The topic for my research revolves around underage drinking on college campuses, which has had a plethora of research that has been done on the matter. The matter is so controversial because while most kids go to college around the age of 18 the legal drinking age across the country is 21… so this must entail that kids don’t drink in college because it’s illegal. However the lines are actually very blurred and underage drinking rates especially at college are extremely high thus leading to researching this particular aspect of American culture.
First I got some background research on the legal drinking age in the country to have a better understanding of how we ended up where we are today. A lot of the momentum to lower the drinking age in America actually was as a result of the Vietnam War. Protests over the war lead to a lot of young americans pushing to lower the national voting age to 18 with the argument, “If a boy is old enough to fight for his country, why isn’t he old enough to vote?” This eventually led to the adaptation of the slogan that is commonly used today, “If you’re old enough to fight and die for your country, why can’t you order a drink?” (Main 35). In the late 60’s and early 70’s this momentum to lower the drinking age picked up lots of support after the voting age was successfully lowered. Between 1970 and 1976 29 states lowered their drinking age below 21 however the results were horribly negative. Traffic deaths in young teens skyrocketed due to a massive increase in drunk driving amongst young adults. This lead almost instantly for calls to revoke the new lower drinking age and the leaders of the charge were a group still popular today M.A.D.D. (Mothers against drunk driving). This group was assembled by a mother of a young teenage Californian girl Cari Lightner who was struck by a drunk driver and killed on the way to a carnival (Main 35) This grassroots movement was then started and instantly picked up local, state and eventually federal support and in 1984 Congress passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act which required all states to raise the age to 21 for any kind of alcohol consumption. While states can still technically lower their drinking age the federal government says they will withhold highway funding if any state decides to do so. This is a very aggressive clause from the federal government and many would argue slightly unconstitutional because it takes away the power of states rights which was one of the founding principles of our country.
I think this background information has a very grandeur open look on the beginnings of our rather high drinking age. We are one of 12 countries in the world that have a drinking age of 21 or older in every other country in the world where drinking is legal it is below that. 60% of countries in the world the drinking age is either 18 or 19 and in 21% of countries it is even lower than that. So that means that an 18 year old, the average age of a first year college undergrad, can drink in 81% of countries in the world which is staggering (“Minimum Legal Drinking Age”, 2015). As someone who hates this law and has always pondered why it is so high. Not much of it is closely related to the topic but I feel it is solid to open with to help the reader get a better overview of the history of this law. Also possible to explore how the much stricter DUI laws today might make the main reason the age was raised again to be an irrelevant argument in 2015. Might be a good question to explore in interviews and the other primary research aspects of this paper.
Also in this article by Carla T. Main who mostly writes on law and society in America she talks explicitly about the drinking on college campuses and how she sees the high drinking age as a danger causing binge drinking and various other dangerous drinking habits (p.36-37). But it is relatively brief which is only weakness of this article for my application to my research. She is a scholarly writer and the article is peer reviewed, which makes it a very reliable article to extract information from.
The next article I found to be useful in my research on the topic is by a group of physiatrists. This article focuses mainly on high risk drinking behaviors college students partake in and better way to educate students and deal with the issue that so many of them confront because of drinking. The article sites many scholarly sources such as the Harvard School of Public Health to better break down the dangerous behaviors many college students are participating concerning drinking. Upon surveying students at Harvard two separate times, 4 years apart, they found that the same amount of students said they binge drink actually increased, 44% in 1993 and 53% in 1997. Why exactly is not know but it's only an indication of how underage drinking is only becoming easier for students. This information can be very vital in breaking down for the reader an overview of binge drinking amongst students even at colleges prestigious as Harvard. However downsides of this article is that the information is very objective and not really analyzed like in the first article by Carla T. Main. Nevertheless the medical perspective on the situation adds good depth to the secondary research presented in the paper.
Perhaps one of the best articles I found for the topic is called “AN EXAMINATION OF UNDERAGE DRINKING IN A SAMPLE OF PRIVATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS.” Written by grad students it takes a very explicit look at how underage drinking affects students specifically at private universities. My focus being DU a small private university makes the information and findings extremely relatable for my topic in writing. Downfalls of the article include that fact that it is very anti-drinking and seemingly wants to find ways to eliminate or drastically lower the amount of underage drinking on college campuses. Nevertheless it does conclude that students at these smaller private universities do better balancing drinking and school due to small classes, required attention, and teacher attention.
