Lose Two, Gain Fifteen:
The list of college administrators calling for reconsideration of the national drinking age is growing, but the withdrawal of two from the list of signatories gets the headline. As of now, the Amethyst Initiative list includes top administrators from over 120 colleges and universities.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Lose Two, Gain Fifteen:
- Rethinking the Drinking Age:
I would assume it is because most, if not nearly all, 4-year universities operate their own campus security or police forces. In the case of large universities, these are often armed, sworn officers with full arrest powers.
The nearly hysterical criticism of this modest initiative from some quarters underscores the weakness of the current law as policy. No one who really believed they had the better argument would be concerned about a request for a dialogue from some university presidents.
It would be nice if we had some consistency on what qualified as an adult.
I'm just glad the issue is back in the press again.
Has anyone ever seen a activists in favor of the status quo (e.g. MADD) respond meaningfully to this argument? All the quotes I've seen just skip over this fact and go straight to asserting that lowering the age would lead to more traffic deaths.
Aside: if traffic deaths are the issue, where was MADD when speed limits were being raised?
This would have many salutary effects, not the least of which is that it would be a defeat for the MADD mothers.
In Iowa City students are responsible for less than a third of the alcohol charges but they are blamed for all of them. Some of the students do not drink or have discontinued drinking, others regulate their drinking to avoid intoxication and some are frequently intoxicated (an arbitrary level is that more than 6 times a year is frequent). A person who is infrequently intoxicated could still be engaged in high risk behavior if they consume a large amount of alcohol in a single episode.
If this is treated as a public health problem the goals should be to reduce the frequency and severity of intoxication (a big challenge because of the social pressures to become intoxicated). A university should deal with the problem as a public heath problem but they also have to see that the existing state laws and local ordinances are enforced uniformly (in many cases they are not) and they should uniformly enforce their own rules.
OTOH I don't have a problem with a general discussion about revising the minimum age to drink or with university presidents taking a stand. It may be that there will be no change.
I doubt that the funds needed to enforce the present laws will be increased and if that is the case the age when juveniles start to drink will not change.
A lot of them start when their brains are in a rapid stage of development and it is unethical to do research on how use of alcohol influences brain development.
I am more concerned about the 12 to 17 year olds than I am about the 18 to 20 year olds. I favor 19 for the minimum age to keep 18 year old high school students from buying alcohol for their younger friends.
It's much easier to collect government grants to "solve the problem of illegal drinking" and spend it on smugly hysterical publicity blaming the culture, the decline of morals, or anything but the policy. Why should they willingly engage in a rational policy debate they could lose? That might slow down their gravy train.
That's profitable moral panic demagogy 101.
I can sympathize with the concerns about 18 year old buying booze for minor high school friends. However, I still side with the belief that the age of majority should be just that - and once you are old enough to marry, sue or be sued, sign contracts, and, yes, defend your country, then you should be old enough to drink. I think there are ways to address the issue. Stronger penalties for alcohol associated offenses that relate to driving might help. For instance, a five year loss of a drivers license for anyone buying for minors. Or a strictly enforced loss of license for five years for DWI or offenses such as open container in vehicle.
My experience on college and university campuses for 30 years suggests the university presidents are correct. The efforts by MADD and other neo-prohibitionists have not solved the under-age drinking problem, and seem to have made it worse by driving it underground.
My opinion and a three bucks buys you a beer.
I understand the need for security and law enforcement on campus, but I just feel giving Colleges Police Powers is just asking for trouble.
Law Enforcement on campus should be the responsibility of the community that the University or College is located in. I would support the idea that the University or College contribute to the communities police budget to cover the costs with providing the additional coverage they require.
Campus Security should have no more and no less power than the Private Security of any other business of the State they are located in.
I went to college to be educated. I don't want the Administration distracted from that primary focus. They are educators, not law enforcers
Note: Law Enforcement at the Public University I attended was provided by the County Sherriff, in a model similar to the own I described.
The college presidents have had the common sense to say the emperor has no clothes.
Of course, they only care about enforcing drinking laws because of potential spillover civil liability from alcohol-related events on campus. For example, even though my college was a public institution with a police force, they never seemed concerned with whether I was paying taxes.
Colleges are often caught in a tough place in terms of enforcement. Younger people often drink to excess (whether it be a function of being young, or being unable to legally drink and binging whenever one has access to alcohol) and, therefore, need medical attention for it. Colleges that have a zero-tolerance policy (i.e. will sanction underage students who are brought in for alcohol poisoning) certainly please the MADD lobby, but discourage students from taking their inebriated peers in for much-needed medical care. If colleges adopt policies which permit students to seek medical care for alcohol issues without fear of punishment (probation, sanction, removal from athletic teams, ouster from dorms, etc), then they are accused of not wanting to enforce the law.
Obviously, were this to be a state issue, it would allow us to empirically test the effects of a reduced drinking age upon alcoholism, access to treatment, and the like. It would also eliminate the problems with a federal requirement for selective service registration at age 18, but a (de facto, via the requirements for receipt of highway funds) federal prohibition on alcohol consumption until age 21.