Talk:National Minimum Drinking Age Act

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Citations needed
It would be nice to have a citation for the dubious-sounding stat about a mojority of teenagers supporting the drinking age.


 * I agree.ch 16:50, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Two of the listed references (including one which is provided by Potsdam University faculty) refer to this as the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, not 1985. I have edited the article to reflect this. &#39;Net 02:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That's kind of obvious, just ask anyone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.45.47.174 (talk) 23:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Binge drinking
It says that moderate drinking has been replaced with binge drinking, but most students don't binge drink. That's a false impression created by the attention binge drinkers receive on the news. I just took a course on alcohol and saw some statistics, but I don't know where to find them online. Either way, the statement about binge drinking sounds very POV to me.


 * It's also encouraged by the fact that those surveys routinely "define" binge drinking not as excessive or uncontrolled consumption of alcohol, but simply as consumption of five or more drinks on a single occasion. That is obviously a binge for some and not others, and depends on how and why they're consumed that way.

Only applies to beverages?

 * Does the act cover alcoholic solids, or only beverages? SteveSims (talk) 02:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Congressional voting record
If anybody has the voting record for this act then post it in the article, even if only as an external link. SteveSims (talk) 20:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This article is entirely POV
In deleting some of the proponents' dubious claims, we seem to have left this article slanted entirely in the opposition's favor. This article needs a less negative intro, data about why the law was passed, and a section in support of the law to balance out the general negativity given off by this article. Feel free to remove the Template:NPOV if/when this article becomes a little less one-sided. &mdash;LinkTiger (talk) 05:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm... not really sure what deletion you're talking about. From what I can tell above, though, it looks like whatever might have been dubious and unsourced was simply removed, which is in line with our policy of verifiability.  Unsourced statements, as a general rule of thumb, shouldn't linger in an encyclopedia.  A fairly old revision of this article seems to closely resemble the current version&mdash; only with unsourced statements (and possible biography of living persons policy issues) removed.  You're more than welcome to propose and/or make changes to the article if there's something you feel should be added&mdash; we simply ask that ideally those changes mesh with our current our policies and guidelines. As for now, I'm going to simply assume that the issues that spurred the addition of the tag have been resolved, so I will remove the NPOV tag unless there is consensus that there is a further need for it. -- slakr  \ talk / 21:39, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with LinkTiger. I changed a few things where the source was not saying the negative stuff the article was. I suspect if I was to go through and read all the sources I would find a lot more but lazy. :P If someone else wants to I think the article would be much improved if we just say what the sources say. Winfredtheforth (talk) 22:11, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Reference 8 no longer exists
I clicked on link to reference number 8, the site says the article no longer exists. I saw no way to edit the list. I also briefly searched on the internet for another source for this "mainfesto" but could only find links back to the original broken link.Jeff (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Needs history
The article would be much improved by a discussion of the reasons for its adoption.

Drinking ages were previously established and then lowered before being raised by this act. Why?

There must have been some rationale for such wavering, so it would seem a valid topic for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.68.66.152 (talk) 14:05, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Higher Drinking Age allowed?
If a state were to choose a drinking age of, say, 23 instead of 21, would that be okay, or would that state be subject to the 10% reduction in highway funds? Shades97 (talk) 01:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

