College Presidents Seek to Lower Drinking Age
 

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.

http://newsok.com/college-presidents...?tm=1219097866

I've long thought that the drinking age should be lowered - 19 works for me. At that age, you are out of high school and either working or in higher ed.

big time cosign...this has always seemed like the most logical solution to me and don't know why it's not pushed for more often. Actually, a few bars that I've been to in a number of different places will let you in, to drink even, if you're 19 (some of them ask to see a college ID too) Go figure. I think they've got it right on the money.

I agree whole heartedly. I drank a lot more before I turned 21 than I did after, so I can totally see the argument that it encourages further binge drinking.

Yeah I agree 100 percent. Also if the age was lowered you probably wouldn't have as many drinking related deaths in college students. They wouldn't be afraid of reporting any medical problems that can be caused rom binge drinking.

oh, you and me both!!

I heard an interesting argument against this on the news today, saying that while it may fix the problem on college campuses it would then push the problem to high schools, where 16 and 17 year olds are trying to get fake IDs to say they're 18. I don't know which stance I agree with, but I thought that was an interesting point.

But at least if it pushes the problem to earlier ages, it becomes the parents' problem.

I'm all about it.

totally agree with senusret - college students in theory have less oversight than high school students should have.

at any rate, alcohol is a drug. drugs make people feel good. anytime you have something that makes people feel good, some people will inevitably abuse it.

I agree too- 18 is better. And it is certainly better for college Presidents and Greek organizations on the legal front.

HOWEVER- I think that must go hand-in-hand with more strict DWI laws and stronger enforcement of those laws.

It is appropriate to give those of 18 the right to drink, but that must go hand in hand with stronger punishments for those who abuse the privilege by driving while intoxicated.

To be honest, I think DWI laws should be tougher anyway- but I like the idea of that accompanying a drinking age of 18 since it kills several birds with one stone.

Both are state issues, but the federal government could force the issue by tying highway and other infrastructure appropriations to such laws being passed just like they did to get states to take the drinking age from 18 to 21.

I see the argument, but then again I started drinking when I was 15. Being tall had its advantages- I rarely got carded. And I was not alone. Anyone who thinks that drinking does not happen all the time in high schools is living in fantasy land (not aiming that at you AlphaXi_Husky, but at the news report you reference.)

Alcohol is so easy to get, that I think the drinking age is meaningless in terms of deterring the use/abuse of alcohol by minors.

What is more important, in my mind, is to set an age where individuals can be considered adults and responsible for their own behavior.

With the age set at 21, colleges and Greek organizations suffer an unfair burden to control or eliminate alcohol use that is so much a part of young life (and always has been), that it is futile to even attempt to fully control it.

The advantage of a drinking age of 18 is that a great deal of liability is removed from institutions and placed on individuals where it belongs.

I haven't read the statute, but it's possible the government would need to untie highway funding from the drinking age before states could make the jump. I don't know if funding is still dependent on that, but if so don't look for any states rushing to change until that's undone.

True- the federal government would have to make the first move here.

And I do not see that happening in an election year with housing, the economy in general and energy being so key in voters' minds. This would definitely be a 2009 thing at best depending on who gets elected (I don't imagine changing the drinking age falls under the umbrella of Obama's "Hope and Change and fields full of happy kittens frolicking with daisies" domestic policy stance.)

Then again, Obama is a liberal. So I see it more likely under a democrat then a republican.

I wholeheartedly agree. So many of our events are ruined by ridiculous rules in place to keep 20 year olds who live own their own, paying their rent, etc. from drinking.

And BTW, I know tons of high school kids who use fake IDs that say they're 21 as it is, so changing it to 18 or 19 isn't going to make that much of a difference. At 15, I would drink at parties and then drive home because I was worried my parents would find out I was drinking. Now at 21, I'm too afraid to have even a drink with dinner sometimes for fear of DUI, not for fear of my parents. In the case of younger people, parents are a lot more threatening than the law. Lowering the drinking age would help keep drinkers to be more responsible.

I had seen something about this before on our national website. I thought Penn State was in on it too. Anyway, kudos to these college presidents for having the balls to stand up and say what makes sense, not what is politically correct.

The fact that MADD is saying that students wouldn't be "safe" at those schools - in effect, telling parents not to send their kids there - just points up what a POS organization they are. :rolleyes:

You have an organization made for parents who have lost a child to drunk driving and you expect them to be rational?

With as much power as they wield, yes, I do. When the founder leaves a group it's a red flag IMO.

