Hell freezes over: Colleges say 21 year old drinking age is "not working"

Well well well:

Colleges: Drinking age 'not working'

I never thought I'd see that in a million years. The gist of it:

Six college presidents in Maryland are among more than 100 college and university presidents nationwide who have signed a statement calling for a public debate on rethinking the drinking age.

"Kids are going to drink whether it's legal or illegal," said Johns Hopkins President William R. Brody, who supports lowering the drinking age to 18. "We'd at least be able to have a more open dialogue with students about drinking as opposed to this sham where people don't want to talk about it because it's a violation of the law."

First, I'd recommend 19 instead of 18. A 19-year-old drinking age was tried for a few years in the early 1980's, and from what I remember (having been just a few months too young to benefit from that law), it worked fairly well. There are very few 19-year-old high-school students, so the age served to limit drinking by high school students, and since most college students turn 19 in their first year, their level of compliance was actually fairly reasonable. The 21-year-old drinking age, on the other hand, is not only ignored by huge numbers of college students, it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that it had an impact on the level of drinking in high schools too.

Getting back to the article, what unfortunately doesn't surprise me is the quote from the Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) representative, which has no apparent logical connection to the issue at all: "Drunk driving used to be a part of American culture until someone stood up and said we need to make a change, and 25 years later 'designated driver' is a commonplace term in every household in America." Hello? The designated driver concept is totally seperate from the minimum drinking age, it arose seperately, and it could easily continue to exist regardless of what the drinking age actually is. More:

She said [she] was disappointed that the university presidents did not talk with MADD before signing the statement. She said she also questions their commitment to upholding the law.

Why exactly should they talk to MADD when it's clear that all MADD ever does is repeat the same thing over and over? Obviously they already knew that MADD would just say it was an awful idea, would provide no sensible justification for that position at all, and would refuse to budge an inch. This position, however, is precisely the one which the college people say is not working.

Furthermore, since when does advocating a change to the law constitute a lack of committment to upholding the law as it currently stands? Is she completely incapable of seeing that these are two different things?

All in all, however, it's a very interesting and promising development.

(As for MADD, it would be really nice if they would change their position and do their best to advocate responsible alcohol use by legal adults, rather than continuing to use the ridiculous strategy of trying to ban as much alcohol use as they possibly can. They might, for instance, come out in favor of late night mass transit or improved taxicab coverage in smaller cities, or maybe even the undue influence that tavern leagues have on local politics--all issues which pertain to the continuing problem of people having to drive someplace to drink, and then drive home afterwards. Designated drivers, after all, are not always available, and some cities have really shitty taxi coverage. It would be nice if people could go out at midnight, get some alcohol, bring it home, and then drink it. That would be safe, wouldn't it? But you can't do that here--it's illegal. The only way to buy alcohol at midnight around here is at a bar.)