Recently, [CR] President Barrett Seaman visited Q102 Radio in Philadelphia to discuss the drinking age debate with Clear Channel Public Affairs Director Loraine Ballard Morrill. You can listen to an archived copy of the interview here.
This Friday, June 24, [CR] President Barrett Seaman will speak at the Forum on Education Abroad’s second Standards of Good Practice Institute at Northwestern University. This year’s theme is “Beyond the Basics of Health, Safety, and Security.”
The full schedule for the event is available here.
University of Tennessee law professor and Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds has published a persuasive commentary in today’s Wall Street Joural on Alaska State Rep. Bob Lynn’s latest proposal to lower the drinking age to 18 for members of the military. Reynolds wrote:
Defenders of the status quo claim that highway deaths have fallen since the drinking age was raised to 21 from 18, but those claims obscure the fact that this decline merely continued a trend that was already present before the drinking age changed—and one that involved every age group, not merely those 18-21. Research by economist Jeffrey A. Miron and lawyer Elina Tetelbaum indicates that a drinking age of 21 doesn’t save lives but does promote binge drinking and contempt for the law.
Safety is the excuse, but what is really going on here is something more like prohibition. A nation that cares about freedom—and that has already learned that prohibition was a failure—should know better.
Reynolds then goes on to make the political argument for Legal Age 18:
Republicans are supposed to stand for limited government, freedom and federalism, but it was under a Republican administration—and a Republican transportation secretary, Elizabeth Dole—that states were forced to raise their age limits or face financial penalties. That was before the tea party, though. Perhaps today, when Republican leaders across the board are singing the praises of limited government, it is time for them to put their money where their mouths are and support an end to the federal drinking-age mandate.
Read the rest of his commentary here.
Alaska State Rep. Bob Lynn has proposed a bill that would allow military members under the age of 21 to drink while on base in his state.
“It’s outrageous that a member of our military can be subjected to the horrors of war, but can’t legally have a beer or smoke a cigarette,” he wrote on his blog last week.
As Aliyah Shahid reported in the New York Daily News, “Defense Department rules mandate that all U.S. military facilities follow the 21 drinking age, but U.S. bases abroad can drop their drinking age as low as 18 based on the host country’s laws.” Lynn’s proposal would change the drinking age for service members in his state.
Read the full report here.
Update: The full text of Rep. Lynn’s press release is below.
Rep. Bob Lynn (R-Anchorage) has sponsored HB 210, a bill that would enable all active duty warriors in our U.S. Armed Forces to be treated as adults. HB 210 permits active duty service members under age 21 to consume alcoholic beverages and use tobacco products in Alaska.
“Alaska has more residents in the military per capita than any other state, and we have the second highest number of veterans,” Lynn said. “We should be leading the way when it comes to military and veteran-friendly policies, but once again federal overreach precludes us from pursuing common sense solutions at the state level.” The federal government does not have the constitutional authority to govern state alcohol policies, but has managed to enforce a nationwide legal drinking age of 21 by threatening to withhold federal highway funds.
According to Rep. Lynn, “Alaska cannot be a ‘laboratory for democracy’ if we allow ourselves to be bought off by federal dollars every time our policy preferences conflict with the busy bodies in D.C.”
“I’ve decided to draw the line at treating our brave servicemen and women as adults. I think they deserve it, and I hope Alaskans will stand with me against the heavy hand of Washington.”
You can download a copy in PDF here.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control released a new report – “CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011″ – which sheds light on disparities between racial groups on a wide variety of health issues. The report touched on binge drinking, and noted that binge drinking is highest in the 18-24 age cohort:
“Binge drinking prevalence decreased with increasing age, from 25.6% among respondents aged 18–24 years to 3.8% among respondents aged ≥65 years…The average largest number of drinks consumed by binge drinkers decreased with increasing age, from 9.1 among adults aged 18–24 years to 5.5 among those aged ≥65 years.”
Donald McNeil offered a summary of the report’s findings for the New York Times:
“Binge drinking — defined as five drinks at a sitting for men and four for women — is increasing. In a switch from the norm for health problems, it is more common among the better-educated and more affluent, including college students. But poor people, and especially American Indians, drink much more heavily when on binges.”
