College wants debate on drinking age against MADD

[chitoryu12]

Yo, click me, foo'!

(Aug. 18) -- 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 dependance. 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."
McCardell's group takes its name from ancient Greece, where the purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to ward off drunkenness if used in drinking vessels and jewelry. He said college students will drink no matter what, but do so more dangerously when it's illegal.
The statement the presidents have signed avoids calling explicitly for a younger drinking age. Rather, it seeks "an informed and dispassionate debate" over the issue and the federal highway law that made 21 the de facto national drinking age by denying money to any state that bucks the trend.
But the statement makes clear the signers think the current law isn't working, citing a "culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking," and noting that while adults under 21 can vote and enlist in the military, they "are told they are not mature enough to have a beer." Furthermore, "by choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law."
"I'm not sure where the dialogue will lead, but it's an important topic to American families and it deserves a straightforward dialogue," said William Troutt, president of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., who has signed the statement.
But some other college administrators sharply disagree that lowering the drinking age would help. University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who served as secretary of health and human services under President Clinton, declined to sign.
"I remember college campuses when we had 18-year-old drinking ages, and I honestly believe we've made some progress," Shalala said in a telephone interview. "To just shift it back down to the high schools makes no sense at all."
McCardell claims that his experiences as a president and a parent, as well as a historian studying Prohibition, have persuaded him the drinking age isn't working.
But critics say McCardell has badly misrepresented the research by suggesting that the decision to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 may not have saved lives.
In fact, MADD CEO Chuck Hurley said, nearly all peer-reviewed studies looking at the change showed raising the drinking age reduced drunk-driving deaths. A survey of research from the U.S. and other countries by the Centers for Disease Control and others reached the same conclusion.
McCardell cites the work of Alexander Wagenaar, a University of Florida epidemiologist and expert on how changes in the drinking age affect safety. But Wagenaar himself sides with MADD in the debate.
The college presidents "see a problem of drinking on college campuses, and they don't want to deal with it," Wagenaar said in a telephone interview. "It's really unfortunate, but the science is very clear."
Another scholar who has extensively researched college binge-drinking also criticized the presidents' initiative.
"I understand why colleges are doing it, because it splits their students, and they like to treat them all alike rather than having to card some of them. It's a nuisance to them," said Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health.
But, "I wish these college presidents sat around and tried to work out ways to deal with the problem on their campus rather than try to eliminate the problem by defining it out of existence," he said.
Duke faced accusations of ignoring the heavy drinking that formed the backdrop of 2006 rape allegations against three lacrosse players. The rape allegations proved to be a hoax, but the alcohol-fueled party was never disputed.
Duke senior Wey Ruepten said university officials should accept the reality that students are going to drink and give them the responsibility that comes with alcohol.
"If you treat students like children, they're going to act like children," he said.
Duke President Richard Brodhead declined an interview request. But he wrote in a statement on the Amethyst Initiative's Web site that the 21-year-old drinking age "pushes drinking into hiding, heightening its risks." It also prevents school officials "from addressing drinking with students as an issue of responsible choice."
Hurley, of MADD, has a different take on the presidents.
"They're waving the white flag," he said.

Three points here:

1. I fail to see whatsoever how lower the drinking age to 18 will stop binge drinking. People binge drink to binge drink, not because when they hit 21 they automatically gain all the sense required not to binge drink.

2. It's not at all "clandestine". Any idiot high schooler will probably have a Facebook, MySpace, or Photobucket album full of kegs and Solo cups. God knows I've seen enough of them.

3. How will lowering the drinking age lead to more fatal accidents? Kids drink enough in high school or middle school. It's not like kids say "Oh, I'll be legal drinking age in two years! I better practice!". The drinking age is 21 and we've got 14-year-olds with beer bongs.

[chitoryu12]

Ghetto edit: The date should be August 18. The forum took the code and made it into a smiley by accident.

[Knife]

Three points here:

1. I fail to see whatsoever how lower the drinking age to 18 will stop binge drinking. People binge drink to binge drink, not because when they hit 21 they automatically gain all the sense required not to binge drink.

