Finally, we now have a legitimate movement to examine whether the national drinking age makes sense. In the 1980’s, each state was able to set it’s own drinking age until the Reagan Administration pushed through a national drinking age of 21. The federal government has no constitutional right to enforce laws in this area, so they tied the drinking age limit to the highway funds sent to each state. States had to increase the drinking age or lose out on highway funds.
It’s a huge mistake, as the government criminalized behavior that is very natural for young adults. College kids are going to drink, and prohibition works just as poorly for young adults as it did for all adults. It made it harder for parents and other adults to teach responsible drinking, so the law actually makes binge drinking even worse.
Many college presidents have figured this out, and now they are taking the courageous step of asking for a debate on this issue, risking the wrath of organizations such as MADD.
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.
The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.
“This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”
Other prominent schools in the group include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse.
