Posted on 11/29/2002 10:07:06 AM PST by NorCoGOP
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The recent riots near the Ohio State University campus were, as all similar riots have been, an inexcusable abomination. Students arrested for their involvement should be expelled. Students and non-students who were involved should spend time in jail.
City officials in the future would be justified in instituting a curfew to keep people off the streets after football games to prevent similar occurrences. University officials should seriously consider suspending the Buckeyes' participation in postseason play as a result of fans' actions.
That being said, President Holbrook has asked what can be done about the nationwide problem of college student riots. One answer, paradoxically, is to lower the drinking age to 18.
The current law that sets the drinking age at 21 does not prevent a single college student from getting alcohol if one wants it. What the law does do is label something "illegal" that virtually every college student between the ages of 18 and 20 does at least occasionally. When this unreasonable law turns students into lawbreakers when they drink, it causes respect for the law to decline. (For another, well-known example of this phenomenon, recall the Prohibition Era in the 1920s United States.)
When one is already engaging in "illegal behavior" simply by drinking, a relevant line has already been crossed, and it becomes easier to engage in other forms of illegal behavior, particularly when one's judgment is impaired by alcohol. Obviously it doesn't work this way for everyone, but the student riots that our president has described as "national and ongoing" seem to provide ample evidence that it works this way for a significant number of people.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow larger numbers of college students to drink socially in more supervised settings such as bars, and even on campus. Not as many would turn to illicit off-campus parties where sexual assaults, exploitation and other forms of injury are all too common. I'm sure that Columbus law enforcement would agree riots would be much easier to control and prevent if the masses of students who currently fuel them were not present on the streets.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 would also allow our university residence life and student affairs professionals to treat drinking realistically and constructively as an issue of student health and welfare, rather than as a discipline issue. For students with serious, life-impairing drinking problems, this would be a life-saving shift.
Lowering the drinking age to 18 would allow younger students to socialize more with older students, allowing older students to model responsible, more mature social drinking behavior. Over time, this would help to change the culture surrounding drinking among our young people.
Many argue that lowering the drinking age would cause the number of drinking-and-driving-related injuries and deaths to skyrocket. However, if this is the problem about which we are concerned, then this is the issue our law should address. We should not discriminate against an entire age cohort of citizens because of the harmful actions of a minority, particularly when there are serious negative consequences to doing so. If we are serious about preventing drinking-and-driving, then we need to do the following things:
A first offense must be a felony, regardless of whether any injury or property damage resulted, and must result in both jail time and a multi-year drivers license suspension. A second offense must result in permanent license revocation, and a long jail term.
We must make a national effort to make driving after drinking absolutely unacceptable and to make alternative forms of transportation and accommodation readily available.
When 18-year-olds can vote, can marry, defend our country in the military, and are considered adults in our society in every other way, not allowing them to drink is an absurd legal and social incongruity. As the riots and the other negative consequences discussed above demonstrate, the effects of this law are not trivial.
While the law has reduced the numbers of young people who kill and are killed in drinking related car accidents, it has spawned and exacerbated a host of other social ills. There are other ways to keep people from drinking and driving if we are serious about it.
Young people should organize and demand the law be changed. Older people should support them, and our leaders should hear them and act in our collective best interest by reducing the drinking age to 18.
I stongly doubt your version of the facts.
very funny website run by students. Caution to all you folks who don't have fun: there are disturbing pictures.
The Ohio State president should announce that because of the violence, the Buckeye football team must do without an appearance in any bowl game! And if any such violence occurs, with any arrests on university property, next year, the same penalty will occur!
Before the students and alumni have a chance to lynch her, thousands of parents will sweep her out of her office on their shoulders out of gratitude.
When Harry Truman was asked about lowering the legal age to vote to 18, he responded that it would make more sense to raise it to 24. It was a good ide then and still is. Being 18 uniquely qualifies you to be a soldier, because you are to stupid to know any better.
I lied about my age and joined the National Guard when I was 16, enlisted in the regular Army at 17.( eight year obligar, didn't get a discharge until I was in the Navy in 64) I certainly thought I was qualified to vote, but I now know better.
Sure, worked for responsible sex...uh nevermind
Anyone with the nerve to user your screen name should be old enough to know better.
While I do not care one way or the other about the drinking age, I think it's time to tell the Fed's to go to hell about withdrawing highway funds. So far they have used them to set our drinking age, control our speed limit, design of our highways and threaten us about air quality.
While Bush is President and DeLay is Majority Leader of the House, Texas needs to tell them to stuff it.
Prohibition didn't work in the 20's, and it is also a miserable failure today. Anyone who thinks that the 21 drinking age does anything except line the pockets of local and state law enforcement agencies with underage drinking ticket revenues is a complete and total moron.
I don't care what the repercussions on the highways are, you do what is right, not what makes you feel safe.
Telling a 19 or 20 year old that if he drinks a beer he is a criminal is ludicrous, statist, and immoral.
Well said.
BS! They drink to get drunk.
We had beer gardens for those under 21. 3.2% only, and only on the base. Of course the biggest deterent to drinking was the $68.00 a month salary :)
Lower the drinking age to 18, raise the driving age to 21!
Point taken
That isn't as crazy as it seems. Most fatal accidents around here it seems involve drivers under 25. I'd support a driving ban to anyone under 25 from 10 PM until 6 AM unless they were driving for work purposes (and could prove it). This is not to protect the little pukes but the innocent citizen that gets broad sided by some Acura POS who just had his first beer buzz.
As far as alcohol goes - anyone who is active duty and has signed to defend America is big enough for a beer.
The Republicans would be trashed by MADD, a very formidable and powerful lobby who use the same tactics as the Democrats, i.e. supporting an 18 drinking age means you're "pro-drunk driver", the highways would be "bathed in blood" (to quote Illbay). MADD would run ads featuring sobbing parents and remorseful friends talking about how alcohol killed their kids. It would be very nasty, and would help the exodus of the "soccer mom" crowd to the Democrats.
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