I think they're going for the 'forbidden fruit' syndrome. Where 18, 19 and 20 year old collage kids drink, binge drink in particular, because it's illegal and therefore dangerous, etc...

Not sure I'm 100 on that but there might be a sliver of truth there. The biggest problem on this front, I think, would be the American Culture on this, where alcohol is 'evil' and parents don't teach moderation in any respect on the issue. When alcohol is in the house, dad is either gulping down a half rack durring a football game or it's all in a cupboard until friends come over and it gets drunk.

That alcohol is the 'dirty little secrete' in American Culture is what fuels this I think.

2. It's not at all "clandestine". Any idiot high schooler will probably have a Facebook, MySpace, or Photobucket album full of kegs and Solo cups. God knows I've seen enough of them.

Well, that's all a very recent thing considering the 30 some years since the age went up to 21.

3. How will lowering the drinking age lead to more fatal accidents? Kids drink enough in high school or middle school. It's not like kids say "Oh, I'll be legal drinking age in two years! I better practice!". The drinking age is 21 and we've got 14-year-olds with beer bongs.

Just fearmongering for their political base.

[Big Phil]

Three points here:

1. I fail to see whatsoever how lower the drinking age to 18 will stop binge drinking. People binge drink to binge drink, not because when they hit 21 they automatically gain all the sense required not to binge drink.

Speaking for myself, I got drunk a lot less after I turned 21 than when I was underage, like once or twice a year (on average) as opposed to 3-4 times per month. I see no logical reason why 18 year olds are allowed to vote, smoke, and serve in the armed forces (and potentially die), but are not allowed to drink alcohol.

2. It's not at all "clandestine". Any idiot high schooler will probably have a Facebook, MySpace, or Photobucket album full of kegs and Solo cups. God knows I've seen enough of them.

It's clandestine in the sense that 20 year olds don't go and get drunk in bars; they do it at house parties, illegally.

3. How will lowering the drinking age lead to more fatal accidents? Kids drink enough in high school or middle school. It's not like kids say "Oh, I'll be legal drinking age in two years! I better practice!". The drinking age is 21 and we've got 14-year-olds with beer bongs.

It won't - MADD is full of shit on this issue.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The main argument for lowering the drinking age isn't so much that there will be less binge drinking, but what there is will be more easily controllable. Despite "Good Samaritan" policies at many institutions, the fact is most alcohol related fatalities and injuries are easily avoidable if the campus safety officers had been contacted. But, because these people are under 21, they are afraid to do so for fear of being caught. I have seen it myself dozens of times: I personally know someone who broke a leg trying to walk across campus when he was too drunk. If the drinking age were lower, there would have been no problem; someone could call campus safety and they would drive him back to his dorm (they do that for students that are over 21).

[dragon]

I like Europe outlook on the issues they teach their kids about a thing called moderation an combined with a drink age of 16 for anything under 5%, I think, and 18 for stuff higher. By time kids get to college there is no desire to binge drink and are able to concentrate on school.

Now granted there are a few problems but you can never eliminate all the bad apples.

[Big Phil]

I like Europe outlook on the issues they teach their kids about a thing called moderation an combined with a drink age of 16 for anything under 5%, I think, and 18 for stuff higher. By time kids get to college there is no desire to binge drink and are able to concentrate on school.

Now granted there are a few problems but you can never eliminate all the bad apples.

That's a wonderful fairy tale, but incidents of people in the UK getting piss drunk in pubs and passing out on the streets is something you don't see a whole lot in the US.

I'm not suggesting the problems of binge drinking are the same in Europe as in the US, but this fairytale of European maturity with regard to drinking just isn't supported by the facts.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I think lowering the drinking age will help. Kids get positively BLASTED their freshman year of college, mostly as a way to show their 'freedom'. If they're already used to it, and have been drinking already, its not nearly as fun or new.

[Edi]

I like Europe outlook on the issues they teach their kids about a thing called moderation an combined with a drink age of 16 for anything under 5%, I think, and 18 for stuff higher. By time kids get to college there is no desire to binge drink and are able to concentrate on school.

