Durham Herald Sun
By Rev. Mark H. Creech

December 19, 2006

Plato once said: “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”…  When it comes to the subject of alcohol and drinking, an unwillingness to address alcohol policy myths leaves little hope for success in significantly reducing alcohol-related problems. Unfortunately, editor of The Herald Sun, Bob Ashley’s recent column, Is It Time to Lower the Drinking Age? disseminates more myth than light.

Ashley first draws attention to the anniversary of Prohibition, arguing it “was a dismal failure of historic proportions.” Although this view is commonly accepted by the masses and anyone who suggests otherwise is usually marginalized to the fringe, it is patently false.

Prohibition was quite successful. It didn’t eradicate drinking, but it did reduce consumption rates and thereby improve the public health. Ross J. McLennan rightly contends in his book, Booze, Bucks, Bamboozle and You, that the most convincing proof of Prohibition’s success is the government reports comparing the use of alcohol before and after Prohibition. According to McLennan, in 1914 the per-capita use of alcoholic beverages was 22.80 gallons. In 1934, the first year after repeal, the amount was only 8.96 gallons. In other words, the nation was significantly weaned away from drinking during the years alcohol sales were illegal. William Bennett, former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George H.W. Bush, writes in The Devaluing of America: “One of the clear lessons of Prohibition is that when we had laws against alcohol. There was less consumption of alcohol, less alcohol related disease, fewer drunken brawls, and a lot less public drunkenness. And contrary to myth, there is no evidence that Prohibition caused any big increases in crime.”…  Interestingly, the Drug Enforcement Agency also contends Prohibition worked.

Another myth implied by Ashley is that the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is a matter that hasn’t already received serious scientific scrutiny. The fact is no other alcohol control policy has been so well-studied. Alexander C. Wagenaar and Traci L. Toomey, in Effects of Minimum Drinking Age Laws: Review and Analysis of the Literature from 1960-2000, notes that following Prohibition most states established an age 21 MLDA. During the early 1970s trends toward lowering the MLDA started in the U.S., providing many natural experiments. As a result, research indicated that youth traffic accidents increased after lowering the age. A citizens’ effort then lobbied states to raise it back to 21. In 1984, the federal government enacted the Uniform Drinking Age Act, which withheld federal highway funds from states failing to increase their MLDA. Consequently by 1988 every state had established the age 21 requirement. The 21 age increase across multiple states again provided researchers with many natural experiments to assess the policy’s effects on alcohol consumption and related problems among youth. Wagenarr and Toomey correctly conclude: “Compared with a wide range of other programs and efforts to reduce drinking among teenagers, increasing the legal age for purchase and consumption of alcohol to 21 appears to have been the most successful effort to date”…”

Ashley also quotes John M. Cardell, retired president of Middlebury College, who says: “No college president will say that drinking has become less of a problem in the years since the age was raised.” This is true. But Wagenaar and Toomey also address this issue in their report, adding: “Although it is possible that the age-21 policy has been less effective on college campuses than among the general youth population, existing research clearly does not suggest that the age-21 MLDA has increased problems among college students.” In fact, the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study reveals Colleges that ban alcohol sales on campus fare better than those that don’t, with 29% of students at ban schools abstaining compared to only 16% at non-ban colleges.

Lastly, Ashley’s column further perpetuates the common myth that because laws in Europe regarding alcohol sales are considerably more liberal than those in America, alcohol problems in Europe are lessened. This is utter nonsense. According to the World Health Organization, over 38% of male drinkers in Poland and 30% of male drinkers in Hungary described themselves as weekly binge drinkers. This compares to 24% in the UK and 8.5% in Spain. Sadly, in Europe 5% of 11-year-olds, 12% of 13-year-olds and 29% of 15 year-olds report weekly drinking, with the average age for children getting drunk for the first time starting at around 14. Worse still, according to the Institute on Alcohol Studies in London, more than 1 out of every 4 deaths among young men and 1 in every ten deaths among young women is due to alcohol.

The light on this matter is quite revealing: Alcohol is no ordinary commodity and placing limits on its accessibility is an absolute necessity, while liberalizing alcohol sales never solves anything. Unwillingness to face this truth just keeps nations groping in the darkness of serious alcohol-related problems.

Rev. Mark H. Creech is executive director of the Raleigh-based Christian Action League of North Carolina, Inc.