The Amethyst Initiative Does Not Advocate a Lower Drinking Age

The recent revelation of the Amethyst Initiative, an effort to facilitate debate about alcohol and underage drinking, does not openly advocate lowering the drinking age from 21.

According to the website (www.amethystinitiative.org) the movement started when John McCardell was asked to speak at a meeting of the Annapolis Group, a group of 120 liberal arts colleges in June 2008. McCardell is President Emeritus of Middlebury College and Founder of Choose Responsibility, he deemed it necessary to consult several Annapolis presidents who were is friends to "solicit their thoughts about the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age." (amethystinitiative.org) McCardell's group "discovered a common desire to reopen public debate over the drinking age and began to frame a statement to express their views." (amethystinitiative.org) The group also thought that other college and university presidents may share their views. The result of that meeting was the Amethyst Initiative.

There are several features of the statement put forward by the Amethyst Initiative that are important to consider.

1. The statement does not advocate a particular policy beyond their assertion that the current policy is not working
   
2. Signing the initiative only means a change is supported
   
3. Presidents who favor raising the drinking age can sign as well as those who favor lowering the bar.
   
4. It is a social statement that has no scientific or legislative backing

Those things being said, it is seems that the initial proponents of Amethyst Initiative, especially John McCardell and the Choose Responsibility organization, support lowering the legal drinking age. Although you won't find that statement on either the Amethyst Initiative or Choose Responsibility websites, some careful reading reveals some disturbing details. Although they claim to be dispassionate and impartial, take a look at some of the items I've uncovered:

1. The Choose Responsibility website has a "Legal Age 21" portion of their site that they claim is to educate Americans beyond just knowing the legal drinking age. There are a few sub-portions of that page. One is called "Arguments Against Legal Age 21," and another is called "Arguments For Legal Age 21." At first glance both seem to be fair assessments as both pages give a list of one-sentence reasons why the drinking age should or should not be lowered, with each item a link to a greater description. The "Against" arguments provide a block of text and reference links. However the "For" arguments have a block of text, and a "However..." block of refuting text, as if the "For" stance is wrong. This is the first indication Choose Responsibility has already made its decision.
   
2. The CR site has a graph showing drunk-driving fatalities since 1982. The website claims that raising the drinking age is only part of why drunk-driving fatalities have decreased 25% since 1982. CR cites improvements in car safety technology such as airbags and crash testing, drunk-driving awareness programs, increased law enforcement, and designated drivers as significant contributors to decline in alcohol-related fatalities. What they fail to point out, and what the graph does in majestic fashion, is that in the past 10 years alcohol related deaths have not decreased. Nor have they increased. Unfortunately for Choose Responsibility, all their reasons besides the age-21 restriction have also increased in the past 10 years. A car in '94 had two airbags, one each for the passengers in the front. Now almost all new cards have several airbags. Law enforcement has steadily increased as well. Car safety technology advances every year. So why is it that while all these things are increasing, alcohol related deaths are not decreasing? I'll spell it out for you if you still don't understand. CR is claiming an inverse relationship between non-age 21 related measures and the number of alcohol related deaths. If that were true then alcohol related deaths should be decreasing every year, which they're not.
   
3. CR states that states that choose to implement a pilot program where 18 is the legal drinking age should not be penalized for their actions. CR claims that the level in maturity (which they debate: what is maturity?) is no different between 21 and 18. Well if that is true, what's another 3 years on the other side? Why not raise the drinking age to 24? Inherently, the lower drinking age based on maturity argument is flawed. If students are going to drink illegally at age 21, and they are mature, they're going to make the same decision at the same maturity level, which CR claims is 18. Now, children in general are not as mature as adults. Assume the drinking age is lowered to 18, that would make it so that children, in the ages of 14-17 would be able to more easily purchase alcohol

It may seem like I've made up my mind as well. However that is not true. I like some portions of the CR website, especially these excepts:

From the semantics page:

"Drinking, like driving, represents a "rite of passage" in American culture; yet, to date, only one of those privileges requires significant training and testing. The consumption of alcoholic beverages must be an earned privilege in order truly to safeguard society and individuals."

And from the education page:

"We recommend a new approach to alcohol education. Too often alcohol education either denies the reality of alcohol use amongst its subjects (Just Say No!) or is an intervention measure only after irresponsible alcohol use has been reprimanded (Court ordered alcohol treatment). We envision a program similar to Drivers' Education..."

The reason I like those two are because I grew up understanding what a privilege is and I grew up learning the consequences of drinking alcohol recklessly. I know that these two approaches work well in instituting responsibility.

The Amethyst Initiative does seem to be put forward by those who advocate a lower drinking age, something I do not agree with. However, they have some ideas that seem very well thought out. This may be the best chance we have at confronting the drinking problem, and it's time we said it like it is: it is a problem, and it needs to be addressed.