Should Drinking Age Be Lowered To 18 In Illinois?

ILLINOIS – An Illinois lawmaker has introduced a bill that would lower the state’s legal minimum drinking age from 21 to 18 if passed.

The bill would amend the Liquor Control Board’s Act of 1934, which established the legal drinking age at the end of prohibition. State Rep. John Cabello (R-Freeport) introduced House Bill 4021 last week, seeking to change the drinking age not only in the Act of 1934 but in other bills that mention the state’s legal drinking age.

Cabello did not immediately respond to a message from Patch Thursday seeking comment on his reasoning for introducing the bill in the House of Representatives.

In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was passed, which prohibits people under the age of 21 from purchasing or publicly possessing alcoholic beverages as a condition of states receiving federal highway funding.

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention has previously stated that since the legal drinking age was set at 21, states that raised the legal age from 18 saw a 16 percent decrease in automobile crashes and that drinking being done by people between the ages of 18 and 21 decreased by 19 percent between 1985 and 1991.

Drinking by people between the ages of 21 and 25 also decreased from 70 percent to 56 percent in the same time period, according to the CDC.

The federal agency said that underage drinking contributes to the death of 3,900 people under the age of 21 each year and that it also contributes to death from alcohol poisoning, suicides, sexual assault and other incidents as well as cuts down on dependence on alcohol later in life, according to CDC guidance.

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