Choose Responsibility

In recent weeks, two local Magistrates in South Carolina have ruled that laws prohibiting 18-20 year olds from possessing and consuming alcohol violate the state’s constitution. On July 15th, Richland County Magistrate Mel Maurer struck down the ban on possession and consumption, citing a 2008 South Carolina Supreme Court ruling that established 18 as the age of majority. A week later, Aiken County Chief Magistrate Rodger Edmonds reached the same conclusion in a decision handed down on July 23rd.

Choose Responsibility applauds these rulings, which recognize the inherent contradiction in laws that deny legal rights to lawful adults, and encourages lawmakers, educators, and the citizens of South Carolina to capitalize on the opportunity these rulings present.

Choose Responsibility believes that lowering the drinking age is an essential component of a larger strategy, not only to acknowledge the age at which one becomes an adult but also to address a growing public health crisis of clandestine and toxic drinking by young adults. Merely adjusting the legal age for possession and consumption, in other words, is not enough. A comprehensive alcohol education and licensing program should be the focal point of any proposal to adjust the legal drinking age in South Carolina.

Choose Responsibility is working to promote a national discussion about the problem of binge drinking among today’s youth and to advocate for innovative public policy solutions, including efforts to revisit the mandatory legal drinking age. We look forward to working with lawmakers in South Carolina to craft the safest and most realistic possible solutions to this dangerous problem.