I am a huge fan of Dr. Gordon Gee from The Ohio State Univ. -- I see he's one of the main supporters.

I agree with the Presidents because some people do illegal things simply for the thrill of doing something illegal.

Drinking was once illegal, people still drank and it was evetually made legal. The lottery was once illegal, people still played their numbers and again, it was made legal. I really do not see a difference here.

I was an RA in a freshman girls hall and there was plenty of alcohol flowing. As the RA, I wasn't even old enough to drink!

Lower the age and less people won't drink, but it will stop some of the reckless behavior.

Probably is. I could drink in college. Louisiana changed the age to 21 when I was 20 because of the highway funding issue. Luckily, I could drink while I was 20 because all of the bars were convinced that we would be "grandfathered" in! I think a lot of college students will experiment with alcohol and go overboard...I know I did. Binging, however, was not such a problem when we could drink for the time we stepped foot on campus. Other drugs, like Benzos, weren't abused like they are now when you get just get a little drunk instead.

Between the time I was at OSU in the 80s and when my niece started a few years ago, they "cleaned up" South Campus. They put in a lot of nice restaurants and coffee shops and tore down our beloved watering holes where we drank "buckets of beer" (some of us are stilly mourning that). The administration did this to provide options to students who were underage.

Are they restaurants and coffee houses utilized? Yes. Have the underaged students quit drinking? Absolutely not. They are still going to drink, but it's not on High Street.

This is not unique to Ohio State. My aunt lives at the edge of the College of Wooster. The students don't patronize restaurants because they can't have a beer. They eat on campus and drink in their dorms or houses.

Dr. Gee is on to something, and I commend him for it. I rarely drink any longer, but I did plenty before I turned 18, which was then the law for "low beer" in Ohio. I was never in favor of the 21 law then, and I'm still not.

and supervision........

You read my mind.

Here is a pertinent article from the March 2008 issue of Lambda Chi Alpha's magazine, the Cross & Crescent.

http://www.crossandcrescent.com/2008...ility-founder/

If this went through it'd be great.

Of course MADD will be against it for good reasons because of deaths.

But, the difference is between the social aspect and binge drinking is about underage students at the moment.

The Federal Government changed the speed limit on our highways and raised the legal drinking age at the same time as I remember and those states who did not raise the legal age were told they would not get any state highways funds from the Govt.

So, it was basicaly a form of blackmail.:mad:

Now, it seems be coming full circle again. The economy of many college towns suffered and many local bars sent out of business which in turn lost taxes to the city, county, and state. So, who was the winner here?

The post I made showed a discussion on this and evidently got deleted. But the one thing it did have was a survey and the largest % was to change the law.

Ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Let's get into the Way Back Machine w/Mr. Peabody and go to that long-past year, 1974. Say we stop in Illinois.

Since the Land of Lincoln is situated next to the border of America's Dairyland (Wisconsin), many of us flatlanders were prone to heading north to quaff brewskis. At that point, Wisconsin's state law said it was OK to drink @ 18. Illinois had come up w/a hybrid law: beer/wine @ 19 & hard stuff @ 21.

This law worked...for a while. Then the Dept. of Transportation started noticing that there were far too many kids between the ages of 19-20 ending up in their local morgues due to drunk driving. That's why MADD doesn't want to see anybody getting the age brought down to 18.

Wish all you want, gang...since the 21-years-old law is attached @ the hip to highway $$$, it's not gonna change.

You just said yourself that people were driving state to state. Doesn't that maybe have more to do w/ the drunk driving being higher than age? I think the drunk driving would have gone down just as much if all of the states had gone to 18 or 19 instead.

And the group does state that they want the Federal Highway Funding Act re-evaluated/eliminated.

http://www.amethystinitiative.org/statement/

Interesting statistic found on the Howard County chapter of MADD website:

The U.S. Surgeon General reports that life expectancy has improved in the U.S. over the past 75 years for every age group except one: the death rate for 15- to 24-year-olds is higher today than it was 20 years ago. The leading cause of death is drunk and drugged driving.

Please note, 20 years ago was 1988, AFTER the drinking age was raised to 21 everywhere.

We know that. Allow me to quote Dr. John McCardell from the C&C article.

In 1984, federal law did not set a national drinking age. It said the states may set the age limit wherever they chose but, if they set it lower than 21, they would forfeit 10 percent of their federal highway funds.

“Well that was a pretty effective way of stifling debate,” McCardell says. “So the legislative remedy, or the change that needs to take place, which we are beginning to advocate, is the lifting of that 10 percent condition.”

