest all breakers of the law. The ways in which police enforce the law varies so much between states as well. Lowering the drinking age to 18 would not solve the problem however. As mentioned in the documentary this would just then lower the age in which kids start drinking. The story of the college boy in the documentary who died after consuming an excessive and dangerous amount of alcohol as a part of a fraternity pledging is a blatant example of hazing which is against the laws of most organizations. Situations like that should be prosecuted to the fullest due to the pressure that was put on the under age kids to drink by older college kids that should know better. Constantly arresting underage kids will do exactly what the segment says and push the drinking further underground which would prevent kids from calling for help in dire situations due to the fear of arrest. In New Jersey legislation was just passed that says that underage kids will not be punished for calling the police to help a friend that has had too much to drink and needs medical attention. Laws such as this are a good start to help prevent unnecessary deaths among underage kids. I think the idea of educating kids about drinking and appropriate drinking is a good way to help prevent excessive drinking as well but I do think the drinking age should remain 21.
