7/19/13 11:21 AMSincere: ABC debacle should stir debate on Virginia’s drinking age - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Guest-columnists

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Sincere: ABC debacle should stirdebate on Virginia’s drinking age

Posted: Sunday, July 14, 2013 12:00 am

Richard Sincere

In recent weeks, national and internationalattention has been focused onCharlottesville, site of a fumbling attemptby agents of the Department of AlcoholicBeverage Control to apprehend threeUniversity of Virginia students who hadbought a case of sparkling water at asupermarket. The agents thought they hadcaught underage buyers of beer andinstead sparked a firestorm of criticismand disbelief.

Subsequently, the ABC came underscrutiny from all quarters, from theHuffington Post to the Drudge Report.Republican Attorney General KenCuccinelli characterized the agents’actions as “overkill” and the Democrat-controlled Charlottesville City Council

urged a thorough review of the ABC’s policies and procedures.

While any close examination is welcome when a government agency violates therights of citizens, much of the discussion has skirted around the central reason for thecontroversy, namely, that the United States has the Western world’s highest legal

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7/19/13 11:21 AMSincere: ABC debacle should stir debate on Virginia’s drinking age - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Guest-columnists

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drinking age.

Today the only countries with a drinking age as high as ours are four Muslim nations(Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan) plus Palau and Sri Lanka. If that strikes youas bizarre, it should – and policymakers should see it as absurd.

In this election year, here is a suggestion for the next governor of Virginia: Proposethat the commonwealth change its drinking age to 18, the age of adulthood.

A drinking age of 21 infantilizes adults who are otherwise able to serve in the military,marry without permission, enter into business contracts, buy tobacco, vote and run forpublic office. It forces college administrators to be babysitters rather than educators.And it doesn’t achieve its stated goals.

When the higher drinking age was implemented in the 1980s, it was done in moststates under the threat of Congress withholding federal highway funds. Congresspassed this coercive legislation under the assumption that a higher drinking agewould reduce deaths and injuries from drunken driving.

Empirical research suggests that this assumption was wrong.

For instance, University of Maryland economist William Evans and two colleagues“found little effect of the drinking age on fatalities” in a paper published in the journalRisk Analysis.

Peter Asch of Rutgers University and David Levy of the Federal Trade Commissionnoted in the Southern Economic Journal that though there is reason to believe thatraising the drinking age does reduce accidents among the affected group, this doesnot “constitute persuasive evidence that higher drinking ages make the roads safer.”

In fact, they said, “higher drinking ages may simply be moving the problem around,rather than solving it.” Statistics from states that have had different drinking ages – 18,19, 20 or 21 – demonstrate that accidents occur at a higher rate during the first yearof legal drinking than during subsequent years, a phenomenon best attributed toinexperienced drinkers regardless of age.

In 2007, Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron and Yale University lawprofessor Elina Tetelbaum showed that the 21-year drinking age “appears to haveonly a minor impact on teen drinking.”

In fact, they found that reductions in automotive injuries and fatalities were the result,not of the rise in the drinking age in the mid-1980s, but rather because “severallandmark improvements were made in the accident avoidance and crash protectionfeatures of passenger cars” that began in the early 1970s.

Writing in Forbes magazine, Miron explained that the lower drinking age “does notproduce its main claimed benefit. Moreover, it plausibly generates side effects, likebinge drinking and disrespect for the law – the very behavior that” such laws “aredesigned to deter.”

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7/19/13 11:21 AMSincere: ABC debacle should stir debate on Virginia’s drinking age - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Guest-columnists

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This is the view of supporters of the Amethyst Initiative, a reform-oriented statementthat now counts 136 college and university presidents among its signatories. Thestatement says plainly that “21 is not working” and that it “erode[s] respect for thelaw.“

The next governor and General Assembly should heed the Amethyst Initiative’s call to“support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age,” “consider whether the 10 percent highway fund ‘incentive’encourages or inhibits that debate,” and “invite new ideas about the best ways toprepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.”

The near-tragic events that occurred on April 11 in Charlottesville would never havehappened if the ABC were not charged with enforcing a drinking age that is too high.

It’s time for Virginia to return its drinking age to 18.

Richard Sincere writes from Charlottesville for Virginia Politics on Demand

(vapolitics.us). Contact him at

ricksincere@gmail.com.

© 2013 Richmond Times-Dispatch. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Posted in Guest-columnists on Sunday, July 14, 2013 12:00 am.

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7/19/13 11:21 AMSincere: ABC debacle should stir debate on Virginia’s drinking age - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Guest-columnists

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Connie Stevens · Charlottesville, VirginiaBravo Mr. Sincere: both issues are somewhat related in that they involve an oppressive ever-growing government curtailing our rights, but for on-the-surface different reasons. However theultimate purpose is for more government control of increasingly compliant and complacentcitizenry.

One way our government abuses us is through age discrimination (prohibition) for a certain classof adult citizens. This is nothing less than government sanctioned tyranny of the majority overthe minority, under the cloak of protectionism.

Another - more troubling - government abuse is ABC's undercover search-and-seizureoperations - with ever-increasing force and harassment of law-abiding citizens - WITHOUTprobable cause. This is a very flagrant violation of our fundamental liberty, and should deeplyconcern all citizens.

The drinking age should be lowered back down to the age of majority - where it should be. Thiswill end the government's abuse of age discrimination (prohibition) against a segment of legaladults. It will also help pull back some of ABC's reasons and rationale for their unlawful sting &surveillance operations.Reply · · Like · July 15 at 6:20am2

Jeff Kleb · Top CommenterAmen!

If someone is old enough to go over to the Middle East and risk life & limb to protectthe freedom of all us folks 'back at home', then it stands to reason they are man (orwoman) enough to enjoy a cold beer at quitting time.

The drinking age of 21 is inconsistent at best, downright silly at the worst. Eitherchange the "age of majority" to 21 for everything else or reduce the legal alcoholpurchase age to 18.Reply · Like · July 15 at 4:10pm

Jeff Kleb · Top CommenterThis is another example of heavy-handed enforcement by an agency that has to justify its ownexistence by taking aggressive action on a law that should have been changed long, long ago.

Sure, it is not the fault of the ABC that our drinking age is 21 instead of 18 (where it should be) -- but it looks like they are "doing something" by arresting college students attempting topurchase beer, which they undoubtedly believed they were doing in this bust gone bad.Reply · Like · July 15 at 4:06pm

Skip Degan · Outside Sales at Outside sales at TTII do hope that this writer asks the question as to why these girls were targeted. Did someone seethem buy the water? Did the clerk forget to card her? Were the ABC enforcement officials lookingfor something to justify their full night of lackluster enforcement?Reply · Like · July 15 at 2:46pm

George O'Brine · Works at Self Employed Attorneystupidity at work again!!!!Reply · · Like · Wednesday at 9:55am1

Skip Degan · Outside Sales at Outside sales at TTIYou and I went through the 18/21 drinking age deal- I think I drank more with a falseID in high school than driving to NY from NorthfieldReply · Like · Wednesday at 10:23am

Kenneth Bradford · Top Commenter · Wesleyan UniversityMr. Sincere's proposal and what happened in Charlottesville have little or no relation to eachother. The girls abused by the ABC agents could as easily have been seventeen, or twenty-two.When the Times-Dispatch approves an op-ed piece, doesn't anyone resembling an editor look atit for logic?Reply · Like · July 14 at 4:13am

7/19/13 11:21 AMSincere: ABC debacle should stir debate on Virginia’s drinking age - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Guest-columnists

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