The presidents of more than 100 colleges and universities have signed a document urging lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age to 18. The educators say the 21-year-old drinking age is widely flouted and has led to a culture of binge drinking on college campuses. Anti-drunken driving groups say the law does work. They argue that colleges don’t want to be bothered with enforcing the law and are looking for an easy way out. John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, says his group, the Amethyst Initiative, is against intoxication but supports responsible, adult behavior toward alcohol.
College seems to be a place where drinking and partying is just a part of everyday life. I remember the days where going to class, then hitting happy hour was almost routine in college, then heading out to a house party with a big group of friends. At the time I never really stopped to think about the amount of alcohol I was consuming, just that fact that college was the best time of my life. Now that I am a little more mature (older and boring), I look back and think that it makes sense that 30% of people using alcohol are considered alcoholics, or have a drinking dependency; I was probably in that category. The problem that I had was that I thought the only way to become and alcoholic, or be considered dependant upon alcohol was to be the guy that wakes up in the morning and heads straight to the bar, then drinks during the day and does nothing else. The truth is that my college days allowed me to sustain the energy to attend all my classes, and function normally. Because I was drinking after classes and a night, I felt that I was just another college student. The problem is that myself, and most college students out there, would engage in alcohol consumption in a short time frame drinking a lot more than I would ever dream of today.
The College Days: Binge Drinking and Thinking it’s Normal Behavior
The college days were fun with the beer bongs, and the good old days where shot gunning a few cans of keystone light was commonplace. I’m much more comfortable with a nice glass of Cabernet with my dinner now, and perhaps a beer or two during the game. The fact remains, college students in general tend to drink large amounts or binge when they party. Shot after shot, and in the range of 5-10 drinks within an hour. At my age, that would put my in be and hung over for at least a week, if not in the hospital.
Among the supporters are presidents at Duke University and Ohio State University. Although not all major universities are behind the initiative, the fact is that the majority of the student bodies at colleges and universities tend to have access to alcohol, regardless of their age. Whether it’s via an older friend, or the fake ID method that seems to work on college campuses, students still have access to alcohol without issue.
Will Lowering the Drinking Age to 18 be Beneficial or Harmful?
- Is the right answer lowering the drinking age, or will this simply make alcohol binge drinking more accessible for college students? Take it another step further, what about high school students, most of whom are 18 their senior year.
- Would you vote for a law that lowers the drinking age? (The Amethyst Initiative)
- Are you in college, or do you have children in college? What are your thoughts on lowering the drinking age?
- Why do you think students in Europe tend to control their drinking habits versus American students?
- Do you think the lower drinking age and relaxed drinking atmosphere would benefit America in the same manner?
- Will this type of change curb binge-drinking habits, and essentially lower the risk of driving under the influence?
- The military enlistment age is 18. Young men and women can fight, and die, for our country. Shouldn’t they be able to drink as adults if we lower the legal drinking age to 18?
Share your thoughts; tell us what solution fits this issue in America!
(32 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
Loading ...
“This law has saved 25,000 lives”
Governors Highway Safety Association on http://www.opposingviews.com
Is that accurate?
I’m not sure Chris, I think it’s hard to measure raw data on saving lives. It seems like data could be interpreted on either side to fit your opinions argument. At least that’s how I see it…here’s another excerpt from opposingviews.com:
European countries are held up as examples of where more liberal drinking age laws and attitudes may foster more responsible styles of drinking by young people. It is often asserted that alcohol is more integrated into European (especially southern European) culture and that young people there learn to drink at earlier ages within the context of the family. As a result, it is said that young Europeans learn to drink more responsibly than do young people from the United States. In fact, when compared to young people in the United States:
* Young people in nearly all European countries report drinking in the past 30 days in a greater percentage than in the United States.
* A greater percentage of young people in a majority of European countries report having five or more drinks in a session.
* In most European countries, young people have higher intoxication rates than in the United States, and less than a quarter had lower or equivalent rates to the United States.
* There is evidence that some European youth have higher rates of alcohol-related problems because of their heavy drinking. See the graphs below II for further details on adolescent drinking in the United States compared to European Countries.
The education on drinking and the responsibilities that go along with drinking starts at home with one’s 1st family. When children/young adults are carefully taught, and I believe this does mean teaching them what is out there in the world, they are more prepared to handle many different situations at college in a more responsible way. This doesn’t mean that underage drinking is promoted and therefore break the law, it simply means that a parents responsiblity is to teach and advise as best they know how about drinking to their children/young adults. Allowing responsiblity to take place in their children’s/young adults lives. They do have to learn how to be responsible for themselves and the college years are possibly the most challenging for them.
My understanding is that to change this law and move the legal drinking age back to 18 is up to the individual states. No matter how one feels about changing the law, whatever each state allows is the law and has to be followed as such. That is another responsiblity that a young adult has to accept. Along with the fact that if wrong decisions are made and consequences are to be paid, then they have to be paid.
kay, the issue is that it needs to be nation wide. this is because of a little law that was made back when the age was changed, which says that if any state disobeys and changes their age to 18, or lower than 21, the government would pull their funding for i believe roadwork, which in some states tops over tens of millions of dollars, that few if any states can offord to miss. hence why it needs to be national, because no state will change the law if it means losing money. the truth is that mothers against drunk driving and other such organizations, while having done alot of good, are now becoming the problem itself. they’ve taken it too far, and seem to drive closer to prohibition than responcible drinking. in this aspect, it rather infuriating to think of, because while they keep going strong and keep trying to save lives, what they’re really doing is taking away the experience and knowledge that is necessary to truly drink responcibly. all i think of is rage when i remember than i could go into the army right now, get injured and sent home, and not be able to sit down with a beer when i get back. the logic behind making the drinking age 21 was highly flawed in the first place, and was just like putting a bandaid over a compound fracture. instead of teaching and making sure that students don’t act stupid when it comes to alchohol, they just made it slightly harder to get. so the students are just going to do the same thing, only worse, because now it’s illegal. there’s this whole stigma against alchohol, which is the reason that it’s so big, because it’s so taboo. i really hope that this movement passes and the drinking age is lowered. it’s truly the first step in improving the manner in which alchohol is treated, on all fronts.
The bottom line is that young adults are able to vote for the president of the United States, as well as risk their lives in order to defend our Country. In turn, I feel our government is liable for taking the proper measures to ensure that these young adults are entitled to a cold beer or cocktail of their choice.
i think it should be lowered to 18!!!
me and my friend are coming over in september and were 20 and we cant even drink!!! and we’ve been able to drink leagally for 2 years over here!!!
I live in New zealand. Here the drinking age has been lowered to 18. Worst thing that could of happened. We now have younger and younger children drinking. This has led to lots more problems. Lots more accidents more deaths, fighting in the streets, boy racers are taking over with no respect for the law. Be thankful yor drinking age is 21, wish ours was
i live in America the legal drinking age is (21) it should stay the same, because if it is lowered their will be more accidents and alot of innocent people is going to die because of drunk driving .
yea, shaneil, comming from the person with a famly guy charicter next to your post, your credibility sucks so bad.
screw that , 18 is the magic number
The drinking age should be lowered to 18, end of story, fuck all you retarded ass people who say it would cause more accidents and what not, you do not know that and person from New Zealand need to fuck off because this is American business none of yours. I’m sorry you’re government cannot control the people there, but ours can. So here’s some friendly advice…. shut the fuck up.