Posted on 04/11/2007 1:23:09 PM PDT by LurkedLongEnough
To combat underage binge drinking, the national legal drinking age should be lowered to 18, a former college president is saying.
Since releasing a 250-page study on the societal effects of modern drinking laws, Middlebury College President emeritus John McCardell has campaigned across the country calling for states to lower the legal drinking age to 18 because he observed fewer alcohol-related problems 30 years ago, when 18-year-olds could legally drink.
"Before the law changed, it wasn't perfect," McCardell said. "But what you had then was out-in-the-open, intergenerational [drinking]."
Since then, McCardell, who is launching the nonprofit group Choose Responsibility this spring to support his cause, said the law has forced minors to drink excessively in uncontrolled settings.
"That simply transplants the problem to some darker corner where it can't be managed," he said. "Underage drinking is worse than it's ever been, and binge drinking is worse than it's ever been."
Already earning interviews with the Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report, Fox News, syndicated columnist George Will and many college newspapers, McCardell said his proposal has gained support.
"Considering how new we are, I'm very heartened by it," he said. "I think it's timing - people are ready for a debate."
McCardell said several college presidents and deans of students are responding favorably to the idea, but he said the high-profile positions in some institutions prevents them from openly supporting him. Now that he no longer heads Middlebury, McCardell said he is in a unique position to voice the concerns he says many administrators share.
Despite the attention his proposal is gaining, youth drinking experts have attacked it as irresponsible. Boston University School of Public Health professor William DeJong, who specializes in youth drinking habits, slammed McCardell's report as inaccurate.
"It's one of the most badly done reports that I've seen in a long time," DeJong said. "We can have a debate about the law, but he's not entitled to his own facts."
DeJong said he found the report's assertions irresponsible because it has not been peer-reviewed and relies on the work of two Middlebury undergraduate students who did not specialize in either epidemiology -- the study of factors affecting a population's health -- or public health.
Though McCardell said his study collected no original data but compiled secondary sources that were all peer-edited, and he challenged critics to point out specific corrections to the report, DeJong said the study relies on opinion rather than science.
"He will observe an increase in extreme drinking, and he'll talk to students who say, 'You should lower the drinking age' and takes that at face value, but that's talking - not research," DeJong said.
The decline in drunk-driving incidents since the drinking age was raised to 21 shows the law's effectiveness in saving lives, DeJong said."
"The age-21 law is the most defensible public policy that we have in reducing alcohol-related traffic fatalities," he said. "Virtually every single study shows the positive effect of the law."
Choose Responsibility faces an uphill battle in persuading states to change their laws as long as the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 forces them to maintain a minimum drinking age of 21 or lose federal highway funding. President Ronald Reagan signed the act in 1984 after groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving pushed for the law.
For now, the campaign consists of McCardell and the two research assistants who helped him compile the report last year.
When the Middlebury's student affairs department first tapped now-graduate Scott Guenther as a potential aide, he said the opportunity to conduct research in a field related to both his political science and psychology majors piqued his interest.
"My interest in alcohol policy wasn't profound," Guenther said.
The more he studied the issue, the more he thought the current drinking age "doesn't make sense," he said. Now, he actively advocates lowering the drinking age as a potential solution to a binge culture that pervades campuses nationwide.
"It's a gamble," he said. "I really think, having looked at the evidence of studies and peer-reviewed journals, that there's a good chance it will succeed."
“Binge” drinking is just a modern term for “drinking”. Making the age 18 for beer would reduce the number of teens going straight to liquor.
I don’t know about all kinds of studies, but I have to say that when I threw a goodbye party for hubby and the other guys in his unit, it made me feel really bad that these guys were about to head to war, where they could die for their country, but I couldn’t even offer them a beer.
I would have anyway.
They lowered the drinking age just in time for me to turn 18. It was probably not a good idea. Now that my daughter is 16, I like the idea even less.
18? Yes, if you’re in the military.
Quite simple.
I think this is one of the few things that Europe got right and we didn’t. They don’t seem to have problems with binge drinking.
I’d be willing to make a compromise here:
Lower the teenage drinking age to 18 if need be.
But........Raise the voting age to 21.
2000’s = Old enough to die for your country and vote, old enough to drink. OR If we can not trust them to drink, how can we trust them to vote?
Thank God I was in the right age group to drink at 18.
He's right. If you're old enough to put on a uniform and kill, fight and maybe die for your country, you are more than old enough to drink.
Most people think stupid laws deserve to be broken, and a drinking age of 21 is a stupid law, so it is widely broken.
Also, this:
“The decline in drunk-driving incidents since the drinking age was raised to 21 shows the law’s effectiveness in saving lives, DeJong said”
Really? Correlation does not imply causation. In the same period since drinking ages were raised to 21 laws against drunk driving have been toughened considerably, and societal disapproval of drinking and driving has increased greatly. Personally, I believe that if the age of majority is 18, meaning you’re old enough to sign contracts, vote, join the military on your own, etc, then it’s good enough for an age to allow drinking. Any other approach is asinine.
Nanny state / federal extortion laws are stupid to being with, regardless who signs them.
Whether it's 18, 21, or some other number concerns me less than simply being consistent about it.
I’m all for it.
I think gaining a “license to drink” might be a good idea however. Maybe.
If you trust 18 year olds with electing Presidents and defending the country from enemies foreign and domestic, why can’t you trust them with a glass of wine?
The justification for raising the drinking age was the prevelance of drunk driving deaths. When I was in HS, every year, graduation had a tribute to some kids who died this way.
But at my son’s graduation last year, the pricipal remarked how “nobody’s missing from this celebration”. I had to explain to my kid what the principal meant by that.
Actually per capita they drink a LOT more than we do.
I understand what you are saying, my oldest daughter is 17, but honestly, if she is going to drink, whether or not the age is 18, she is going to do it. At some point, I have to accept that she is going to have to accept responsibilty and also to hope that I taught her well enough. But I won’t lie, I drank underage. Was it stupid? Probably. Did I turn in to an alcoholic as a result? No. I barely drink at all now.
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