Editorial: University should rethink approach to students' drinking
By Patrick de Oliveira (Contact)
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
The college-students-can-go-to-war-but-can’t-drink argument has become trite over the years, but one group is breathing life back into the age-old argument.
The group, called Amethyst Initiative, has 128 signatures from university presidents and chancellors and argues that it’s time for lawmakers to reconsider the drinking age.
It is disappointing, however, that Chancellor Robert Hemenway and the University have decided to abstain from the initiative.
There is no need to argue that the alcohol culture among America’s youth is unhealthy. Both Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the lobbying group that pushed for the higher drinking age in 1984, and Amethyst Initiative are in agreement about that. However, they disagree as to how to improve the situation.
MADD has become a “neo-prohibitionist group.” And those words are Candy Lightner’s, the group’s founder. MADD refuses to have an open dialogs, and its zero-tolerance approach demonizes alcohol, effectively transforming it into a forbidden fruit.
A lack of discussion does not teach America’s youth a healthy approach to alcohol. When young adults finally come in contact with it, the results are devastating.
When irresponsible drinking among students causes 1,700 deaths each year, something isn’t working. When students all over the country buy fake IDs without even a twinge of ethical remorse, something is wrong.
Simply reducing the drinking age is not enough to change our destructive alcohol culture, but it is one of the steps necessary. The current misguided policy quashes new ideas — whether they are by schools, the government or families — that make sure young people deal responsibly with alcohol. A new approach is imperative.
These university presidents have acknowledged that need, and they should be commended for proposing a dialogs to reevaluate failed efforts.
It is a shame that our chancellor has decided not to be a part of that conversation.
—Patrick De Oliveira for the editorial board
Discussion
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While railing against MADD you did nothing to support your point. Lowering the drinking age is a bad idea. It will make some high school seniors legal. It will make an increasingly bad high school drinking scene worse. It is irresponsible of these college's Chancellors and Presidents to suggest that the drinking age is what contributes to binge drinking. The culture is the problem. I know people 16 to 35 who engage in binge drinking and it has nothing to do with whether a bar will serve them or not.
You are correct that the University should re-think its approach, but the answer is not jumping on the 18 bandwagon. It is about what it has always been about. Education and Peer Pressure.
Read up a little empire. The chancellors and presidents DID address the issue of the 'culture of binge drinking.' None of them are suggesting that we simply lower the drinking age and leave it at that.
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