There are a few articles I found about how to discipline kids who have been caught underage drinking and how to prevent it from even happening in the first place. The prevention techniques I found to be a bit extreme, such as no one with a record of serving minors or caught drinking while they were minors should be allowed to buy kegs or kicking everyone not over 21 out of restaurant bars at 9pm. These methods I found to be very dated and look in a very backwards direction. Nevertheless it is good to have opposite ends of the spectrum to keep my findings diverse. However what I did find useful was the arguments behind how schools and authorities deal with underage drinking. This is extremely interesting to me because of how poorly I think the school handles underage drinking in the student body. Having been on the backend of them I find DU’s ways in particular very crude and unfair particularly their detox policy which is that any student campus that blows above the legal limit get sent to the city of Denver’s detox facility downtown. This is not only completely unnecessary it costs a lot of money for students and their families. Looking deeper into the dealing with students who have incidents could be essential in answering how acceptable the administrations feel underage drinking. Also good to look at it from a government point of view and break down how they deal with underage drinking and if it’s effective or rather a joke (personally I side on the joke side). Nevertheless it also poses great questions for the primary research aspect to get a gauge on how the community feels underage drinking is dealt with by the school and state.
I found many articles pertaining to the parental aspect of drinking and how education or lack thereof affects students when they eventually go off to college. Many studies showed parents who facilitated drinking to their underage kids made them less at risk for risky behavior when they were drinking on their own with friends. This is a critical part of the 21 drinking age debate because many kids parents have been serving them alcohol for sometime before they turn 21. Coming from an Italian family I was always offered red wine to compliment my dinner, a common cultural thing but illegal none the less. While the arguments and data are strong I feel they are not as applicable to what I am trying to answer in paper because I’m trying to focus on students while they are at college. No matter what student parent relationships will vary extremely no matter what school you attended so I feel the parental argument is a bit too insecure to use in the paper.
I feel what’s most missing from my research right now is public opinion on underage drinking in colleges. How bad does the American public as well as universities view this matter since it is so prevalent the law seems basically irrelevant. So perhaps change my keyword within my searches to find different types of articles pertaining to opinion on underage drinking and the laws that make so many Americans who drink do it illegally. Possibly also finding some sort of connection between times of prohibition and the similarities it has with the drinking laws now.
Where I saw a lot of overlap in the research was the matter of binge drinking. Some articles used it to defend the law and as a reason to force underage drinking to stop due its dangerous nature. Others found it as a sign that the current system is broken and encourages these kinds of behaviors. Nevertheless I see it as good material for the primary research aspect and getting a gauge on the DU communities view on the matter.
Reference:
Dunnagan, T., Haynes, G., Linkenbach, J., & Shatwell, P. (2003). Developing theoretical and environmental policy for underage drinking. American Journal of Health Behavior, 27(5), 508-523. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/211878874?accountid=14608
Coll, J. E., Draves, P. R., & Major, M. E. (2008). AN EXAMINATION OF UNDERAGE DRINKING IN A SAMPLE OF PRIVATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. College Student Journal, 42(4), 982-985. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/236588640?accountid=14608
Miller, N. S., M.D., Stout, A. W., B.A., & Sheppard, L. M., M.A. (2000). Underage drinking among college students. Psychiatric Annals, 30(9), 597-601. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/217045030?accountid=14608
Main, C. T. (2009). Underage drinking and the drinking age. Policy Review, (155), 33-46. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/216455758?accountid=14608
Lindsay, G. B., Merrill, R. M., Owens, A., & Barleen, N. A. (2008). Parenting manuals on underage drinking: Differences between alcohol industry and non-industry publications. American Journal of Health Education, 39(3), 130-137. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu/docview/212710239?accountid=14608
Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) in 190 Countries - Minimum Legal Drinking Age - ProCon.org. (2015, August 25). Retrieved November 3, 2015, from http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004294
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