I Would Kill to Be 21 Again
THE LEGAL DRINKING AGE: SHOULD IT BE 21 AGAIN?
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July 12, 1981
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AFEW years ago, at the height of the movement to establish 18 as the legal voting age in New Jersey, supporters of the proposal were fond of quoting: ''Old enough to die for my country, old enough to vote.''
The 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds eventually won the franchise, of course, but their slogan has since been tragically and grotesquely distorted into: ''Old enough to vote, old enough to die for a sixpack.''
New Jersey's six-year experiment with, first, an 18-year-old drinking age and, now, the 19-year-old limit has been a failure. It is an experiment that should be brought to an end as soon as possible by restoring 21 as the legal age to buy alcoholic beverages.
The legacy of this experiment has been torn and twisted metal, the acrid stench of burning rubber, blood-stained asphalt, screaming sirens, garishly blinding emergency lights and the stillness of death.
Ask the local police in New Jersey's border towns across the Delaware -those in Pennsylvania, where the drinking age is 21 - about our state's 19-year-old limit.
Or, better still, pick up a copy of a Saturday or Sunday newspaper published in these areas and read about the mini-Dodge Cities that erupted the night before. Read about the S O S calls from outmanned local Police Departments to neighboring communities for reinforcements to quell street brawls - battles that spilled into the streets from taverns.
Read about residents of entire neighborhoods descending in force on local Town Council meetings to demand that drunken vandalism and destruction be brought to a halt.
And then read the names of those arrested for street brawling and for wanton destruction of private property. You'll find that nearly all of them are followed by hometowns with a ''Pa.'' after them.
Read, too, about the ever-growing list of communities that have enacted curfews, as well as tough new ordinances banning drinking in public. Then go across the border into Pennsylvania and ask the state and local police how they feel about New Jersey's 19-year-old drinking age.
You will hear stories about youthful drivers who somehow manage to negotiate one of the interstate bridges and then drive a carload of teen-agers into other cars, trees, poles or abutments, or down embankments, or any of the myriad other ways that exist to demolish a car and injure or kill its occupants.
It's more, though, than grisly statistics of highway deaths and injuries, or a Sunday morning tote board of Saturday night fights. Ask those school principals and administrators in New Jersey who are willing not only to face the problem but also to speak about it, and they'll tell you virtually the same thing: Drug problems have diminished in schools - both elementary and secondary -and have been replaced by alcohol because it is easier to obtain and, in many cases, can be obtained legally.
When that youngster nods off in class in the middle of the day, chances are that his metabolism has been slowed and dulled by alcohol, not marijuana.
Consider the following statistics compiled by New Jersey Prevention Inc., a nonprofit agency for the prevention of substance abuse and addictions:
- In the years 1975-1979, the 18-to-20-year-old age group represented 7.6 percent of all licensed drivers in the state, but was involved in 14 percent of all property damage crashes, 14 percent of all injury-producing accidents and 15 percent of all fatal mishaps.
- In the same time span, the same age group was involved in 21,000 injury-producing accidents and 222 crashes that resulted in a death or deaths.
- Forty-seven percent of all fatal accidents in New Jersey in that five-year period were alcohol-related; 17 percent of them involved drivers in the 18-to-20-year-old category, even though they represented just over 7 percent of all licensed drivers.
- Four percent of all persons treated in alcoholism-treatment or rehabilitation programs in New Jersey in 1979 were in the 18-to-20-year-old group, a figure that has remained constant between 1977 and 1979.
The New Jersey Uniform Crime Report for the years 1977, 1978 and 1979 reveals that the arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol and for liquor law violations have increased steadily for all age groups.
Ever since the legal drinking age was lowered in New Jersey, one legislative proposal after another has been offered to combat the problems generated, the most recent being stiffer penalties for students who bring alcohol onto school grounds.
Ironically, many of those legislators who have sponsored or cosponsored these bills are among the most vocal in their opposition to restore 21 years as the legal drinking age.
As great as my reluctance is to conduct the affairs of government on the basis of public-opinion polls, it is difficult to ignore the consistent 80 percent-plus affirmative responses received to the question of whether the state should restore 21 as the legal drinking age.
This response, when combined with what I consider to be irrefutable statistical data, will make an exceptionally strong case, indeed, for admitting that the reduced drinking age was an error.
Our society glorifies drinking and drunkeness among youngsters. In movies and on television shows, those who can consume more beer than their teen-aged counterparts are cast in the role of heroes - models to be aped in real life.
Drunkenly slurred speech has become a matter of humor. Hangovers are funny. Falling asleep on the living room floor in a drunken stupor elicits a laugh. Putting one over on the liquor store clerk with a fake identification card is clever.
The tragedies are not shown, of course. The films and situation comedies do not portray the police officer knocking on a door at 3 A.M. to tell parents that their 18-year-old son or daughter is dead, killed in a highway accident caused by a drunken teen-ager.
They don't bring into living rooms the young lives wasted by alcoholism before they ever really experienced a chance to live. They don't show the anguish and heartbreak on the face of a father who must enter the gagging stench of the drunk tank in the local jail to bring his son home.
I should point out that I was one of those legislators who originally supported the 18-year-old drinking age. For the last four years, I have been working to restore the 21-year-old limit. I supported increasing the age to 19 only because my efforts to increase it to 21 were rebuffed by the Legislature and the Byrne administration.
I am willing to admit my mistake in supporting the lowering of the age, and I can only hope that others in the Legislature will do likewise. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Assemblyman C. Louis Bassano, Republican of Union, represents the 20th Legislative District.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/12/nyregion/the-legal-drinking-age-should-it-be-21-again.html
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