Lower Drinking Age Proposed In New Jersey

A New Jersey lawmaker wants to lower the state’s drinking age from 21 to 18, reversing the state’s course since current law was enacted 30 years ago.

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, has proposed legislation this past week that would change the state’s drinking age for the first time since the early 1980s.

He noted that many states are reconsidering their legal drinking age since 18-year-olds can serve in the military, but they can’t drink.

“If you’re old enough to hoist an M4 and shoot a terrorist, you’re old enough to hoist a beer,” Carroll told NJ Advance Media.

Since 1983, New Jersey’s legal drinking age has been 21 years of age. The United States Congress enacted the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, and states were highly encouraged to raise their drinking age to 21 or lose federal funding.

Since 1988, 21 has been the minimum legal drinking age for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The bill, A-3210, may have some supporters.

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, has said publicly he agrees with Carroll, suggesting the 1984 federal law that was sponsored by the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey could have amounted to extortion.

“My biggest problem is the federal government uses our money to extort us into passing laws,” O’Scanlon said told NJ Advance Media.

But state Senate President Stephen Sweeney didn’t give the bill much hope of passing.

“I grew up when the drinking age was 18,” Sweeney said in the NJ Advance Media report. “People would be sneaking into bars at a much younger age. I lived through that generation.”