We Just Can’t Stop!
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
We can’t stop talking about the Amethyst Initiative that is. Y’know, the petition signed by…let’s check the ticker here…129 chancellors and presidents at universities and colleges throughout the US advocating a “dispassionate debate” on the drinking age. The debate would be about, specifically, raising the drinking age, preferably to 45.
Just kidding!
Anyway, the Chronicle of Higher Education has helpfully gathered two professionals, on opposing sides of the debate, to offer their views.
William G. Durden, President of Dickinson College is on the pro side. He points out that the Amethyst Initiative is not necessarily arguing the drinking age be moved to 18; rather: “It does state the 128 signatories’ belief that it is time for our nation to engage in a serious debate about alternative approaches to underage and binge drinking and to examine whether current public policies are in line with current realities.” He argues that the current law and abstinence rhetoric are obviously not working, and in fact drive students to more secretive and dangerous behaviors. Often, he says, college students’ dangerous drinking activities are unrelated to driving, but endanger their lives in other ways. He points to other countries’ lower drinking ages, which are reinforced, he says, by extensive alcohol education and severe penalties for dangerous and destructive behaviors, such as drunken driving.
William DeJong, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Boston University’s School of Public Health, points to studies showing a reduction in alcohol-related deaths and no greater alcohol use on campus than there was 21 years ago, when the drinking age was upped. He replies to Durden’s point about foreign countries’ alcohol laws with the example of New Zealand: In 1999, that country lowered the drinking age from 20 to 18. “The result,” DeJong says, ”was a dramatic upswing in traffic crashes and injuries among 15- to 19-year-olds.” He advocates a variety of prevention and education measures, from “specific guidance on how to keep their blood-alcohol concentration in a safer range” for students who do drink, to the usual restrictions of alcohol-laden advertising and purchasing opportunities.
What do you think of their arguments? My initial thought is that it’s a pity we couldn’t read a dialogue between these two, each responding to and countering the other’s viewpoints, and possibly finding middle ground.