Our View: It’s not about drinking, it’s about responsibility

If you’re under 21, drinking is against the law. Period. No amount of argument for personal choice will change that.

Regardless of legal ramifications or jail time possibilities, drinking underage just isn’t smart. The younger you start, the more likely it is that drinking will become a problem, an addiction.

The human brain isn’t fully developed until between the ages of 24 and 26, with the last section to develop the frontal cortex – the part that deals with decision making, reasoning, judgment and the ability to interact socially. Take a young mind, physically incapable of fully linking long-term consequences to immediate actions, add alcohol into the mix, and it’s a recipe for disaster. Under the influence, seemingly harmful youthful discretions can turn into life altering mistakes.

The news that minors are drinking is no surprise. Society has long linked college and drinking as rites of passage. For those over 21, it’s all about drinking responsibly. Knowing when to pass the keys to someone sober and knowing when to stop.

Maturity plays a big part in drinking responsibly and a study on campus last year found students of a legal drinking age aren’t the ones causing problems with their consumption. For whatever reason, students who are drinking illegally are also drinking irresponsibly. They are binging, drinking dangerously large amounts in alarmingly short amounts of time. They are also drinking in places where alcohol isn’t allowed at all – 21 or not.

Both Health and Wellness Center and police officials recognize that alcohol may have more of an appeal to freshmen than upperclassmen because there is a rebellion factor. A chance to prove you aren’t under mom and dad’s control anymore. But many students at USU come from homes that didn’t have mom and dads who role modeled how to drink in a responsible manner because they didn’t drink at all. Suddenly, without an appropriate mindset of what normal drinking looks like, pushing the boundaries is turned into throwing them away altogether.

Whether it’s date rape, vandalism or drunk driving, a variety of crimes are linked directly to the irresponsible consumption of alcohol. The same absence of “adult” supervision that allows drinking by minors also creates the need for underage drinkers to step up and make smarter decisions.

Especially the decision to not drink at all.