Now granted there are a few problems but you can never eliminate all the bad apples.

Careful. Europe does not have uniform laws on that. For example, in Finland it's 18 for alcohol less than 17% strong and 20 for stronger stuff.

[Mr Bean]

I like to harken back to that old argument. You can vote, you can die for your country, hell if you want you can purchase both fire-arms and with a licenses, explosives. But not a Beer?

From my own personal experience I started drinking when I was 16 and kept right on drinking until I was 19 at which point I switched back to water and soda until I was 21 with the occasional weekend with Rum or Vodka. Forbidden fruit is right, when I was younger and dumber it was a cool thing to be able to sneak some booze even thought it was not allowed.

As for training about drinking in moderation I never got any until I was in the military itself, my parents never offered me anything on the subject.

[Tsyroc]

The article didn't come out and say it but it sort of suggested the idea of lowering the drinking age on college campuses. That way students could drink on campus and wouldn't (in theory) be going away from campus to drink.

The US Military used to follow this sort of rule. Drinking on base for service members 18 or older was allowed even if the legal drinking age in the area surrounding the base was higher than 18. I think the last base to follow this rule was the main Navy base in San Diego. It was thought that it was better to allow the squids to get hammered on base than having to deal with a bunch of squids getting hammered across the border in Tiujana, Mexico.


The article mentions a federal law that essentially blackmailed all the states into switching their drinking ages to 21. I remember when this law was going into effect. The USN decided to match drinking ages on base with that of the surrounding area except for San Diego. The state of Louisiana was the last state to agree to change it's drinking age and even then it allowed New Orleans to stay lower than the rest of the state for a little awhile longer. Got to have that social lubricant for Mardi Gras.

I was in high school in 1986 when Iowa changed it's drinking age from 19 to 21. One of the seniors on the track team was grandfathered in so he was legal because he turned 19 before the change went into effect.

Anyway, I think the idea with moving the age up was to make it less likely for really young kids to be getting drunk because they were able to get booze from legal classmates. That's also probably the reason why the age had been moved from 18 to 19 since there are fewer 19 year olds still in high school than there are 18 year olds. I don't think the difference was as significant as law makers probably hoped. I do wonder why the age of 20 was completely skipped. At least I've never heard of a drinking age of 20. 18, 19 and 21 are the only ones I've heard of in the US.

Unfortunately it does appear that raising the drinking age does cut down on drunk driving problems. Recently Arizona, or at least Pima County, changed the law so it is illegal for someone underage to have alcohol in his system. It doesn't matter where you got it or if you had parental permission it's illegal for someone under 21 to have alcohol in his system. This was mostly done to cut into the high number of drunk driving accidents on I-19. You see people were going to Mexico, drinking legally there, and then driving back into Arizona while still drunk. Supposedly the law change has made a huge impact in cutting back on traffic fatalities on that part of I-19.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I like Europe outlook on the issues they teach their kids about a thing called moderation an combined with a drink age of 16 for anything under 5%, I think, and 18 for stuff higher. By time kids get to college there is no desire to binge drink and are able to concentrate on school.

Now granted there are a few problems but you can never eliminate all the bad apples.

Hey man, don't bullshit like that. I've been to the Lovefest in Berlin. Mardi Gras' got nothing on the number of broken beer bottles overflowing on the gutters the day after.

And then there's the Scandinavians. Oh, you pale, polar, pickled people.

[Alyrium Denryle]

2. It's not at all "clandestine". Any idiot high schooler will probably have a Facebook, MySpace, or Photobucket album full of kegs and Solo cups. God knows I've seen enough of them.

It is clandestine in the sense that they are not doing it in a regulated setting with responsible rules. It is at a house party over the weekend when the parents are gone, etc. It is not at a regulated bar, or at a risk-managed party with people who know what is going on.

That makes the drinking more dangerous.

I will be blunt. If a law designed to protect people puts them at a higher risk then the law must be done away with.