The new report’s findings come from an analysis of the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. The full CDC report is available here.
Choose Responsibility applauds the warnings issued Nov. 17 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission to four makers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages. Caffeinated alcoholic beverages pose an emerging threat to public health, and are associated with binge drinking and alcohol-related injuries. Choose Responsibility commends the FDA and the FTC for their swift action on this issue of public concern.
“The choice of responsibility works both ways,” said Barrett Seaman, President of Choose Responsibility. “We hope and expect young people to handle alcohol responsibly, but we also expect the alcohol beverage industry to police itself—both in its advertising and promotional materials and in its choice of products. Mixing caffeine and alcohol is a poor choice.”
The FDA’s action follows a November 2009 request to manufacturers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages to provide data on the safety of their products. After conducting an independent analysis of peer-reviewed literature, the FDA found that caffeinated alcoholic beverages do not meet the generally accepted standard of safety. Instead, caffeine is an “unsafe food additive” associated with “risky behaviors that may lead to hazardous and life-threatening situations” when mixed with alcohol.
The FTC letters warned that the makers of caffeinated alcoholic beverages may be violating industry standards of truth in their advertising campaigns. Both organizations have instructed the makers of these beverages to outline the steps they have taken to comply within 15 days.
Choose Responsibility applauds these warnings, and looks forward to more opportunities to collaborate with legislators and public health officials to promote a culture of responsible and safe alcohol consumption.
Choose Responsibility is a nonprofit organization founded to stimulate informed and dispassionate public discussion about the presence of alcohol in American culture and to consider policies that will effectively empower young adults age 18 to 20 to make mature decisions about the place of alcohol in their own lives. To learn more, visit www.chooseresponsibility.org.
Colleges across the country are restricting access to Four Loko and other high-alcohol energy drinks, according to Scott Hensley of NPR. After a recent concert at the University of Rhode Island, 30 people were hospitalized for alcohol-related problems. Hensley reported that “no alcohol was available at the arena, but students apparently got hammered ahead of time.” URI banned the drink as a result.
The news comes on the heels of our recent blog item outlining similar problems at Central Washington University. At Kansas State University, the Collegian reported a spike in sales of caffeinated alcoholic drinks.
For an in-depth take on the issue, check out Peter Schworm’s story in the Boston Globe on November 2. Check out both reports and let us know what you think in the comments.
Caleb Daniloff and Colin Berghaus produced a feature story on the drinking age debate for BU Today, and the story was posted online earlier this week.
Daniloff interviewed [CR] President Barrett Seaman and Bill DeJong of the Boston University School of Public Health. When asked about the disconnect between the age of majority and the drinking age, Seaman said, “I think the main problem is the separation of adults from young people precisely at the time of their lives where they’re going to be drinking anyway.”
Check out the rest of the article and let us know what you think in the comments.
The first few weeks of the fall semester are a dangerous time for incoming college first-years, and Kathleen Megan of the Hartford Courant set out to discover what local colleges are doing to keep students safe. She interviewed [CR] President Barrett Seaman, who called the slew of hospitalizations, injuries, and property damage “an annual ritual that keeps repeating itself.”
Check out the article in the Courant and let us know what you think in the comments.
Gordon Jackson of the Florida Times-Union reports that military leaders support for Rep. Jack Kingston’s bill to lower the drinking age to 18 for enlisted service men and women consuming beer and wine in on-premise drinking establishments:
“Proposed legislation to allow service members under 21 to drink beer and wine at base restaurants and clubs has strong support among military leaders, U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said Friday.
But the military brass are hesitant to publicly express their opinion, said Kingston, who has introduced the bill that would lower the drinking age to 18 at domestic and foreign bases.
‘Unofficially, they agree with us,’ Kingston said. ‘Officially, they are reluctant to speak out.’”
Shelia McNeill, former president of the Navy League, also supported the bill, telling Jackson that enlisted men and women “should not have to sneak around” to drink.
Check out the rest of the story in the Times-Union and let us know what you think in the comments.