Responsible Drinking at 18
By Linda Salzhauer Swenberg, Los Gatos, CA
Published on Wednesday, March 30, 2005
To the Editor:
In the late '80s, following the increase of the Vermont drinking age, most of the Dartmouth students could legally drink in Vermont and not in New Hampshire ("Proposed Vt. law would lower drinking age to 18," March 9). I know my group of friends took advantage of that situation, but we did so responsibly.
We enjoyed dinners with wine and drinks in Vermont, always with a designated driver at the wheel. Public education on the effects of alcohol to your response-rate along with stiff penalties for DWI infractions were enough for us to reduce drunk-driving.
The New Hampshire police did make several arrests for "moonshining" during my college years. This occurred when students went to Vermont to purchase liquor and attempted to carry it over the bridge in their backpacks.
You might want to do a study or investigative report covering that period of time (1986-1989) to gain a better understanding of how it would actually work if the neighboring states had different drinking ages.