Some of you may remember the stories at the end of last summer about The Amethyst Initiative, a petition by Choose Responsibility, an organization dedicated to lowering the drinking age to 18. So far it has been signed by over 130 college and university presidents who support legislation to end "Legal Age 21."
From The Amethyst Initiative's website:
Launched in July 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the United States. These higher education leaders have signed their names to a public statement that the problem of irresponsible drinking by young people continues despite the minimum legal drinking age of 21, and there is a culture of dangerous binge drinking on many campuses.
More after the jump...
Tonight, [CR] will be featured on 60 Minutes to talk about this vital issue. Binge drinking in American high schools and colleges, among both those under and over 21, has skyrocketed since Ronal Reagan signed the "National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984," which was heavily promoted by MADD at the time of passage.
For those uninformed about that legislation, it takes away federal highway funds from states that are in non-compliance with "Legal Age 21," or the prohibition of individuals under 21 purchasing or consuming alcoholic beverages.
Since the debate on the drinking age re-ignited in the 70s, there has been a flood of misinformation, mostly perpetuated and disseminated by MADD, about Legal Age 21. Many dubious studies have been cited and talked about endlessly on the cable news cycle by MADD, including that drinking alcohol before the age of 21 will cause you to lose 10% of your brainpower, that Legal Age 21 is working for low income families, and that Legal Age 21 is the only reason there has been a decrease in traffic-related fatalities.
I do not want to turn this post into a rant about MADD, but MADD founder Candy Lightner, who left the organization in 1985, sums up the organization's faults best in this quote:
[MADD] has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving
MADD, since its founding, has expanded its activities from being an organization that was meant to advocate not driving while drunk to being an organization that pushes, scarily successfully, for a new era of prohibition, carrying the drunk driving issue as their standard. As long as they can keep convincing the country of unitary causation with the underage drinking issue and traffic fatalities, they win and sensibility loses.
18 is the age of majority in America. 18-to-20-year-olds fight and die in our military, vote to elect our leaders, work on assembly lines and perform countless services that keep the country running, serve as police officers and firefighters, attend colleges and universities to become tomorrow's leaders and countless other occupations, yet they cannot legally have a drink with dinner.
I do not personally see how the federal government ever justified this gross violation of young people's rights so shortly after passing the 26th Amendment, cementing 18 as the age of majority in America. In my opinion, it is unconscionable and frankly stupid. Prohibition didn't work in the 20s, and hasn't worked since the 1980s, when Legal Age 21 came about.
Binge drinking is more prevalent now than it ever was, on college campuses and elsewhere and it is taking place in dorm rooms, in private instead of in the public eye. It kills young people every year, when someone dies on a bathroom floor or living room because their friends were too scared to call the cops because their friend was consuming alcohol under the age of 21.
I could write on this forever, but i just ask you to watch the segment on 60 Minutes tonight and become more informed about this. Legal Age 21 has been out of the spotlight for far too long, and now we need to start talking about it again. Binge drinking is becoming pandemic and we cannot continue to try and legislate it away without facing dire consequences.