[Alferd Packer]

Another item differentiates college from high school, and that is: right now, roughly half of the student body at a given college is old enough to drink, and the other half isn't. The colleges are being forced to find some kind of compromise for this dichotomy, and most of the solutions are shit. If you disallow drinking on campus, then your juniors, seniors, and graduate students are simply going to set up shop just outside your jurisdiction, and still within easy reach of underage students. The problem isn't solved; it's just moved half a mile down the road, possibly into a dangerous neighborhood.

Conversely, if you allow drinking to take place on campus so that you don't have students scattered all over the town you're in, you have to more tightly segregate the student population, but doing so by year doesn't make sense. After all, one can attend college at whatever age one desires, so there could easily be a 21 year old amongst incoming freshmen. Does it make sense to put him in housing with the juniors and seniors, whose college experience is vastly different from his, just because he can buy and consume booze, too? Or do you keep him with the other freshmen and prevent him from bringing booze on campus, despite the fact that nothing's stopping him from drinking elsewhere, and legally, at that?

Again, neither solution really solves anything, because the alcohol is still on campus and accessible by minors. It's no wonder that colleges would want this issue addressed.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Packer's observation is right, the laws are impossible to enforce when half the campus can drink and the other half can't.

I'd favour making the drinking age 14, with parental supervision. That way, by the time college comes around, alcohol is just a rather boring grain beverage.

[Darth Wong]

No college wants to deal with binge drinking on campus. The solution is really not that complicated; any student caught organizing or participating in binge drinking events gets automatically expelled. One drink is no big deal, but we all know the real problem is these fucking idiots who treat drinking like street racing. More, faster, better.

But the colleges won't get rid of these assholes because there are a lot of them and they often have rich parents. People act as if this sort of thing is impossible to police, but that's a willful self-delusion. You see these fucking students wandering around campus drunk, holding huge parties that everyone knows about, etc. Even if you don't want to participate in this culture, it's virtually shoved in your face.

It's a joke. It's like steroids in sports. Everyone says they want to stop it, but nobody really means it. The universities often run their own pubs and make shitloads of money off them too. The entire surrounding community makes money off student drinking as well, and nobody wants the party to end. So what if a couple of thousand students die every year in alcohol-related students? It's money.

[dragon]

I like Europe outlook on the issues they teach their kids about a thing called moderation an combined with a drink age of 16 for anything under 5%, I think, and 18 for stuff higher. By time kids get to college there is no desire to binge drink and are able to concentrate on school.

Now granted there are a few problems but you can never eliminate all the bad apples.

That's a wonderful fairy tale, but incidents of people in the UK getting piss drunk in pubs and passing out on the streets is something you don't see a whole lot in the US.

I'm not suggesting the problems of binge drinking are the same in Europe as in the US, but this fairytale of European maturity with regard to drinking just isn't supported by the facts.

K fine then German maturity the only it gets bad here in Germany is during the world cup.

[Darth Wong]

The binge-drinking culture is a self-reinforcing meme, where drink=party=fun and anyone who doesn't buy into it is knocked down on the social ladder, thus further reinforcing the meme for others. As I said, it really wouldn't be that difficult to clamp down on it, if anybody was serious about doing so. But they're not. Hell, the President of the United States himself was a former college binge drinker. Who the hell is going to push for crackdowns on college binge drinking in your country?

[Sea Skimmer]

1. I fail to see whatsoever how lower the drinking age to 18 will stop binge drinking. People binge drink to binge drink, not because when they hit 21 they automatically gain all the sense required not to binge drink.

Actually that’s exactly what happened to me, I stopped drinking nearly as heavily after I turned 21 because suddenly, I could go drink when I wanted and it wasn’t a big deal anymore. Now I don’t ever drink more then a few beers at a time and I haven’t touched liquid in over a year. I’m not alone on this, my friends acted the same way, and endlessly I’ve talked to other people about it and they felt similar. When alcohol is illegal you have limited opportunities to drink, and that makes it more likely that you’ll drink very heavily. The illegality in its own right becomes an attraction. The collages are smart enough to realize this, and many states always did, which is why they resisted a 21 drinking age in the first place until the Federal government shoved it down their throats by cutting off highway funding.

