Colleges Want to Drop Drinking Age

("Seeing is NOT Believing" will return next week)

Hidden in the news about rising prices and rising tension between Russia and the world, was an article in USA Today entitled “College presidents want lower drinking age.” It appears that “College presidents from about 100 of the best-known U.S. 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.”

Their rationale is that college (and probably non-college) students 18 to 21 are drinking anyway, so why not make it legal? Pressure has been put on these college leaders by a group called “the Amethyst Initiative,” headed by a former college president from Vermont, which has been lobbying for this change. If you are interested in their reasoning, visit their web site. One thing lacking there, though, are reasons not to lower the drinking age. Here are a few.

1. When states increased the drinking age from 18 to 21, drunk-driving accidents, especially in college communities, dropped significantly.

2. Around 40% of all college students already have signs of alcohol abuse or even dependence. There is no study to indicate how this would change by lowering the drinking age, but it certainly would not decrease.

3. The use of alcoholic drinks reduces cognitive abilities. The resulting reduction in both creative and rational thinking is not what we expect to see on college campuses.

4. The availability of alcoholic drinks for 18 year olds would increase the likelihood that those under 18 would have an easier time getting such products. Many school districts already report students as young as 8 coming to school drunk.

5. Mixing alcohol with the strong hormonal impulses of those in their late teens may result in an increase in pregnancy, date rape, vandalism, aggressive responses, and similar undesirable behavior.

6. By reducing the drinking age, more young people will have access to the product and develop a life-long dependency on alcoholic drinks.

7. During the last twenty years we have seen that restricting easy access to cigarettes has contributed to a reduction in smoking. A corollary can be seen with drinking. By making alcoholic beverages available to those 18 to 21, we will be indicating to a highly impressionable age group that drinking is acceptable.

8. Alcohol abuse is already a social, medical, and emotional problem for many. By lowering the drinking age we risk increasing the number of people who will become alcohol dependent and increase the impact alcoholism has on our society.

9. The increase rate of college-aged suicides continues to rise. This is an accurate assessment of the emotional fragility of this age group. Alcohol abuse is a leading cause of depression and is, itself, a depression-causing drug. By lowering the drinking age we are not combating this trend, and will, rather, see an increase in youth suicides.

10. By admitting that they can neither control nor discourage their students from drinking, the college presidents who are joining this organization are admitting defeat rather than putting increased effort into combating alcohol abuse.