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Stand up to big booze

By Jonathan J. Ariel - posted Thursday, 30 January 2014


But evidence accumulated proving that road traffic crashes among youth increased following lowering of the legal age, which encouraged a citizens' effort to urge states to ratchet up the MLDA back to age-21. This effort was successful.

To determine the overall effect of the age-21 MLDA on youth, the existing research was critically reviewed. The purpose of which was to summariseall studies available in the peer reviewed published literature since 1960 that evaluated the effects of public policies establishing a legal minimum age for purchase and/or consumption of alcoholic beverages.

48 published studies were located that assessed the effects of changes in the legal minimum drinking age on indicators of alcohol consumption, including

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  • sales (off license)
  • sales (on license)
  • spirit sales
  • beer sales
  • self reported drinking and
  • self reported drinking problems.

A total of 78 alcohol consumption outcome measures were analysed of which 35% found a statistically significant inverse relationship between the legal drinking age and alcohol consumption; that is, as the legal age was lowered, drinking increased, and as the legal age was raised, drinking decreased. An additional 10% found an inverse relationship did not report significance levels. Of the 78 analyses, only 6% found a positive relationship between the legal drinking age and consumption.

In short, a whopping 45% of all analyses found that a higher legal drinking age is associated with reduced alcohol consumption.

Of the 78 analyses of alcohol consumption, 24 were specific to college student populations. Of the 24 college-specific analyses, 3 (13%) found a significant inverse relationship between the legal age and alcohol consumption, 3 found a significant positive relationship, and 15 (63%) found no significant relationship.

Of the 54 analyses that were not college student specific, perhaps more relevant to the NSW context, 24 (44%) found a significant inverse relationship between the legal age and alcohol consumption. Only 1(4%)found a significant positive relationship.

In conclusion, the preponderance of evidence, in particular amongst non-college attending youth, suggests that higher legal drinking ages reduce alcohol consumption.

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Of all the analyses that reported significant effects, 87% found higher drinking ages associated with lower alcohol consumption. Only 13% found the opposite. The researchers admit that the evidence is not entirely consistent: Almost half (46%) of the analyses found no association between the legal age and indicators of alcohol consumption. However, tellingly a focus on the 33 of the 78 studies with the highest methodological quality (i.e., those that include a longitudinal design, comparison groups and probability sampling or use of a census) revealed that 11 (33%) of those studies found a significant inverse relationship between the legal age and alcohol consumption.

Of the 16 analyses of non-traffic injuries (fatal and nonfatal), 4 (25%) found a significant inverse relationship between the legal drinking age and injuries; none found a positive relationship. Of the 10 analyses of "other crime" (e.g., vandalism, disorderly conduct), 3 (30%) found a significant inverse relationship between the legal drinking age and crime; none found a positive relationship.

The figures tell a story that any 10 year old could understand.

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About the Author

Jonathan J. Ariel is an economist and financial analyst. He holds a MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. He can be contacted at jonathan@chinamail.com.

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