We should lower the drinking age and put policies in place that will address drunk driving as a replacement. the drinking age should be brought down as it represents a huge overstep of federal government power into a realm that is delegated to the states. However, it represents a significantly successful initiative to reduce traffic fatalities amongst drivers between the ages of 18-21.  We don’t necessarily have to choose between the two of them though. The drinking age is only one part of a network of laws and policies that was put into place in order to reduce these traffic fatalities. A shift in this network of laws and policies could allow for the government to lower the drinking age to 18 while maintaining the positive progress that has been made in traffic safety

The easiest policy shift to implement would be an increase in the excise tax. A study done in 2011 found that increasing the tax on alcohol has a large and positive impact on the amount of people who drink, whether they abuse it, and the severity of the negative consequences of their drinking. One of these negative consequences was the amount of traffic related fatalities. That same study found that “current excise taxes are substantially below the “optimal” level when one considers the external costs, …of alcohol use.” Not only are the excise taxes too low, some researchers found that they are up to 4 times too low. This indicates that those that drink alcohol do not adequately pay for the negative effects that their drinking has on the rest of society. For these reasons it makes sense to increase the federal alcohol tax for both economic and security reasons.

If economic policies are not enough to safely drop the drinking age there are laws that can be put into place to further diminish alcohol related traffic accidents. One of the biggest ways that the law could be changed is making drinking and driving laws more strict and better enforcing the laws we already have in place. It has been shown that increasing their severity does not just affect drunk driving but also the amount of drinking and binge drinking. This makes it an even better solution to drunk driving because it also discourages other risky behaviors that are unaffected or even encouraged by the drinking age limit. However, the laws need to be enforced to see this upside and it has been found that the percentage of those who get arrested and convicted for drunk driving is especially low in the U.S. compared to other countries. By making stricter laws and enforcing the one that we already have, we can reduce the effects of alcohol to a point where we could drop the drinking age back to 18.

If neither of these things work we could also try and cultivate a better  and safer drinking culture. Culture does play a part in the drinking habits and severity of intoxication of the people that are a part of it. When culture is a big deal it doesn’t make sense for us to have such a bad drinking culture in America of we want to reduce fatalities. Gerhard Falk points out how dangerous and unhelpful our drinking culture is. He says that “with puritanical warnings on the one side and teenage drinking parties on the other, confusion is the consequence and alcoholism the price.” By putting pressure on young adults to never drink and then having a youth culture that revolves around partying and drinking, our cultural pressures do nothing to teach those who drink how to do so responsibly. This leads to dangerous drinking habits like drunk driving, binge drinking, and alcoholism. If we make a concerted effort to change the social atmosphere and attitudes towards drinking to be less focused on never drinking and more focused on safe practices we could reduce these risky behaviors.

There are many better ways to reduce alcohol related deaths that still allow for young adults to drink. Economic and harsher restrictions on drunk driving are both shown to fulfill the same objectives that this law tries to fulfill but they do it in a less intrusive way. On top of this a change in the way they we as a society perceive alcohol could lead to a drinking culture where we are able to lower the drinking age without adding any additional regulations. Any of these options are much better than a complete ban on this part of the population’s ability to drink alcohol and can positively affect other negatives caused by alcohol in ways that the drinking age cant. For these reasons the drinking age should be set back at 18 and one of these alternatives put into place instead.