• Video Clip: A Mother's Reflection

Alcohol-related fatalities have become almost commonplace in a nation that spends more than $116 billion a year on alcoholic beverages, and recent statistics indicate that some aspects of this problem are getting worse. The consequences of underage drinking on the U.S. economy totals a breathtaking $53 billion a year and the epidemic has been labeled "the most costly of all drug problems" by The Institute of Medicine.

One possible solution explored by Sesno in this report is whether to lower the drinking from 21 to 18 or 16. The following excerpt is from the program's panel discussion, exploring the age issue.

JOHN MCCARDELL, former President of Middlebury College in Vermont:

The law to the degree that its intended effect was to reduce, if not to eliminate underage drinking, has failed miserably. What it has done by forcing drinking behind closed doors, underground, and off campus, is creating a social dynamic on campus that is altogether unhealthy and has produced unintended consequences I believe from those that were anticipated by those who supported the law twenty years ago.

College campuses now have been forced to become either arms of the law, or havens from the law. If colleges and universities are given the opportunity to educate by example in the use of alcohol on campus, there would be less inclination to go off campus to have wild parties. There would be less of the sort of pre-loading and binge drinking that we all know is taking place because the drinking is going on underground. The age of majority in most states is 18; in a few states it's 19. That means that students, once they reach that age, can vote, they can sit on juries, they're eligible to serve in the military, and their grades can't be sent home to their parents without their permission. We call them adults in all of these other particulars, but when it comes time to say whether they can have a beer or not, we tell them they can't.

While it may certainly be the case that there are fewer fatalities now than there were when the law was passed, I don't think that there has been an effective cause and effect relationship established between those two things. I think students are far more health conscious than they were 20 years ago. I think automobiles are far more safely designed than there were, they were 20 years ago, and I think that to the degree that fatalities have, in fact, dropped in the 18 to 21 year old age group, they have increased by almost the same percentage in the 21 to 24 age group.

WENDY HAMILTON, National President, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) The 21 minimum drinking age law was passed for a really smart reason and that was to save lives. What we saw was different states with different drinking age laws, and more kids being killed on the highway. So in 1984, when it was passed and eventually adopted by the states, we saw that alcohol related fatality rates for the underage group go down dramatically. (If the law were changed) we would definitely see more alcohol related fatalities in not only driving, but it's the leading cause of death for our young kids for suicides, homicides, burns, drownings, falls. It really is over-represented in deaths for our young kids in this country.

It's not about the rights and responsibilities. It's about the health and safety of our kids. And again, I'll go back to the 21 drinking age law was put in place to reduce the alcohol related traffic fatalities. But what it's done is not only saved 20,000 lives since that time in those traffic fatalities, it's also saved thousands of lives because of all the other harms associated with it.

Our kids' brains grow from the time that they're in the womb until they're past 21 years old. We've got to help protect these kids in the best way that we can, and it's not just about the 16 driving age or the 18 voting age, or being 35 when you're president. It's about what's going to keep our kids healthiest and safest, and how can we educate them the best way.

"America Drinks: Sesno Reports" airs on public television stations beginning Dec. 12 (check local listings) and is distributed through American Public Television (APT).