Consequences of Adolescent Alcohol Use
- The effect was almost immediate. Alcohol-related traffic fatalities increased dramatically. Highway deaths not only increased in the states where the drinking age was lower but also in the states that bordered those states.
- That's when Congress stepped in and mandated a nationwide legal drinking age of 21 by threatening to withhold federal highway funding to those states that did not increase the drinking age.
- The higher legal drinking age immediately prompted a decrease in underage drinking and a decrease in drinking and driving as well as alcohol-related highway fatalities.
Article Date:
Wednesday, June 27, 2018