The drinking age: Should it be lowered to 18?

More than 100 college and university presidents are circulating a nationwide petition calling on the country to “rethink the drinking age.”

College drinking, one study estimates, kills some 1,700 students annually. It causes 599,000 injuries. It results in 97,000 sexual assaults or date rapes. Now, said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial, more than 100 college and university presidents are fighting back by circulating a nationwide petition calling on the country to “rethink the drinking age.” It may sound counter-intuitive, but the academics say the best response to underage binge drinking is to lower the legal drinking age to 18. The heads of Middlebury, Colgate, and other schools argue that “raising the drinking age to 21, which the federal government effectively forced states to do in the early 1980s,” has only enhanced the allure of alcohol for freshmen and sophomores. Rather than learn to drink responsibly in bars and supervised settings, they drink clandestinely, chugging down huge quantities to get drunk quickly. Making alcohol taboo, the presidents argue, just hasn’t worked. “How many times,” they are asking, “must we relearn the lessons of Prohibition?”

It’s a good question, said Marc Fisher in WashingtonPost.com. “When I was in college three decades ago, 18-year-olds could drink openly and legally. The result—of course, with plenty of extreme exceptions—was that kids learned moderation.” At 18, said the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, students are legally entitled to vote, drive, and volunteer to die for their country. But they’re not mature enough to buy a mug of beer? That’s inherently unfair.

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