When Did The Legal Drinking Age Change From 18 To 21

On July 17, 1984, the Us Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984. The controversial bill, pushed by the Regan administration in conjunction with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), established a federal punishment to any state that allowed the sale of alcoholic beverages to persons under the age of 21. The penalty was a 10% cut to the offending states annual federal highway apportionment. One-by-one states began to toe the line to ensure their share of highway dollars. And before long, it was the "constabulary of the land."

When Did the Legal Drinking Age Alter to 21?

These days, there are those who say that the legal drinking age should be lowered back down to 18, arguing if y'all can serve, fight, and die for your state, you should be able to buy a beer. On the other hand, there are those on the opposite side of the debate who say it should be raised to 25, the time when the developed brain reaches full evolution. Regardless of your stance on the matter, it's important to see how we got hither. Why did the law change? What does it hateful for us today?

Below, we'll discuss the circumstances that preceded the National Minimum Drinking Age Deed of 1984.

A Brief History of Drinking Laws

Pre-1919

From America's founding to the early on 20^th century, there were no restrictions on the buying or consumption of alcohol. In those fledgling days of the land, young people were treated as adults at a younger age. On average, they moved out of the dwelling house, worked, married, and had children far earlier than they would today. As such, in that location were never more than 10 states that put restrictions on the buy of alcohol, while the vast bulk of states had no minimum legal drinking age in the books.

Those that did have laws paired it to the age of 21. At the time, 21 was:

• The voting historic period – The minimum age to bandage your vote in a local, state, or federal election.

• The historic period of majority – The age when someone was considered to legally be an adult with all of the rights and obligations that entailed.

Co-ordinate to federal data from the 1830's, the average American consumed 7.ane gallons of booze per year, which is more 3 times today's boilerplate of two.3 gallons consumed per year. According to Bruce Bustard, a senior curator of Spirited Republic: Alcohol in American History, "Nosotros think of that as an astounding amount – you lot would think people would exist staggering effectually drunk, but almost people were able to handle their alcohol because it was integrated into daily life."

It helps to remember that, at the time, most workers were laborers and these people lived in tight-knit communities that self-regulated. Nonetheless, alcoholism, known as Dipsomania back then, was showtime to accept a toll on communities, leading to a rampant spate of physical abuse and dereliction of fatherly duties. Women were beginning to see booze as a grave threat to the moral fiber of society.

The Temperance Movement and Prohibition

The introduction of the machine is what really turned the tides. This, the lack of regulation, and booze's universal availability gave nativity to the Temperance Movement. This movement was a political crusade led by Christian women who were likewise Suffrage advocates. In their view, booze brake was integral to women's rights, seeing as alcohol abuse caused men to waste their money and time, hurting their families as a result.

In 1920, they successfully managed to pass the 18^thursday Constitutional Amendment, which outlawed both the production and auction of alcohol and gave rise to the xiii years of Prohibition. As we know now, this movement backfired. It led to nationwide bootlegging, the ascent of organized law-breaking, and full general lawlessness. And past 1933, American lawmakers were passing the 21^st Amendment to ratify the constitution and repeal the prohibition.

After this, near states set their drinking age to 21, although some set it lower.

Post 21^st Amendment

By the late '70s, the vast majority of states dropped the legal drinking age to 18. Naturally, this led to a massive upsurge in drunk driving and fatalities resulting therein. Presently, information technology was declared to be a national health crisis. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH):

In the mid-1970s, booze was a factor in over sixty% of traffic fatalities. Traffic crashes were the leading cause of booze-related deaths and two-thirds of traffic deaths among persons aged xvi to 20 involved alcohol.

In an endeavor to cut into these ascension rates, MADD and the Regan administration worked together to pass the Minimum Drinking Act of 1984. It was successful. The NIH stated that by 1990, drunk driving accidents had been cutting in half, with a 37% decline in traffic fatalities in that grouping of sixteen- to twenty-year olds.

Today

While at that place are those who argue to again reduce the current drinking historic period, the passage of the Drinking Historic period Deed and the proliferation of interlock systems for DUI offenders have dramatically worked to cut down the rates of both start-time and repeat drunkard driving offenders. Although there may be those who disagree, both of these decisions have saved lives and fabricated our roads safer. We should all exist able to agree that'southward a very good thing.

Sources

Booze Policy Information System. The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act. https://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/the-1984-national-minimum-drinking-age-act

Encyclopedia Britannica. The Temperance Movement. https://www.britannica.com/topic/temperance-movement

O'Brien. BBC News. The Fourth dimension When Americans Drank All Day Long. (2015).

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31741615

National Institute of Health. Alcohol-Related Traffic Deaths. https://written report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=24

Source: https://www.lowcostinterlock.com/ignition-interlock-laws/when-did-the-legal-drinking-age-change-to-21/

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