18 YEAR OLD DRINKING LIMIT IN CALIF.

by Jack Lee

“RALEIGH, North Carolina – College presidents from about 100 of the best-known U.S. universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the U.S. drinking age, which is among the highest in the world.’

Look at me I am drunk.jpg


This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”

What the academics have not acknowledged is this will likely move alcohol abuse down to the next tier, making it easily available in the high schools where many seniors will be of legal drinking age. The average human doesn’t fully develop mental reasoning ability (maturity) until around age 25, and we want to encourage drinking in high schools? That ought to work out real well.

We’re moving in the wrong direction and instead of lowering the drinking age we should be raising the bar…pun intended. We should raise the age to conform to what we as a society considers an adult in looks, actions and supported by psychological studies. Our laws should be consistently linked to what we expect from certain age groups.

If that means raising the vote from 18 to 21, so be it. Same for the draft, that should be 21 too. People seem to be growing up slower these days and living longer, so it’s only logical we extend the age of being a non-adult to reflect societys demands on our children who are rarely ready to assume adult responsibilities by age 18.

Why should we reward abuse of freedom by giving them more?

What these college professors are saying is too many kids are drinking in college and that drinking is almost out of control. It’s too much for them to manage…and they make my case about juvenile behavior. I challenge their thinking, I really don’t believe that underage drinking is too much too manage in the college invironment. Expulsion is a great tool to limiting undesirable behavior in college. The very real threat of being kicked out of college along with serious criminal penalties is all we need. Hey, who’s running these institutions anyway, the adults of the students? Why should we have to acquiesce because childish students misbehave in large numbers, are we that spineless?

Being permissive has never been an encouragement for acceptable behavior, or have we already forgot the lessons of the drug dazed 60’s?

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