I don’t know if I agree with this.
(AP) — College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.
The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.
“This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”
Other prominent schools in the group include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse.
But even before the presidents begin the public phase of their efforts, which may include publishing newspaper ads in the coming weeks, they are already facing sharp criticism.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem. MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.
“It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses,” said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.
Both sides agree alcohol abuse by college students is a huge problem.
Research has found more than 40 percent of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence. One study has estimated more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents.
A recent Associated Press analysis of federal records found that 157 college-age people, 18 to 23, drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005.
Moana Jagasia, a Duke University sophomore from Singapore, where the drinking age is lower, said reducing the age in the U.S. could be helpful.
“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.”
August 18, 2008 at 11:07 pm |
consider raising the drinking age from 21 to 25. This will elimiate the problem of fake ID and no one will be drinking. If someone could tell me one positve or good thing that happened to them while drunk. Surveying 200 people not one person could say anything positve. Drinking should be outlawed for everyone
August 18, 2008 at 11:17 pm |
Richard G Rummings Says:
August 18, 2008 at 11:07 pm
consider raising the drinking age from 21 to 25. This will elimiate the problem of fake ID and no one will be drinking. If someone could tell me one positve or good thing that happened to them while drunk. Surveying 200 people not one person could say anything positve. Drinking should be outlawed for everyone
You Dumb**!! Drinking cannot be outlawed because the 21st amendment prohibits it. Secondly, you’re also a hypocrite becuase of that statement. Finally, look at your history, and see why we have problems regulating alcohol in US.
August 19, 2008 at 2:15 am |
Prohibition passed the House, passed the Senate the next day, and eleven months later was ratified. On the other hand, one reason I sent both my sons to British Universities (Oxford and St Andrews) was so they could drink legally, wouldn’t need a car,…
August 19, 2008 at 3:28 am |
How about we worry about the students education first!
Lets not promote legal drinking to the ones that wont drink because they obey the law, but would drink if legally able to do so. Hiw about the colleges teach their students to be lawful and abiding citizens. When I went to school in Ohio, you were expelled if caught drinking or arrested. What happened to that concept. Going back to 18 is so wrong in so many ways. I dont want to be killed by some dipwad college student that has only been driving a little sport car mommy bought him for a year or so and then been at one of these binge drinking parties drunk out of his mind. Im ashamed at Ohio State for being involved in this. We need to remember that they are there to learn. I dont want to go to the emergency room and be treated by a 22 year old quasi alcoholic that partied his way thru college.
August 19, 2008 at 3:57 am |
I don’t think we need a nanny state. Sure, alcohol kills lots of folks. But 18 year olds are old enough to understand what they are doing. They’re old enough to fight in the military — I think they can probably deal with alcohol. Raise your kids correctly. Don’t expect the government to coddle everyone. There are plenty of 30 and 40 year old drunks that will kill themselves on the road too.
August 19, 2008 at 4:11 am |
“It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses,” said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.
Seriously? On what planet is this lady broadcasting from? This is one of the most ignorant statements I have read in months. MADD is a very good organization, but I have just lost some respect for it. Laura Dean-Mooney is the best they could come up with for leadership?
August 19, 2008 at 6:07 am |
As a 23-year old, recent college graduate, I can’t say I didn’t party in college. I wasn’t in a frat, and I never ended up in the hospital, never blacked out, and usually drank with a conscious mind not too get too drunk, but one thing that always got to me was the absurdity of the 21 law.
Nearly every other country in the world says 18 is the age when adults can drink, and furthermore, it seems awfully ridiculous that this country allows 16 year old’s the privilege of driving and choosing to drop out of high school, 18 year old’s are considered old enough to enlist in the military, vote for president, buy cigarettes and many other things, but they aren’t considered responsible enough to drink? Considering that a 16 year old can choose to make a huge impact on his life by dropping out of high school, we allow kids of that same age to drive cars, and 18 year old’s are considered mature enough to make an informed decision upon a presidential candidate, to decide whether to enlist in the military, it seems absurd to me that the same “adults” who are mature enough to make these immensely important decisions and have these immensely important responsibilities do not have the ability to order a glass of wine with dinner? I always was so frustrated not by the fact that I couldn’t party in college, because there are always ways to get alcohol, what was frustrating to me was going out into a restaurant with my parents or friends and not being able to enjoy a beer or a glass of wine with dinner. That I couldn’t go to a bar and have a few drinks around a table with friends. That is what got to me. I didn’t care so much about the legal ability to go into a liquor store, I cared about the social situations like restaurants and bars that I couldn’t take part in.