U.S. College presidents reignite debate on lowering drinking age

09-09-2008

More than 100 college presidents, some from top schools like Duke, Dartmouth, Syracuse and Johns Hopkins, have reignited the debate about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, contending that allowing teenagers to drink legally might actually curb binge drinking among college students, reports Baptist Press.

The group, dubbed the Amethyst Initiative after a Greek gemstone believed to ward off intoxication, noted in a statement that Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, imposing a penalty of 10 percent of a state's highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.

"Twenty-four years later, our experience as college and university presidents convinces us that 21 is not working," the group of presidents and chancellors said. "A culture of dangerous, clandestine 'binge-drinking' -- often conducted off-campus -- has developed.

"Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students," they added. "Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer. By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law."

The group asks, "How many times must we relearn the lessons of prohibition?" and then calls upon elected officials to support a public debate over the drinking age, consider whether the 10 percent highway fund encourages or inhibits the debate, and offer new ideas about preparing young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.

Moana Jagasia, a student at Duke University, told the Associated Press she supports lowering the drinking age.

"There isn't that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18," she said. "If the age is younger, you're getting exposed to it at a younger age, and you don't freak out when you get to campus."

Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami, declined to sign the Amethyst Initiative statement.

"I remember college campuses when we had 18-year-old drinking ages, and I honestly believe we've made some progress," the former secretary of health and human services during the Clinton administration told AP. "To just shift it back down to the high schools makes no sense at all."

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car wrecks, AP reported, and the group thinks the coalition of college presidents is looking for an easy way out of a problem they'd rather not deal with on their campuses. MADD officials, AP said, have urged parents to consider the safety of colleges whose presidents signed the statement.

"It's very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses," said Laura Dean-Mooney, MADD's national president.

More than 40 percent of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence, and AP found that 157 college-age people, 18 to 23, drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005.

School officials sometimes aren't setting a good example. For instance, Robert Paxton, president of Iowa Central Community College for 13 years, resigned in August after a photo published in The Des Moines Register showed him on a boat helping pour beer from a small keg into a young woman's mouth. And a dean at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania was charged with drunken driving three times in eight days in August.

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