When someone turns 18, they’re allowed to enlist in the armed forces, be summoned for jury duty, get married and even adopt a child. Drinking a beer, however, remains illegal.
This commonly argued law was thrown into the spotlight Monday night during the Ohio Union Activities Board’s “Let’s See Some ID: The Drinking Age Debate.”
In front of a student crowd in Independence Hall, two national experts represented a different side of the spectrum and presented their arguments.
William DeJong, professor at Boston University, argued in favor of keeping the legal drinking age at 21. DeJong is a former director of the U.S. Dept. of Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention.
Barrett Seaman, who has spent 30 years as a correspondent and editor for Time Magazine, argued to lower the drinking age. Earlier in the decade, Seaman spent two and a half years at 12 colleges and universities studying the social lives of college students.
Both men were given a 10-minute opening statement, then fielded questions from the audience,
DeJong primarily presented statistics, stating that alcohol-related car crashes are much more common for adults older than 21.
“The fact is, this 21-and-over law has saved lives,” he said. “If we lower the drinking age to 18, a lot of the problems we’re having now will simply transfer down to the high school level.”
Seaman argued that even though the 21-and-over law may have saved people from drunk driving deaths, even more deaths are occurring away from the road as binge drinking has become more prevalent. “I have a lot of respect for statistics, but I don’t necessarily rely on them,” he said. “Pre-gaming is why more and more people are getting carted off to the hospital these days.”
While both experts differed in opinion, both agreed that more emphasis be put upon drinking during college.
“Little by little I think we’re educating people,” Seaman said.
