In 2010, immigration agents arrested 2 U-M students and 1 MSU student after intercepting a package with 48 fake IDs arriving from Toronto. Students have been arrested for possession of fraudulent identification before, often when police officers are waiting near the lines going into popular bars. Under Michigan law, it’s illegal to “intentionally reproduce, alter, counterfeit, forge, or duplicate an official state identification card or use an official state identification card that has been reproduced, altered, counterfeited, forged or duplicated.”Īnd using a fake ID to “purchase alcoholic liquor” is punishable by up to 93 days in prison and a $100 fine. Still, using a fake doesn’t come entirely without risk. Sure, there’s the small risk of it getting confiscated by the bouncer at Charley’s, but chances are you’ll make it past him just fine.

And it’s currently easier than ever to get high-quality “ novelty IDs” online, usually produced in China, that can be swiped and scanned. Minors can effectively purchase unlimited access to alcohol, weed or any other illicit substance. In one study published in 1996, 46% of college students admitted to using a fake ID to purchase alcohol.įor the most part, obtaining a fake ID is low risk and high reward. Utter disregard for the law became the norm. Perhaps in recognition of how meaningless the divide really was, students almost immediately began trying to circumvent it with fake IDs. Suddenly, 21 became the most important - and in my opinion, most arbitrary - social division on college campuses. Four years after the National Minimum Drinking Age was passed, all states were compliant and 21 was the de-facto federal age. The law was a bizarre quid-pro-quo that withheld federal funding for highways from states unless they raised the drinking age, meant to circumvent a provision in the 21st Amendment that prohibits the federal government from regulating alcohol. It was a reminder of the absurdity of the fake ID phenomenon they’re so ubiquitous that any driver’s license found left behind on the street is assumed to be a piece of fraudulent government documentation.įake IDs have become almost synonymous with college life since the legal drinking age was raised to 21 from 18 with the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Act in 1984. And ever since I turned 21, I’ve been paranoid that my license would be confiscated at Rick’s or the liquor store because there’s something about it that just seems so unconvincing.īut there was something so stereotypically “college student” about that message that it was almost comical. I wouldn’t blame someone for thinking it was taken in a dorm basement with a digital camera from the 1990s. I looked terrible in it - I had forgotten you were allowed to smile so it looked more like a mugshot than a driver’s license photo, and I was still hungover from the night before. My driver’s license photo was exceptionally bad. I didn’t blame the Twitter stranger for assuming my ID to be fake.

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