3 Oregon college presidents want drinking age lowered to 18

[Woodmonkey]

Three Oregon university presidents want to see the legal drinking age lowered from 21 to 18 because they believe the current law encourages dangerous binge-drinking on their respective campuses.
KGW report on drinking law

Dr. Thomas J. Hochstettler of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Dr. Phil Creighton from Pacific University in Forest Grove and Dr. M. Lee Pelton from Willamette University in Salem joined about 100 college presidents from across the country in pushing for the change.

Others included the presidents of Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State. They believe that the legal drinking age simply doesn't work and that college students will drink no matter what. They said they’ll do so more dangerously when it’s illegal.

“This is not a simple question. But the current answer is also not an effective solution to the problem," said Richard H. Brodhead, of Duke University.

The presidents signed a statement noting that while adults under the age of 21 can vote, serve on juries and enlist in the military, they are told they’re not mature enough to have a beer.

The group pushing the so-called “Amethyst Initiative” will start publishing newspaper ads in the coming weeks, hoping for serious debate among the public and among lawmakers.

Launched in July 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the United States.

“These higher education leaders have signed their names to a public statement that the 21-year-old drinking age is not working and specifically, that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses,” said the website Amethyst Initiative » Amethyst Initiative.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving said the initiative is a bad move and lowering the drinking age would lead to even more fatal car crashes.

Oregon Partnership,” a statewide non-profit organization which provides alcohol and drug prevention education is adamantly opposed” to the initiative.

"This is not only a bad idea, this is a horrendous idea. Lowering the drinking age makes the underage drinking problem even worse," said Pete Schulberg, communications director with Oregon Partnership. "When the drinking age went up to 21, there were fewer alcohol related health problems and fewer fatal car crashes," he said.

The source

[redtanker]

I have long been a believer that if you are old enougth to die for your country you are old enough to drink. I also feel lowering the age will ot stop binge drinking, just make it easier for them to get.

[Bluehawk]

Whoever came up with the idea that:
a. It is possible to make booze MORE available

b. LOWERING the age limit will DECREASE binge drinking

has been drinking too much.

How those three Presidents can be trusted to lead and run institutions of higher learning after coming to such an absurd conclusion as that, is a puzzler.

What the hell, might as well throw in these idiots too!

"While the university presidents -- including heads of prestigious institutions like Duke, Dartmouth and John Hopkins -- say lowering the drinking age to below the current 21 would actually help combat alcohol abuse, opponents say the move would increase deaths and brain damage to young people."

[Woodmonkey]

College presidents' call for lower US drinking age sparks outrage

US parents, politicians and educators have responded with outrage to a radical proposal by over 100 university heads that the country reduce the legal age for drinking alcohol to combat "binge-drinking."

While the university presidents -- including heads of prestigious institutions like Duke, Dartmouth and John Hopkins -- say lowering the drinking age to below the current 21 would actually help combat alcohol abuse, opponents say the move would increase deaths and brain damage to young people.

In a statement this week Laura Dean-Mooney, president of the influential Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), branded the so-called Amethyst Initiative lower drinking age proposal "a misguided initiative that uses deliberately misleading information to confuse the public."

"As the mother of a daughter who is close to entering college, it is deeply disappointing to me that many of our educational leaders would support an initiative without doing their homework on the underlying research and science," Dean-Mooney said. "Parents should think twice before sending their teens to these colleges or any others that have waved the white flag on underage and binge drinking policies."

"Countless lives have been saved since Congress raised the national minimum drinking age to 21 in 1984. We need to maintain this important law," said Senator David Vitter.

But the 119 university presidents and chancellors who signed the Amethyst Initiative -- the name derived from ancient Greek for "not intoxicated" -- maintain that banning drinking for those under 21 has only led to more and more secretive "binge-drinking," in which students consume copious and often dangerous amounts of alcohol in one session.

Twenty-four years after the US Congress mandated a threshold of 21 years of age for alcohol sales, they said, "our experience as college and university presidents convinces us that 21 is not working."

"A culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking, often conducted off campus, has developed," they said in a joint statement.

"We call upon our elected officials to support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age."

John McCardell, the former president of Vermont's Middlebury College who launched the initiative, said the educators want to foster responsible drinking among young people who are getting alcohol and abusing it despite the laws.

"We are against intoxication. We are for responsible adult behavior when it comes to alcohol," he told National Public Radio.

"The data overwhelmingly show that the vast majority of young people by the time they reach college age have already have some exposure to alcohol."

MADD, which fights alcohol among young people and backs strong punishments for drunk-driving, acknowledged that US universities have particular problems with student drinking, with 30 percent of university and college students abusing drink, and six percent becoming dependent.

"There is a perfect storm of affluence, opportunity and tolerance on college campuses," they said.

But, Dean-Mooney said, the universities themselves are to blame for not enforcing the laws.

"By signing onto this initiative, these presidents have made the 21 law nearly unenforceable on their campuses. In fact, I call into question whether or not these campuses are bothering to enforce the 21 drinking age," she said.

The source

[SherryGrace]

I was legal at 18...bought it at 15...drank it even younger than that. I am not an alcoholic. I never binge drank. I didn't go off the deep end and party any harder at 18. That would be because alcohol was not new to me. It was no surprise for me. I would imagine that most 18 year olds that are going to drink, already do.

Lower the age not because of partying...lower the age because that's what is right to do. If you are expected to act like an adult at 18, fight for your country at 18, make lifelong decisions at 18, then you should be allowed to drink at 18.

[BrianK]

Binge drinking is because ???

Lowering the age for those that have joined the military and are drinking on a base makes some sense to me.

But there isn't a way to distinguish an 18 yr old still in high school and those serving in the military. Then there is the problem of peer pressure and keg weekends parties for high school kids.

If they drive & text message they die, if they talk on their cell phones and drive they die, if they have friends in their cars & not pay attention to the job of driving they die, if they decide to speed because they can they die.

Is it possible that college professors can't connect the idea that kids age 18 behind the wheel of a car that mange to kill themselves in a variety of ways can't envision what adding alcohol to the list will do?

One thing that I noticed when living in Puerto Rico is that kids of about the age of 10 on uo while at parties with family & friends were able to sip a drink. Later at age 18 they didn't have the need to binge drink because they already got passed the big deal of having alcohol.