Top Colleges persuing rolling back the drinking age

[Tab]

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. Area colleges, though, are hesitant about leaping on board.

Fargo Forum Link

MSNBC Link

Amethyst Initiative

I was really surprised to be reading this on the front page of my cities local newspaper - as it's quite conservative and we've had a problem with alcohol. I wish they'd reduce the age - they're have been quite a few times when I was out underage when I probably should have called the police.

 

[bamacre]

Makes sense. I always thought it was odd that an 18yo is considered responsible enough to make decisions such as enlisting in the military, driving a car, entering a contract, yet is considered not responsible enough to drink a beer. Or go into a casino.

 

[JSt0rm]

Yeah if we can send you to get your legs and eyes blown off then you can drink.

 

[dahunan]

I think it could reduce some of the excitement factor of it all...

 

[MadRat]

They need to allow the drinking at far lower ages. Buying alcohol should perhaps be an 18 year old requirement. But the actual consumption shouldn't be so tightly restricted. Allowing access of the alcohol to minors simply increases the potential supply to them. Supply and demand are not the same. You can work on restricting demand which is the real problem. Hammer the ones that abuse the right. Leave the good ones alone.

 

[brencat]

Won't do a damn thing IMO. Although I've been out of school a long time now, I still remember some of those kids around me that went totally apeshit once they got to college and away from their parents. 18 vs 21 won't matter much. You've got to get kids drinking responsibly at a young age -- like wine or beer with their parents at dinnertime, and regularly too. So that by the time they get to college, it's no big deal. My wife who's from Spain could drink 90% of her freshman class including the guys under the table without getting sloppy, but rarely if ever did. Her parents actually laughed at her when she found out she couldn't go to clubs or buy alcohol here in the U.S., meanwhile she was doing both at age 16 back home.

All lowering the drinking age to 18 will do is kill more high school seniors via drunk driving. If they aren't going to repeal it completely or drop it to like 14, I say keep it at 21.

 

[Colt45]

Lower it to zero. Works in europe. I'm sure it would work here after the novelty wore off too.

Well, it's not really zero in europe, but the rules seem to be not enforced as such, and parents are generally allowed to give their kids liquor, so they get respect at a younger age.

 

[minendo]

If I can die for my country at 18, I should be allowed to legally drink at 18.

 

[StageLeft]

My wife who's from Spain could drink 90% of her freshman class including the guys under the table without getting sloppy, but rarely if ever did.

Healthy liver FTW?

Anyway, it's not inline with 18, but the idea that Europe doesn't have alcohol problems is crazy. I know that England has major ones. Teens go out and get blasted and get up to no good all the time. Our culture is too subtly different from Europe's to tightly compare, though.

The guy endorsing the drop in age mentioned here cites, at least on NPR, 102 studies, half of which show no meaningful benefit vs the age as it is now and half I think which show a slight one.

Some states are considering lowering it but will lose 10% of their highway budgets as punishment. I'd like to see a few states lower it to 18 and just see what happens, with the option after a couple of years to put it back if things are not quantifiably better.

 

[Siddhartha]

They lowered the legal drinking age to 18 before. People were saying the same thing back then, if you are old enough to go to war you are old enough to...

 

[GTKeeper]

Originally posted by: brencat
Won't do a damn thing IMO. Although I've been out of school a long time now, I still remember some of those kids around me that went totally apeshit once they got to college and away from their parents. 18 vs 21 won't matter much. You've got to get kids drinking responsibly at a young age -- like wine or beer with their parents at dinnertime, and regularly too. So that by the time they get to college, it's no big deal. My wife who's from Spain could drink 90% of her freshman class including the guys under the table without getting sloppy, but rarely if ever did. Her parents actually laughed at her when she found out she couldn't go to clubs or buy alcohol here in the U.S., meanwhile she was doing both at age 16 back home.

All lowering the drinking age to 18 will do is kill more high school seniors via drunk driving. If they aren't going to repeal it completely or drop it to like 14, I say keep it at 21.

I think part of the problem though is that because the law is at 21, kids don't get a first taste of alcohol until they get to college. At my college there were ALWAYS incidents every year of a kid chugging down a 5th of Cptain Morgans or something because they don't really know the effects of alcohol on their body. They always end up in the hospital.

If the drinking age is lowered, I think parents need to realize that they should be the ones introducing their kids to alcohol. Talk to them about it, let them try it! Don't let them find out on their own and end up in the hospital.

