A lower drinking age?

Many of you may have read recently that colleges and universities across the country are asking individual states to review the drinking age. They argue that the drinking age should be moved from 21 to 18. This is a provocative debate, as well as a very important issue in our communities. Below is an article from the Pioneer Press focusing on this idea. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and opinions.




Lake Forest College's president is among more than 100 college presidents and chancellors nationwide who signed an initiative to open discussion on lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.

College presidents signed on with Amethyst Initiative to start public discussion on how well the 21-year-old drinking policy is working. The three-person staff of the Virginia-based Amethyst Initiative have fielded calls, e-mails and interview requests from small-town newspapers to Time Magazine to the London BBC since the story was leaked to the press one month ahead of schedule, according to Grace Kronenberg of the Amethyst Initiative.

"This is the best evidence we have of the need for discussion. People have sat up and taken notice," she said.

Locally, Lake Forest College President Stephen Schutt said in a written statement that he joined with Amethyst Initiative to "help start a conversation about the way the laws surrounding drinking in our country could work more effectively," he said. "I have not decided that lowering the drinking age is the right course of action for our society to take, but I do believe that it should be given full and serious consideration, and this is what a genuine national conversation could produce."

State Sen. Susan Garrett said she, too, thinks a debate on the topic is a good idea, but admitted she has "mixed feelings about" lowering the drinking age.

"I fought so hard to be sure parents have so much more responsibility to prevent underage drinking," Garrett said last week.

Amethyst Initiative and college presidents argue that the higher drinking age promotes binge drinking on college campuses, which college's might be better able to handle if the drinking age were lowered to 18.

"Lowering the drinking age to 18 could make it possible for colleges and universities to model responsible drinking behavior on campus," Schutt said in his statement.

Garrett is not convinced.

"Would that eliminate binge drinking? I don't know. I'm not an expert. We need to bring experts together to have that discussion. I say, let's open it up, let's discuss it, let's weigh the pros and cons," Garrett said.

Lake Forest Police Chief Joe Buerger has no qualms about stating his opinion on lowering the drinking age.

"As a law enforcement executive, I don't support the lowering of the drinking age," Buerger said. "Statistics show there were fewer accidents and fewer young adults killed after the drinking age was raised."

The International Association of Chiefs of Police said in a statement issued Friday that raising the drinking age to 21 has saved more than 25,000 lives since 1984, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.

"Lowering the minimum drinking age to 18 is both misguided and dangerous," IACP President Ronald Ruecker said in the statement. "Lowering the national drinking age would inevitably lead to more tragedies for more families."

According to the IACP, research shows young drivers (age 16 to 21) comprise 7 percent of all drivers in the U.S., yet they are involved in 15 percent of all alcohol-related fatalities -- a trend they believe would increase if the drinking age were lowered.

Jared Fox, a senior at Lake Forest College, thinks it is unfair that he can "sign up to die in a war" at the age of 18 but "cannot have a beer with my friends."

He supports the Amethyst Initiative to open discussion on lowering the drinking age.

"Reducing the drinking age to 18 or another lower number would decrease the current drinking atmosphere. Currently, students are binge drinking in high levels," he said. Fox said minors are more likely to binge drink because alcohol consumption is illegal for them.

"Minors will obtain alcohol and try to drink as much of it as they possibly can in a small time" because they don't know when they will have the opportunity to drink again, he said. "If the age was lowered, colleges would be able to talk about the issue with students who are currently identified as minors and to instill good drinking habits in them.

"Right now, you can't tell these individuals how to drink because they aren't supposed to be drinking anyway. The fact is, though, most of them have formed drinking habits much earlier than college."