Losing Your License: The Anti-Drink

I stumbled across some interesting research from a market research company called ICR about how teens feel about the drinking age. It appears they think it's fine where it is (at 21), but what was more interesting to me was why teens would choose not to drink (hint: it's not parents). It's fear of losing their driver's license. Parents came in third. I'm sure this has something to do with the fact that most parents drink in front of their kids — even if it's a glass of wine or beer at dinner. It's also funny that "community service" is the number one punishment teens think should be given when busted yet the threat of doing community service has the least amount of influence on whether or not they will drink (comes in last).

Survey says:

64% of teens aged 12-17 support the current legal drinking age of 21. That is down 4 points from the survey conducted 5 years ago. 15% of teens in the current poll support raising the legal age limit (down 1 point from 2001) while support for lowering the legal limit has risen 5% from 2001 to 20% of teens surveyed.

Nearly three-fourths (72%) still support enforcing the laws on the legal drinking age more vigorously, down from 76% in 2001. And 85% of teens in the recent poll agreed that using a fake ID to buy alcohol was a serious violation of the law vs. 79% in 2001.

- When asked what is the most appropriate punishment for young people who break drinking laws, "Community service" was selected by 39% (up from 34% in 2001) and "Suspension of driver's license" by 26% (down from 32% in 2001).

- Teens identified the penalty of "losing a driver's license" as influencing them most (30%) not to drink. This is followed by "Friends" (25%), "Parents" (19%), "Alcohol awareness programs at school" (13%) and "Penalties such as community service" (12%).

- Younger teens (12 to 14 years old) were more likely to think use of a fake ID was a serious offense (90%) than the 81% of older teens (15 to 17 years old).

- Younger teens were nearly twice as likely as older teens to want to raise the drinking age. And the older teens were nearly twice as likely to want to lower it.

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