Ultimately, the decision would then fall to the states to determine what the drinking age would be — but it is unlikely any state legislature or governor would consider a new bill and risk a cut in federal funding.

“I don’t think anyone would have predicted the degree of public response to this issue, which really says to me it’s time to reopen this debate,” he says.

I saw McCardell on CBS this morning, and he made some very logical points.

I also saw a representative of MADD on TV last night who said they were going to discourage potential college students from enrolling in any institution whose president was among the 100 who signed the letter. Before there's even any debate, their tactics have gotten dirty, and they've ruined what little credibility they had.

I apologize for my loquaciousness!
 

We all know that one can skew the presentation of statistics to demonstrate an argument (argument as in one's position, not "fight).

Examples:

1. Let's say the American Society for Statistics publishes a report that 40 percent of people who eat shellfish at some point in their lives will get food poisoning. Upon hearing of this study, The United Chicken Coalition puts out a warning that says "Seafood borne illness strikes two-fifths of all seafood consumers!" Their campaign fails to include that the chances increase only when fish are not cooked to a proper temperature, stored properly, or left out for too long before eating.
2. Or a warning on a medication label: "Thirty percent of people using this wart cream reported flu or flu-like symptoms". No where does it state that the drug testing was reported during January and February in Michigan, where 30% of the population gets the flu anyway.

In my reading, I came across several studies, surveys and opinion sites.

• Statistics will tell you that in the years (A-G) following the increase in legal drinking age, the number of alcohol-related motor vehicle fatalities for the 16-21 age range decreased by X%.*
• Since the change in drinking age, according to the Fatality Awareness Reporting System of the Natioanal Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the number of motor vehicle deaths related to alcohol DECREASES across all age groups.* http://silk.nih.gov/niaaa1/database/crash01.txt
• The one glaring change is that the majority of alcohol-related crashes resulting in death shifted from the younger age range to the 21-24 age range. In author Mike Males' book, The Scapegoat Generation, he claims that:
  • "the first year or two after a person can legally drink alcohol - regardless of what age is chosen - is the period in which that person is most likely to be involved in an alcohol-related accident. http://www.asfar.org/zine/6th/cover.html

I am guessing here that the changes in speed limits, mandatory seatbelt laws, mandatory airbags, more dilligent carding, stricter punishments, stronger car frames, etc. may likely have contributed to changes in drinking habits and therefore the decrease of deaths in this age range. That is, more people may have prevented or walked away from alcohol-related motor accidents for several reasons.

• According the a national survey, that the percentage of high school students drinking has stayed relatively the same. http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/vol1_2005.pdf

The argument can be made that stricter laws for legally purchasing or consuming alcohol has made no difference in adolescents' drinking behaviours.

• The stated survey did, however, shine light on the growing trend of binge drinking.
  • When youth drink they tend to drink intensively, often consuming four to five drinks at one time. MTF data show that 11 percent of 8th graders, 22 percent of 10th graders, and 29 percent of 12th graders had engaged in heavy episodic, or binge, drinking within the past two weeks.

Age restrictions on drinking are often viewed as arbitrary. "Most kids drink anyway", "If you can vote and die for your country, then you should be able to drink". The other side argues that the lower the legal age, the lower the age group of kids with fake IDs or sneaking into bars hoping that they don't get carded. Both sides' arguments are valid, but the first one is based on emotion, while the second is a logical assumption.

I don't have an answer, but I my biggest question is, if an 18 year old's brain is still developing, as are their level of maturity, responsibility, and worldliness, wouldn't handing them something that all but absolutely can/will skew their judgment only increases the lieklihood of impulsiveness that is more prevalent in younger people?

Yes, there are many "kids" out there who are capable of drinking in moderation, driving responsibly, and managing their lives productively, but even the most savvy, intelligent, world-traveled 18 or 19 year olds still have so much to learn. Presumably, then, giving them something that decreases their judgment (as more than one drink can) has no merits other than to satisfy emotional reasoning.

So to those who advocate lowering the drinking age, how would you respond to my last few paragraphs?

*Some of my points were inspired/triggered from http://www.asfar.org/zine/6th/cover.html with additional citations I found. The rest (in green) are my own thoughts.

To be honest, I think the drinking age should be lowered. In many other countries, children start drinking responsibly at a younger age. And thus alcohol is not seen as a forbidden fruit- and thus it is not abused so much upon legal drinking age, nor before. If you are introduced to alcoholic beverages in small amounts gradually, it will lead you to know your tolerance better and you will be less likely to become an alcoholic or get majorly drunk so quickly and easily.