 

[StepUp]

Those against the idea seem to think that the brain is still developing at age 18 and thus more prone to becoming dependent on the alcy. I would be curious to see the States' alcoholism levels versus country's whose drinking age is lower.

 

[ViRGE]

This is just colleges desperately trying to pass the buck, because their students are too far out of control these days. Changing the drinking age won't solve their problems, and it'll create even more among the high school crowd. Drinking is a symptom of a much larger problem with regard to authority (colleges no longer have any), respect (since everyone can get in to college, students have none for them), and a lack positive social institutions (the Greek system, the focus on athletics, work hard/play hard, etc). None of this will improve at the college level with a change in the drinking age, it will only maintain status quo if not make things worse because even more children are drinking.

Meanwhile it causes many of these problems to appear and be amplified at the high school level too. If you think college age students are stupid, try high schoolers.

If colleges want to improve their situation, they need to look at who they're bringing in and what they're doing to their offenders. They need to be more choosy by looking at criminal records, and throwing out students who still act like children. You had better believe that students will improve their behavior when expulsion is a serious threat. And removing those students that perpetuate the negative social values that create these problems will do that much more to solve the problem.

College is a time to study and work hard for your own benefit, you have the rest of your life to be an irresponsible slob (and you'll get paid for it, too!).

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: brencat
Won't do a damn thing IMO. Although I've been out of school a long time now, I still remember some of those kids around me that went totally apeshit once they got to college and away from their parents. 18 vs 21 won't matter much. You've got to get kids drinking responsibly at a young age -- like wine or beer with their parents at dinnertime, and regularly too. So that by the time they get to college, it's no big deal. My wife who's from Spain could drink 90% of her freshman class including the guys under the table without getting sloppy, but rarely if ever did. Her parents actually laughed at her when she found out she couldn't go to clubs or buy alcohol here in the U.S., meanwhile she was doing both at age 16 back home.

All lowering the drinking age to 18 will do is kill more high school seniors via drunk driving. If they aren't going to repeal it completely or drop it to like 14, I say keep it at 21.

You're acting like she was responsible because her parents drank with her from a young age.. When nothing about being able to drink 90% of guys under the table indicates responsibility. Just like giving alcohol to young teens whose brains are worst affected doesn't indicate that Spain is anything other than Europe's only third world nation.


BTW, think back to the kids in high school whose parents drank with them. Where are they now?

 

[Genx87]

If you are able to vote and fight wars then you are able to drink a beer.

btw somebody mentioned Europe. Sister got back from Ireland about a month ago. Said it was comical how many drunks there are over there. 2 in the afternoon a drunk wagon drives around picking people who pass out on the street. Asking for directions was comical as well. Said about every 5th person was hammered off their ass an unable to give directions.

That said I dont think it has any bearing on what we do in this country.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Siddhartha
They lowered the legal drinking age to 18 before. People were saying the same thing back then, if you are old enough to go to war you are old enough to...

Binge drink yourself into a stupor.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
Just like giving alcohol to young teens whose brains are worst affected doesn't indicate that Spain is anything other than Europe's only third world nation.

LOL @ Ignorance.

 

[StageLeft]

I think part of the problem though is that because the law is at 21, kids don't get a first taste of alcohol until they get to college. At my college there were ALWAYS incidents every year of a kid chugging down a 5th of Cptain Morgans or something because they don't really know the effects of alcohol on their body. They always end up in the hospital.

Any kid who doesn't drink before college is probably a goof anyway Drinking age is 19 in Canada and I remember, or rather don't if you get my drift, a party I went to when I was 16. Since most kids won't drink much with their parents, I'd rather a college kid gets his first taste of liqour without supervision than a highschooler. In the grand scheme, I don't believe the drinking age really matters much either way. Who here can HONESTLY say that there were multiple occasions when they were in highschool and they wanted to drink with friends but none in their group could muster up a 21 year old or fake ID to get what they needed?

Europe. Sister got back from Ireland about a month ago. Said it was comical how many drunks there are over there. 2 in the afternoon a drunk wagon drives around picking people who pass out on the street. Asking for directions was comical as well. Said about every 5th person was hammered off their ass an unable to give directions.

I believe it, I think alcohol is a major problem in the UK. Granted, the place sucks so I can imagine why people self-medicate with beer.