'I HAVE TO COMMENT ON THIS TOPIC! I am born n 1962 in Phx. Az. I was a Bartender all over Phx. Scotts. Mesa. Gilbert. Chandler and Glendale for the past 32 years. I started tending bar at the age of 18 in 1980 when the legal drinking age was 19. Back then Female Bartenders worked mostly the day shifts. Bartending was actually a profession back then. The men were not too happy to see Females taking over "A Mans Job"! Anybody can mix a drink, but not everyone can be a Bartender! The legal drinking age was raised to 21 right after I had turned 21. With the Grandfather Clause it made it a pain in carding everyone. I honestly feel that we at 19 handled our liquor etc. much more responsibly than the 21 year olds! I do agree however with the age 21 being the legal age to drink. However, I also feel that any person serving in the military, with a legal military ID, should be able to drink legally at the age of 18! The liquor laws have changed severely since when I started legally drinking! Anyone who gets behind the wheel of any vehicle while intoxicated at all has got to be the dumbest person! Call a cab, friend, walk, take a bus, ride a bicycle! There are way too many accidents, fatalities, from drunk driving PERIOD. It will not only mess up your life but it will also cost you a ton of money and jail time if you drink n drive. Drinking is a priviledge and its supposed to be fun so do it responsibly easy as that! I have enjoyed my career as a Bartender and I was one of the best because I did look after those who needed it and didnt care how mad or upset they would get when i cut them off or took their keys etc. because I knew that the next day they all would thank me! Kids are going to drink underage no matter what the legal age is! That is just part of the growing cycle. Heck the best part of that is keeping from getting caught! However, parents know whats going on and believe nowadays alcohol is truly the least of our problems with high school to 21 year olds.! Finally marajuana is being legalized, which i honestly never thought Id see! I have never been a pot smoker, but seriously Alcohol does Kill, Marajuana does Not! In 50 years of my life I have never once heard of anyone overdosing on pot, contracting any disease (HIV) from pot, or ruining their lives, causing road fatalities etc. Brain Damage? REALLY? All the pollution crap in our air will do that too! Anyway, the legal drinking age of 21 should never change! Bold text' Big text — Preceding unsigned comment added by Patortess (talk • contribs) 01:29, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Another interesting thing to consider is, we can draft men into service to fight a war, we have men and women serving who fight our wars and die in them, but are not permitted to even have a beer with their 21 and over comrades. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.159.44 (talk) 13:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Relevant statistics
I suspect this section may be original research. I have removed the material from this section that either incorrectly summarized what was stated in the reference, or is obviously irrelevant as the cited findings were subsequent to the passage of the Act. That means that nothing is left but a bunch of references to the same article, The Minimum Legal Drinking Age and Public Health from the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Someone should get a copy of this journal and verify that it supports the information in this article.Crypticfirefly (talk) 05:22, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Followup: Here's the article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182479/ And the journal article that other portions of this article seems to be based on is also available online for free: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.2009.104.issue-12/issuetoc http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02742.x/pdf Crypticfirefly (talk) 05:34, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Yet another followup: After checking each item in this section, all of them are either completely irrelevant (daytime vs nighttime auto accident rates-- relevant to understanding the underlying statistics, but not support for passage of the Act) or are based on studies that took place after the Act passed, which means they couldn't possibly have been considered. Other items mis-state the statistics in the cited article. There may be statistics that were considered that could be mentioned here, but I'm not going to go looking for them. Until that day comes, I'd deleting this pointless and inaccurate section entirely. Crypticfirefly (talk) 06:11, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

In light of these findings, I'm going to consider whether the rest of the edit of User:Jcampino which added this stuff in November 2012 (this is the only article he/she has ever worked on) as being suspect as well. Crypticfirefly (talk) 06:20, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Only two articles are needed to make a sweeping claim that the drinking age is uncontroversial and unproblematic, and the all dissent is illegitimate? That is very doubtful, so I put up the expansion tag. Lothar76 (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

MADD mom edited...
The scientific research section is clearly written by some biased source, most likely a soccer mom who's son died after drinking at prom. I suggest removing the section unless someone can replace the junk currently there with unbiased facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.245.105.58 (talk) 03:27, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Problems
The sentence:

QUOTE:

Despite its name, this act did not outlaw the consumption of alcoholic beverages by those under 21 years of age, just its purchase. However, Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, and the District of Columbia extended the law into an outright ban.

UNQUOTE

The sentence ends in "outright ban" as if the distinction is made to a "partial ban". The distinction is actually between "an outright ban on purchase" and "an outright ban on consumption".

The sentence:

QUOTE:

Despite its name, this act did not outlaw the consumption of alcoholic beverages by those under 21 years of age, just its purchase.

UNQUOTE

is just wrong. This Federal law does not set the drinking age in any state. States can still set a minimum age less than 21 for the consumption, sale, purchase, and/or possession of alcoholic beverages. Should they do so, this Federal law will deprive them of some highway money that otherwise (had some age been pegged at 21) would have come from Federal sources. That's all that this law does. This Federal law does not peg any minimum age concerning alcohol. I don't know about things like Guam and The District Of Columbia, but if you're in one of the 50 STATES, minimum ages related to alcohol in your location are a matter of State Law (although it may be permissible for State Law to further delegate pegging those minimum ages to smaller divisions within the state).2604:2000:C682:2D00:BCCE:4BD3:375D:D2DF (talk) 15:18, 5 October 2018 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson