The Issue: Nonprofit organization formed to lower drinking age
What we think: Focus on responsibility, facts
Choose Responsibility, "an initiative defined by balance, maturity, and common sense" led by former Middlebury College President John McCardell, is now actively lobbying to lower the drinking age in the United States.
McCardell and his advocacy group point to statistics that prove the ineffectiveness of the current age limit on alcohol consumption.
While the group reports that fewer minors are drinking, those that do are binge drinking more than ever before. There was a 56 percent increase in "heavy drinking" among 18-20 year olds between 1993 and 2001. Even more glaring is the fact that 96 percent of the alcohol consumed by 15-20 year olds is consumed during episodes of heavy drinking.
Though the number of people between the ages of 18 and 20 consuming alcohol has decreased since the inception of the legal drinking age of 21, the amount of alcohol being consumed per underage person has increased. Legal Age 21 is obviously not doing what it was intended to do.
According to Choose Responsibility, safety belts and air bags have saved more lives in the past two years alone than the drinking age has in the 22 years since its inception.
While the decision to set the drinking age is left up to individual states, the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act passed by Congress denies 10 percent of federal highway funding to states whose drinking age is lower than 21.
At 18, one is old enough to be drafted, marry, adopt children, go into debt, own property, sue or be sued, vote, seek or hold public office, purchase firearms, smoke, buy lottery tickets, gamble, and enter into a legally binding contract. Even with all these legally afforded privileges, an 18 year old still cannot walk into a bar and have an alcoholic drink. All things considered, this is absurd.
Legal Age 21 creates a contradiction: Young adults are trapped between having legal status as adults in nearly every facet of life but are still treated as children when it comes to alcohol consumption.
Spring Break
