Amethyst Initiative Hopes to Lower Drinking Age

In response to the failures of the legal drinking age of 21 to substantially solve alcohol-related injury and deaths, Amethyst Initiative was launched last July as a way to bring the drinking age debate front and center in 2009. Comprised of University presidents and chancellors, Amethyst Initiative supporters overwhelming favor a lower drinking age minimum to reduce binge-drinking related deaths and injury. Not surprisingly, Organizations such as MADD strongly oppose the plans of the Amethyst Initiative.

According to the Amethyst Initiative website, the movement began by John McCardell, President Emeritus of Middlebury College along with eight U.S. college presidents. A presidential statement was drafted calling for a national debate on the minimum drinking age and binge drinking in general. Since then more than 110 educational leaders have signed on with Amethyst Initiative including presidents of Texas A&M, Tufts and Avila University, the latter college made famous for its nursing degree program.

Not all signees support the lowered drinking age but instead signed the Amethyst Initiative with hopes to improve alcohol abuse and dependency issues. Re-evaluating the scientific evidence and the progress, or lack of, among college students today is part of that goal.

It may seem like an uphill battle to lower the minimum drinking age, but in reality the Amethyst Initiative could achieve its goals.

To best understand the potential of the Amethyst Initiative is by recognizing how federal legislation, that is up for re-vote in 2009, will impact how states respond to minimum drinking age law.

The Amethyst Initiative points out that a transportation bill of 1984 did not set a federal minimum drinking age of 21, but rather punished states with a 10 percent decrease in annual federal highway appropriation for states who set a lower minimum drinking age. This transportation bill requires reauthorization in 2009.

Amethyst Initiative contends that removal of the funding initiative will compel states to reevaluate their minimum drinking age. In other words, states may have made a drinking age decision based on subsidies rather than what is best for its citizens.

Amethyst Initiative drinking age debate

Amethyst Initiative acknowledges that the drinking age debate is complex. On one side of the issue is that legal adults aged 18 to 21 may vote, marry, enter into contracts, and serve in the military, yet may not legally drink alcohol.

Additionally, Amethyst Initiative supporters allege that the "mini-prohobition" of alcohol to adult minors accelerates the culture of binge drinking - more kids hide it and tend to drink as much liquor as they can when they can. Further, without proper education and experience at decision-making, young adults may be overwhelmed with the drinking culture. Does this mean teens need practice on drinking responsibly?

Is a lower minimum drinking age the answer?

According to the Associated Press, MADD CEO Chuck Hurley claims that "all peer-reviewed studies looking at the change showed raising the drinking age reduced drunk-driving deaths. A survey of research from the U.S. and other countries by the Centers for Disease Control and others reached the same conclusion."

Supporters of the current minimum drinking age include Alexander Wagenaar, a University of Florida epidemiologist, whom Amethyst Initiative cites in support of their lowered drinking age claims. Former health secretary Donna Shalala and Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health, who has studied binge drinking in-depth, both criticize the Amethyst Initiative and their goals.

Making a decision on the minimum drinking age

Ultimately, both supporters and critics will need to content with the Amethyst Initiative. Parents will need to make choices about the schools that support the lowered minimum drinking age and contact with legislators is needed prior to when reauthorization of the 1984 transportation bill begins.

It may also help to remember what it was like when alcohol was available (at reduced strength) for 18-year-olds. Did this make a difference on binge drinking or alcohol abuse?

It didn't in my teen years. When one such night club opened in our vicinity, friends crossed state line to the [name withheld] club, drank 5 or 6 malt ducks and then went out to "really party" at a friend's house or a motel room. And, it was the so-called "good kids" that frequented the club, too (jocks, preppies). The stoners just went straight to the hard stuff. In the 80s, there was plenty of impaired judgment, drunk driving and binge drinking.

As for today, it is often easier for minors to obtain prescription drugs than either alcohol or tobacco. The source is usually the parents' drug cabinets rather than drug dealers. As with drugs, the onus is on parents to win the fight against alcohol abuse, whether or not they support the Amethyst Initiative.

Obviously, government is ill-equipped in this area and, some may say, the educational system as well.

Learn more about the opposing views and science of drinking age minimums at both Amethyst Initiative and MADD at their respective websites (see Sources).

Sources:
Amethyst Initiative
http://www.amethystinitiative.org/article/view/21559/1/3831/#highway
Associated Press
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jWXhmLxHPcv8q_iFiN7nLt7RP8CgD92L2IIO0
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
http://madd.org