I agree. Giving people carte blanche to drink all they want just because they reach a certain age without any instruction is like letting them drive a car at a certain age without any instruction. In both cases, you greatly increase the chances of them killing themselves.

Parents cannot teach their children how to drink socially and in moderation if he or she becomes of age after leaving home or going to college. The laws, in fact, make it illegal to do so while they're still home.

We might as well ban drivers ed too and just hope for the best. "Here are the keys, son, try not to hit a tree."

The drinking age shouldn't be lowered just yet because that's a surface-level solution.

Binge drinking, underaged drinking, and buzzed and drunk driving are problems with American culture (and similar cultures) and has less to do with the legal age of consumption. As someone else alluded to people in some countries, and certain cultures and families in this country even if the law doesn't allow it, learn early on how to drink in moderation, drink with meals, drink with family at the dinner table, and so forth.

Adjust the American culture as it relates to drinking. Then it will be less perceived as the forbidden fruit and it won't be such a big deal if people have a glass of wine or beer with dinner. This level of socialization and education takes time so lowering the drinking age shouldn't happen anytime soon. Adults need to learn how to do better so that young people can learn how to do better.

Some colleges and universities require freshmen to take alcohol classes their first semester. That can be annoying but it serves a purpose.

I think we should reverse the drinking and driving ages. You can drink at 16, but you can't get your driver's license until 21.

A 16-year old that's allowed to drink is only doing damage to himself/herself. But a 16-year old that's allowed to drive could possibly kill several people (even without alcohol being involved...just by driving too fast, talking on the phone while driving, joking around with passengers in the car, fiddling with the radio, etc.)

Ree-xi -

As you said, "18-19 year olds have so much to learn." Do you feel that book learning about drinking is adequate? I don't. The only way you can learn about your drinking limits is to drink. The drinking laws as they stand now are like declaring cadavers illegal and asking medical students to go right from reading a book on heart surgery to operating on a live person.

33GIRL - I meant that they have so much to learn in terms of life experience. Without those extra few years of "life", a time when you are learning to control your impulses, understand that there are consequences of your actions, etc., giving them something that will impair their judgment (which will liekly happen after consuming more than one drink in a shorter amount of time) is like adding gasoline to the fire.

I absolutely do not think that simply book learning or a single school assembly will be effective for most young adults. Perhaps a course - a la driver's ed - should be part of a high school curriculum. It can be a few weeks long.

Years ago, our local radio station did an exercise on the morning radio show. The female DJ would have a drink every 20 minutes or so, and they tested her BAC and her ability to do mundane tasks (such as adding). It was done in a "funny" way, but what came out of it was very serious. They were trying to demonstrate to the audience that after a few drinks, verbal, motor and judgment skills were thrown off considerably, and her BAC rose MUCH faster than even she thought.

The bottom line is that kids need to be SHOWN how alcohol acts on the body. I don't advocate letting kids experiment at 16 (again, the brain is still developing). But we need to be responsible and let them know that alcohol is not an innocent entity.

I think THAT is the problem. Like someone said, when kids first drive, we don't just hand them the keys and let them go.

Because alcohol can and does lead to poor decisions and ultimately death, there needs to be more education. Hands-on education. A session on the biology on alcohol's effects on the body, a session on how to use alcoohol responsibly - as in one an hour, drinking water in between, etc.), a session about the law, accidents, featuring a police officer and maybe an ER doctor. Use pictures, videos of crashes and crash victims. I saw a commercial for an insurance company that said 16,000 kids will die in motor accidents this year, with the visual of thousands of cars driving away and never coming home. Pretty gut-wrenching.

I don't know the perfect balance of books and experience, but if the parents are not teaching respect for the drink at home, the school systems need to pick it up. We are losing too many kids to alcohol.

But all those things are still not hands on - they're still book learning, just gussied up technologically. And pictures, videos and demonstrations work on some kids - but others just dismiss them as over the top propaganda.

Maybe your driver's ed was different than ours, but we got in an actual car and drove it on actual roads, with the instructor in it and a brake pedal on his side.

And like I said, parents CAN'T teach at home - even with a "brake pedal" - it's illegal for them to do so. I'm not saying send the kids out into the world after they drink, I'm saying show a 13-14 year old that it's OK to have a glass of wine or beer with dinner and that it can be enjoyed on its own and stop there - you don't have to drink to get drunk.

I get what you are saying and generally agree but ...

... this made me chuckle! :)