Did you hear that the presidents of 100 colleges and universities (including 14 schools in Pennsylvania) support a move to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18?
The reason? Binge drinking is epidemic at many colleges and universities. In order to curb binge drinking, we should lower the drinking age, the college presidents argue.
The college presidents believe that by making the consumption of alcohol legal for 18-year-olds, the students would be less likely to over-indulge. Say what?
You can tell I'm not as smart as these learned men and women. I don't get it.
And I'm not alone. Many other educators think it's a stupid idea. And MADD, which has fought for decades to educate people about the danger of drinking, also thinks the idea of lowering the drinking age is wrong.
MADD says the campaign to lower the drinking age is a "misguided initiative that uses deliberately misleading information to confuse the public on the effectiveness of 21 law."
Let's put it another way. Almost everybody speeds. If people insist on speeding on a highway, we should just raise the speed limit, right?
Well, isn't that what the college presidents are arguing for? If young people under 21 won't obey the law, we should abolish the law, they say.
There's an editorial in the West Chester Daily Local News that addresses the controversy. Read, "College presidents are sending wrong message," at the newspaper's Web site.
1 comment:
Tony,
I am 42, and fairly conservative. I don't believe everything I read - especially from self-serving groups like MADD and IIHS. I believe in respect for the law - but I also believe law should have it's fundamentals in the constitution. That said:
1) Drunk driving has been practically made a felony and we criminalize it strongly
2) You can be tried as an adult at 14 if you kill someone. But if you win the Nobel peace prize at 19, you cannot drink.
3) Places you buy alcohol now have ridiculously strict ID requirements
4) People live up to the expectations that seem reasonable, not "made for the slowest common denominator". The law should strive to follow this to ensure maximum compliance. I.E. - when speed limits are set low, folks routinely add 10 MPH to them. When they are set more reasonable, people pretty much follow them.
5) If there are 6 billion folks in this world, over 5 billion of them (those that do not live in the US, S. Korea, Ukraine, and Russia) can drink below the age of 21. Of course, in the mideast a 40 year old will get be-headed if they do.
6) Prohibition was started by a temperance movement like MADD. It gave us organized crime. It was repealed for the same reason (enforcement) these folks think the 21 year old "blackmail" by the US government should be changed. It took years to fix the issues.
There is a book call "Drunk Driving, an American Dilemma" written by James Jacobs in 1989. He did a very good job in objectively looking at data and concluded (among other things) that aggravated drunk driving (BAC over 0.15) is what kills folks, and that raising drinking ages and lowering BAC level below 0.08 has not been shown to impact fatality rates. Multiple problem offenders, rather than scapegoating our youth, is the problem. He also was big on incentives for responsible behavior and education programs. I 100% understand and believe that.
My point. Drinking is one of those things that if someone chooses to drink, should be approached slowly, and forcing it well beyond the bounds of the beginning of adult life make that less likely. Starting at 21, which is what the laws say in the US does encourage sneaky drinking, disrespect for the law, and then an all-out frenzy. Think of folks who go to college - a 20 yr old that walks to a party (not drive), and they are to sip cola, while there 21 year old friends who drove in to be there grabs "one for the road". The 20 year old who want to socialize and have a drink is penalized, even though they are acting responsibly and have an 'A' Average. The 21 year old may not be making the right choice, but when he/she was 20, the right choice was "none" and not "in moderation".
If someone asked me - I think you should be given an "age of majority" card. After you finish high school and have reached your 18th birthday or have reached the age of 21, you should be given the privilege to drink. You loose that privilege until you are 21 if you are convicted of DUI or a felony, or a named alcohol related offense. Folks at bars can check for this with the ID, or it can be incorporated into the driver's license via symbol or magnetic strip (then a centralized database could administer it). That way, we teach our youth to be responsible and give them the benefit of the doubt. I will bet, just as the highway death rate did not go up after the 55 MPH was repealed, the alcohol related fatality rate would not increase (in the long term this will probably lead to a decrease).
Of course, if the folks don't want to administer this, a 19 yr old drinking age would be my belief as the best compromise, as it preserves keeping alcohol out of the high schools. To older folks, 2 years of our lives is not a big deal, but to a 19 year old it represents a social millenium.
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