A subversive plan to boost revenue - Or, how lowering Maryland's drinking age to 18 will move Hopkins up in the rankings

It goes without saying that in your time at college, someone has brought up, over some fraudulently obtained drinks, the issue of the drinking age. We've all heard the tirade: If citizens between the ages of 18 and 20 can vote, drive and are expected to fight and die for their country, why can't they enjoy a cold, refreshing beer before being shipped off to Afghanistan, Yemen, the Philippines or wherever else we're sending troops these days?

While this justification certainly makes sense, there is one main hole in the argument: The federal government, which sets the age for voting in national elections and determines who is required to register for Selective Service, does not technically set the drinking age.

The reason that every state chose the same drinking age is because in 1984, Congress passed a law that directed the Secretary of Transportation to withhold five percent of federal highway funds for any state that refused to raise the drinking age to 21. This law was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court in South Dakota v. Dole on the grounds that the federal government could compel states to act through incentives and that the amount withheld was not coercive. Therefore, any state could lower the drinking age to 18, the only penalty being a small decrease in highway funds.

I argue that for some states, the loss of federal highway funds would be more than made up for by increases in spending from out-of-state, college-aged students who would visit for the sole purpose of buying and consuming alcohol. It would work similarly to Delaware's lack of a sales tax: The lack of revenue from the sales tax is more than compensated for by the taxable earnings generated by all those outlet malls and liquor stores in Delaware that are frequented by out-of-staters. For this to work, the state would have to be small and surrounded by population centers just beyond the state line. One state comes to mind: Maryland.

With Washington, D.C. to the south and Philadelphia to the north, Maryland is situated between two cities that have plenty of people with disposable income between the ages of 18 and 20. By accepting their business, Maryland would greatly improve the state's entertainment sector, increasing sales and income tax revenues. During the summer, mid-Atlantic region college students would flock to Ocean City instead of the Jersey Shore, boosting the economy of the Eastern Shore. In addition, Maryland taxes the sale of beer, wine and distilled spirits. Revenues from all of those taxes would rise as well, more than compensating for the lost five percent of federal highway funds.

In addition to the fiscal gains, lowering Maryland's drinking age would have other benefits. In order to prevent drunken driving between D.C, Northern Virginia and the bars and clubs that would inevitably spring up in the Maryland suburbs, Washington's Metro system would probably stay open until bars close, which would be a boon to the older drinkers in the District who also need to get home and would rather not pay the exorbitant rates charged by Washington cabbies.

Philadelphia is slightly farther away from Maryland than Washington, which means that private operators would probably begin operating shuttle bus services between Philadelphia colleges and the newly-rejuvenated towns on Maryland's northern border, decreasing drunken driving and generating economic activity at the same time. The drunken driving issue would essentially be a moot point on the Eastern Shore, which is far enough removed from major population centers so as to force visitors to stay the night. All told, drunken driving would probably not increase, since the current laws do little to prevent teenagers from drinking in the first place. In fact, if lowering the drinking age leads to the death of the "binge culture" created by high drinking ages, alcohol-related deaths - on and off the highway - could decrease.

Johns Hopkins could also benefit. The low drinking age, as well as the social scene it would create, would cause a great deal of interest in Maryland colleges by students who are tired of clandestine drinking. This would cause an increase in applications. Hopkins is not looking for students who pick a college on the basis of whether or not they can go to a bar with their real driver's license, but it will increase the number of rejections of said applicants, which would make the university more selective, increasing our U.S. News and World Report ranking, which would attract the students we actually want.

Could all of this actually happen? Could the state that brought the world Spiro Agnew actually pursue a forward-thinking policy such as this?

Probably not.

The drinking age has been around long enough so as to be engrained in the national culture - when you're 21, you can drink in bars and clubs; before then, you drink but only in private or at frat parties, unless you have a fake ID.

Another major obstacle would be the entrenched anti-drinking lobby, most notably Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Believing that the decrease in alcohol-related fatalities is due to their work and not safer cars and better public transit, MADD would fight any decrease in the drinking age with tremendous fervor, dragging out every parent of a drunk-driving victim who could get the day off of work to tell their story in front of the Statehouse to a battery of television cameras. Anyone who bothers to point out that they were attempting to lower the drinking age and not legalize drunken driving would be either ignored or pilloried. Brewers and distillers, always conscious of their public image, would probably be of little help to the cause.

In short, despite the obvious economic and social benefits to Maryland, the drinking age could never be lowered because years of political demagoguery have so poisoned the public discourse on this issue.