College and beer: they tend to go hand in hand. If Hopkins orientation was at all similar to last year's, you freshmen may have already been to a crowded frat party and gorged yourself on Beast, Blue Ribbon or some equally nasty cheap beer. If you fit the average Hopkins premed stereotype, you probably returned to your room and emptied the contents of your stomach into your AMR trash can later that night.
If you were in Spain this summer, you might be sitting at a Tapas bar instead, casually sipping a San Miguel (a Spanish beer) while watching waves crash against the shore. You can't do this in the US because the legal drinking age is twenty-one, currently the highest in the world.
The difference between the way Europeans and Americans view alcohol became apparent when I traveled to Malaga, Spain this summer to learn Spanish. The program included other US students, as well as people from many other countries. To kick off the new session, the school invited students, ranging from age 14 into their mid-40s, to a bar. The teachers celebrated by providing free pitchers of Tinto de Verano (a sweet drink made with red wine) and San Miguel.
My first thought: How awesome is Spain?! My second thought (a bit more complicated): This is insane! If teachers served beer to 14-year-olds in America, the school might be sued and shut down. The teachers and principals involved would be fired and maybe even be sent to jail. But in Spain, as in many places in Europe, alcohol is the norm, not something found in frat basements or hoarded in micro fridges.
Despite the high drinking age in the US, many Americans, especially during the college years, engage in heavy binge drinking. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) statistics, the highest prevalence of both binge and heavy drinking in 2000 was for young adults aged 18 to 25, with the peak rate occurring at age 21 (http://www.madd.org). It seems that college students and teenagers will find a way to drink despite the legislation.
This poses the question: Do the laws about the drinking age in the US have any effect, and do they make the problem of binge drinking better or worse? In Europe, the consumption of alcohol is tolerated and a part of the culture, the young people in other countries may not feel as much of a need to drink in large quantities.
When you are allowed to have a beer with dinner, the novelty of drinking is significantly lowered. This is not to say that Europeans don't go out just to drink, but that the focus overall differs when drinking is a legal and accepted action.
It is therefore difficult to see how having such a high drinking age in the US is beneficial to anyone. It is true that young people tend to be largely less responsible and prone to taking more risks.
But would not some risks such as drunk driving be lessened if, for example, parents were to allow their kids and their friends to have a drink at home so that they would not be driving to a house party an hour away to get trashed?
America needs to stop following old puritanical prohibitionist mindsets. The reality must be accepted that making underage drinking illegal will not stop young people from finding ways to get drunk. It will just make it a little harder.
The attitude towards drinking in the US may even be harmful in that it could encourage binge drinking. With all the drama and stress of college life, maybe allowing students to kick back with a beer or have a glass of wine once in a while would be a healthy thing. At least that's what the rest of the world thinks.
Malka Jampol is a sophomore from Waban, Mass.
