My Life: Blog Form

Consumption at 18? Yes, Please. October 27, 2009

The following entry is a speech I wrote for my Speech class. It is property of me, GJ, and should not be used or copied without my consent.

Drink. What comes to mind when someone says, ‘Hey, let’s go grab a drink.’ You think alcohol, don’t you? Studies show that the majority of Americans do think of alcohol when asked about a ‘drink’. It is pretty interesting when that happens. If you can make the right friends, a drink is easy to come by, and by drink, I mean alcohol. Underage consumption has always been a common thing, but is becoming more and more common day by day. It is almost becoming accepted by individuals. The drinking age has not been taken seriously for many years and needs to be lowered to allow for more profit for the government as well as companies across the United States.

In 2003, it was recorded that 2 million people between the ages of 12 and 18 drink 5 times a month. With at least 2 million alcohol consumers under the age of 18, it’s apparent to see that the legal drinking age has become a joke.

This past weekend I surveyed 10 of my friends. I knew some of them drank and I knew some didn’t. I chose 5 people who I knew drank and five people I knew who didn’t to counter-balance the survey. When I asked what the average amount spent on alcohol per month was, I got figures back ranging from $10 to $150 for those who drank. Based on the survey, I concluded that the average teenager between 18 and 21 consumes $30.62 of alcohol per month.

I went to the local convenience store and saw the average price of a 40 ounce beer was around $2.50. With that in mind, I chose to base the following figures on beer since it has the lowest sales tax rates of any other alcohol. I figured out that Tennessee charges a $.14 tax on a gallon of beer and an extra 17% wholesale tax. Based on a $2.50 40 ounce beer, it would cost $8 for a gallon of beer, resulting in the 17% wholesale tax of $1.36, plus the standard $.14, for a grand total of $1.50 for a gallon of beer in Tennessee. If you multiply that by 10, for the survey’s purpose, you have $15 paid in taxes on beer.

In 2008, Tennessee’s population over 18 was 4,735,744. I took the population in 2008, divided it by 10, based on the survey, and then multiplied it by $15. If Tennessee’s drinking habits remain relatively the same, they would earn revenue of around $7.1 million per month, and $85.2 million per year. The next part is tricky. States are allowed to have their drinking age between 18 and 21, but it must remain at 21, otherwise they lose 10% of their highway funding. Based on past increases of about 11% each year, TN should have received around $1.37 billion in funding from the Highway Trust Fund and the Federal Transit Administration. If TN were to lose 10%, they would only be losing $13.1 million per year. With the added $85.2 million per year from beer sales, it would be more than enough to offset the cost of the lost funding from the FTA and the HTF.

A recent petition from 100 college and university presidents, mainly those from Dartmouth, Virginia Tech, and Duke, over lowering the drinking age was sent to lawmakers in Washington. John McCardell, president of Middlebury College, told reporters that, “This law has been an abysmal failure. It hasn’t reduced or eliminated drinking. It has simply driven it underground, behind closed doors, into the most risky and least manageable of settings.” College campuses nationwide are finding that alcohol use is happening, whether on a wet or dry campus.

But the major piece support for lowering the drinking age are statistics:

• 90% have never damaged property, pulled a false alarm, or engaged in similar inappropriate behavior because of drinking
• 93% have never received a lower grade because of drinking too much
• 93% have never come to class after having had several drinks
• 98% have never been in trouble with a college administrator because of behavior resulting from drinking too much

These statistics were taken directly from the website of the Sociology Department from the State University of New York. The statistics don’t lie.

So what can we do to help lawmakers change their minds? The first thing is to write lawmakers and petition them to consider lowering the drinking age. We are their bosses. We pay their salaries through taxes; therefore, they work for us. Contact your legislators any way you can and tell them that you want them to change the laws, but mainly the legal age of consumption. Just think, Jesus drank wine because water wasn’t good enough, so why can’t we?

References:

“Federal Grants to State and Local Governments.” US Census 2000 via All Countries. 2006. 25 October 2009. <http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/1021_federal_grants_to_state_and_local.html>

Hanson, Dr. David J. Underage Drinking & Alcohol Abuse. Alcohol Problems and Solutions. 2007. 25 October 2009. <http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/underagedrinking.html>

Health, Dwight B. “Appendix: Annual Per Capita Consumption of Alcohol.” International

Handbook on Alcohol and Culture. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 1995. ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. 25 October 2009.

Stahl, Lesley. The Dabate on Lowering the Drinking Age. 60 Minutes. 22 February 2009. 25 October 2009. <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/19/60minutes/main4813571.shtml>

“Tennessee QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau.” US Census Bureau. 4 Sept. 2009.  25 October 2009. <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/47000.html>

“Understanding Underage Drinking.” Bethesda, MD: NIAAA, Sept 2004. PDF.