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18 Year Olds - Ready Or Not To Drink?

Photo Illustration by Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

Eighteen year olds say that they should be allowed to drink, but is lowering the legal drinking age in the mix?

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: August 31, 2008

SEBRING - A movement by about 100 college presidents who believe lowering the legal drinking age would curtail binge drinking has sparked debate on the issue.

At one time in many states, 18 year olds could purchase liquor or drink alcohol at a bar or lounge.

Then in 1984, the U.S. Congress passed legislation designed to withhold federal transportation funds to states that set a drinking age lower than 21. Florida raised its legal drinking age from 19 to 21 in 1986.

By 1988 the legal drinking age was 21 in every state and the District of Columbia.

Those who study the statistics and consequences of teen drinking are firmly against lowering the drinking age, but the teens themselves have a different opinion on the issue.

"If we are able to vote I feel like we can be responsible enough to drink alcohol at the age of 18," said 18-year-old Kanyetta Comadore, of Avon Park. "Why not just make it legal for us instead of having to sneak it."

Whatever your opinion on the issue, teenagers are going to drink no matter if it's illegal or not, she said. At parties, underage kids and those around 18 drink alcohol.

Bryttani Ijames, 16, of Avon Park said: "when you are 18 you can own your own car, you can sign a contract, they consider you an adult, you can have a house, you can do a lot of stuff, but you can't drink. You should be able to drink when you are 18."

Can an 18- or 19-year-old be a responsible drinker, avoid peer pressure and not drink and drive?

Ijames responded: "If they are responsible enough for everything else and are old enough to fight for their country when they turn 18 they should be able to drink in their country."
Comadore said. "But, I have drove when my friend got drunk and stuff and couldn't drive. I don't let them drive me; I don't want to die early."

Some older people know how to handle themselves when they drink and drive, but a young person who just started drinking doesn't know how to handle it, she said.

Comadore's mother, Nicole Blackstock said: "I don't think they should drink, period. Anything that harms your body you shouldn't put in it."

Highlands County Sheriff's Office Substance Abuse Reduction Grant Coordinator Debra Lees said, "there's a huge movement, I can't tell you how many resources, organizations and agencies, that have been working for years and years to educate the communities on why 21 should be the legal drinking age."

Drug Free Highlands is in step against lowering the drinking age with such national organizations as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, Lees said.

Lees has been researching teen alcohol use/abuse in Highlands County since the end of October because the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey shows that alcohol is the No. 1 drug being abused by teenagers in Highlands County.

According to the 2006 survey of Highlands County:

• 44 percent of the students who had used alcohol within the past 30 days of being surveyed reported that they "hate" school.

• 30 percent of the students who had a drink in the past 30 days had a "best" friend who had dropped out of school.

• 28 percent reported using alcohol in the past 30 days.

• 16 percent reported that they had at least one instance of binge drinking in the past 30 days.

The biggest consequence of underage drinking is lack of school success, Lees said.

"We are working with the school system," she said. "Now we need the community to work with us and this minimum 21 drinking age is giving us a great forum to get the community to realize and become aware of the consequences for underage drinking.

"If we reduce the age to 18, 18-year-olds are still in high school and are still mixing with kids who are in ninth- and 10th-grade, so then ninth- and 10th-graders will be hanging out with the 18 year olds and drinking."

Adolescents who start drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to become an alcoholic, she said.

John Varady, project coordinator at the Heartland Educational Consortium, will be overseeing alcohol abuse reduction efforts in eight high schools in Highlands, Hardee, DeSoto, Glades and Hendry counties.

A $1.3 million three-year grant will target ninth- and 10th-graders and also provide teacher training to continue the alcohol reduction effort after the grant concludes.

Varady is against lowering the drinking age.

"I taught high school for a number of years here in Lake Placid and coached in high school and I've seen alcohol touch a lot of lives, whether it was a student involved in an alcohol-related accident or a family member as a result of alcohol," he said.

There is a huge increase in alcohol use as you move up the grade levels, he said. By the time a student is in 11th- or 12th-grade, the percentage of students who reported drinking within the past 30 days goes up dramatically.

South Florida Community College President Norm Stephens offered his personal opinion on the drinking age issue.

"I would be hesitant to support the lowering of the drinking age to 18 based on what I've read and studied on places where they have changed the drinking age, he said. It hasn't solved very many problems and in fact it may have added others.

"The university presidents are very concerned about binge drinking," Stephens said. "I'm also very concerned about binge drinking."

There is the argument that lowering the legal age to drink would reduce binge drinking, but in other countries, such as Great Britain, lowering the drinking age had no effect on excessive drinking, he said.

"It's a very complex issue and I just hope before any effort to lower the drinking age that there is a thorough evaluation of the pros and cons of it," Stephens added.

Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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