No reason to change liquor laws

Consider news reports coming out of Britain these days that the United Kingdom is thinking about raising the legal drinking age to 21. The Off License News, an alcohol retailers publication, said the move isn't coming from the "hysterical voices on the fringes," but from "respectable public figures."

These include police officials who want to send a message about the dangers of alcohol and who hope to curb alcohol-fueled crimes such as assaults and rape. A recent poll, the publication said, found 51 percent of Britons in favor.

The Beatles not withstanding, trends don't always begin across the pond and migrate here.

In the United States, where the legal drinking age already is 21 in every state, the push is in the opposite direction. About 130 college presidents and chancellors recently signed an initiative they hope will lead to a debate on whether to lower the age to 18. Their reasoning is that the higher age limit has created a culture of binge drinking on campuses because younger people have no way to legally drink responsibly.

Or something like that.

Actually, they offer no evidence or data of any sort to support their thesis. The petition's Web site offers only anecdotal accounts about binge drinking and the ineffectiveness of an abstinence-only approach for kids 18 to 21. Then it recites the often-used but totally irrelevant arguments about how 18-year-olds can vote, serve on juries and fight in wars ... blah, blah, blah.

They can't, however, rent cars or reserve rooms at many hotels. All of these things are equally irrelevant to the well-researched and documented damage alcohol does to developing minds. Laws ought to set rules that protect society and set standards for proper behavior.

Sorry, presidents and chancellors, but that kind of thesis paper should be rejected in any college course for lack of substantiation.

Which brings me to Utah and its liquor laws.

Here, government trends don't run back and forth on the subject. Utah is one of 18 states that operate monopolies over liquor sales, but it would be hard to find one that has been more consistent in supporting its stated philosophy, which is "to make liquor available to those adults who choose to drink responsibly — but not to promote the sale of liquor." Keep liquor stores out of the market and you also keep them from competing for customers, maximizing sales and giving into the temptation to lure young people.

The strategy has worked well. Utah consistently ranks at the bottom nationally for per capita alcohol consumption and DUI-related deaths.

But now Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and some lawmakers want to loosen things up. The governor has said this is necessary to help tourism. A recent hearing by the Liquor Commission attracted a crowd of people from the ski industry, restaurants and the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau, all complaining of how embarrassing and harmful Utah's liquor laws are for business.

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