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(CNN) -- It's been eight years since a black exotic dancer in Durham, North Carolina, accused three white Duke University lacrosse players of rape, sexual assault and kidnapping at a party. Whether you believe justice was adequately served -- without a trial, the North Carolina attorney general unilaterally declared the indicted players innocent -- one fact remains indisputable: A whole lot of underage drinking of beer and Jack Daniels was going on throughout much of that March day, badly impairing the judgment of the more than 40 man-boys in attendance. According to a June 2006 study by Aaron White, then...

The other day our sister newspaper, the Gloucester County Times, reported on a raid at a fraternity house at Rowan University where — get ready for a shock — some college kids were drinking. About 100 of the kids were underage and will face charges. Believe it or not, that incident has its roots in the same problem that led to the controversy over the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska. That problem lies in the way the federal government distributes highway funding: poorly. It’s obvious in the case of the bridge that would have connected the city of Ketchikan,...

For the past 20 years, the U.S. has maintained a Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21 (MLDA21), with little public debate about the wisdom of this policy. Recently, however, more than 100 college and university presidents signed the Amethyst Initiative, a public statement calling for "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age." SNIP Our research compares traffic fatality rates in states before and after they changed their MLDA from 18 to 21. In contrast to all earlier work, however, we examined separately the impact in states that adopted an MLDA21 on their own...

The recent debate about lowering the drinking age to 18 should be over by now. So long as 18-year-olds are allowed to vote, marry, enter into contracts and join the military, they certainly should be mature enough to handle a beer. Or are they? The debate has me thinking that someone who’s 18, still in high school, and barely shaves, probably shouldn’t be able to do adult things because they simply haven’t matured enough to make important decisions. Should an 18-year-old be charged as an adult for a crime and go to state prison because his brain hasn’t caught up...

What happens when presidents from more than 100 of the nation's best-known colleges call on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18? Well, a brigade of hyperbolic mommies start screaming at them, that's what. In the Amethyst Initiative, college presidents have offered a rational, if counterintuitive, plan. Let's stop treating young adults like wards of the state. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (naturally) replied: No debate allowed. There is plenty of empirical evidence suggesting that the drinking age of 21 is counterproductive. To begin with, it bars parents from educating their own children about alcohol and, like...

Life is full of surprises, and some 100 college presidents think they have stumbled on one. They think there is too much problem drinking on campus -- no surprise there -- and suggest we might solve the problem by changing the drinking age. They don't propose to raise it to 25. They want to lower it to 18. The group behind the petition they signed, Choose Responsibility, says the current drinking age is a failure. It has "not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students," the statement says, and in fact has spawned "a culture of dangerous, clandestine...

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...

I heard a nut on the radio this am that has plans to have a bill submitted to congress that if passed, would raise the drinking age to 23 for women only. As absurd as this sounds, to hear this liberal's heart-felt reasons for it was truly a jaunt into the twilight zone. More disturbing still, the person with this idea is a 38 yo woman, that is also a California judge. There isn't a chance in hell of legislation like this getting passed (I hope) but it's worth looking into this nut-case's career just to find out what kind...

In the first four years of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 563 Americans under the age of 21 were killed in the line of duty. These citizen soldiers were old enough to vote, old enough to put on military uniforms, and old enough to die for their country: They were old enough to do just about anything, except drink a red-white-and-blue can of Budweiser. Apparently they weren’t grown-up enough to enjoy that privilege. That’s because when it comes to alcohol, the United States is more like Indonesia, Mongolia, and Palau than the rest of the world: It is one of just four...

It's been 20 years that America has had a minimum federal drinking age. The policy began to gain momentum in the early 1980s, when the increasingly influential Mothers Against Drunk Driving added the federal minimum drinking age to its legislative agenda. By 1984, it had won over a majority of the Congress. President Reagan initially opposed the law on federalism grounds but eventually was persuaded by his transportation secretary at the time, now-Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Over the next three years every state had to choose between adopting the standard or forgoing federal highway funding; most complied. A few held out...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. --New Hampshire lawmakers are saying no to a proposal to lower the legal drinking age for members of the military on active duty. The bill to reduce the legal drinking age to 18 for members of the armed forces was rejected Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee. The committee voted to recommend that the full House kill the bill. Rep. James Splaine, D-Portsmouth, a sponsor of the bill, says it's not fair to send 18-to-21-year-olds to war, but then deny them from drinking an alcoholic beverage. (snip)

Underage military members would be able to enter a bar and consume alcohol in Wisconsin with a possible fine of $5 under a proposed Assembly bill. In a public hearing Thursday, state Reps. Mark Pettis, R-Hertel, and Terry Musser, R-Black River Falls, supported Assembly Bill 651 in front of the Committee on State Affairs. The bill would allow 19- and 20-year-old members of the U.S. military to enter a bar and consume alcoholic beverages with a valid state ID card and a valid military identification card. The underage drinkers would be subject to a fine of $5, and the bar...

Two decades ago, few in the booze business believed it would happen here, in the beer capital of the world. Sobering Facts College students spend $5.5 billion a year on alcohol, more than they spend on textbooks, soft drinks, tea, milk, juice and coffee combined. Source: Harvard School of Public Health study 12th-graders who reported consuming alcohol in the last 30 days dropped to 48% in 2004 from 66% in 1985. Source: University of Michigan study While other, more sober states caved in to the federal government's order to raise their drinking ages to 21 or lose a portion of...

<p>GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — Colorado Republican Senate hopeful Pete Coors yesterday criticized the legal drinking age, chiding the federal government for coercing states into raising the age limit from 18 to 21. "We got along fine for years with the 18-year-old drinking age," the former CEO of the Coors Brewing Co. told an audience of about 200 people at a candidates' debate here. "We're criminalizing our young people."</p>