2. It's not at all "clandestine". Any idiot high schooler will probably have a Facebook, MySpace, or Photobucket album full of kegs and Solo cups. God knows I've seen enough of them.

That doesn’t matter; you can’t charge someone with underage drinking without physical proof. However people drinking underage are going to try to hide it to a degree, and this kills kids when they binge drink and are then too afraid of the consequences to take someone far beyond passed out drunk to the hospital. That might be stupid thinking, but it happens.

3. How will lowering the drinking age lead to more fatal accidents? Kids drink enough in high school or middle school. It's not like kids say "Oh, I'll be legal drinking age in two years! I better practice!". The drinking age is 21 and we've got 14-year-olds with beer bongs.

It wont, MADD is full of shit on that matter and is incapable of understanding that people WILL drink, end of story. MADD comes out of the same kind of background that gave us the temperance movement and probation so it’s no surprise they hold such ridiculous positions. MADD is a vocal minority that uses smear campaigns as its main tactic, its high time their campaign is cut off at the roots.

[Zac Naloen]

I like Europe outlook on the issues they teach their kids about a thing called moderation an combined with a drink age of 16 for anything under 5%, I think, and 18 for stuff higher. By time kids get to college there is no desire to binge drink and are able to concentrate on school.

Now granted there are a few problems but you can never eliminate all the bad apples.

That's a wonderful fairy tale, but incidents of people in the UK getting piss drunk in pubs and passing out on the streets is something you don't see a whole lot in the US.

I'm not suggesting the problems of binge drinking are the same in Europe as in the US, but this fairytale of European maturity with regard to drinking just isn't supported by the facts.

Parts of mainland Europe have a very different attitude to Britain.

We have more in common with other Northern Europe nations i.e Finland and Germany where alcohol plays a major part in our social interactions unlike say France or Spain where it is merely a drink like any other and very few drink to get drunk.

[Akumz Razor]

At the risk of "me tooing," I want to echo Sea Skimmer's statements about drinking less once it becomes legal to drink. When I hit 21, I drank a lot more for a couple months then saw a dramatic decrease in my alcohol consumption.

In addition to the attraction of an illegal taboo activity, underage drinking is much more "binge friendly." When one must rely on others to provide the booze, a "most bang for the buck" mentality sets in. Drinking hard liquor and large amounts of cheap, high-alcohol beer are the norm for the under-21s in my area.

Once it became legal for me to drink, I quickly developed some taste and discretion in my alcohol purchases. I now drink smaller amounts of higher quality beer, and can leave a 6-pack in the fridge for weeks at a time without thinking of it.

[Zac Naloen]

To counter that I drank most between 18-21 and the legal age here is 18.

For me it was my increased responsibilities at/after 21 that caused me to drink less (as I had less time for social drinking).

[Meest]

Advocating that if the legal age was 18 then college age kids would drink less turn into highschool age students would drink more using the same argument? Talking about the forbidden fruit type argument. Is there something that changes about the college age groups like no parental supervision compared to highschool students that affects things more than a legal age limit?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Advocating that if the legal age was 18 then college age kids would drink less turn into highschool age students would drink more using the same argument? Talking about the forbidden fruit type argument. Is there something that changes about the college age groups like no parental supervision compared to highschool students that affects things more than a legal age limit?

Yes. Children without parental supervision will usually engage in more reckless behavior than children WITH parental supervision. If the drinking age is 18 and they are introduced to alcohol by their parents in highschool, they will be less inclined to get drunk and party dangerously when they're 19 or 20 and in college.

[chitoryu12]

2. It's not at all "clandestine". Any idiot high schooler will probably have a Facebook, MySpace, or Photobucket album full of kegs and Solo cups. God knows I've seen enough of them.

It's clandestine in the sense that 20 year olds don't go and get drunk in bars; they do it at house parties, illegally.

That's hardly clandestine. Any underage kid who drinks talks about it all the time as long as nobody in the room will try to tell their parents for an intervention or start screeching at them for it, and I can show you quite a few people with public Facebook and MySpace albums full of beer bongs, nudity, and pot. It's not "clandestine" if any idiot with an Internet connection and working hearing will know everything.