College presidents: Lower drinking age

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Posted: 8/19/08

College presidents at many top universities around the nation are asking lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, according to a wire services report.

The Associated Press reported Tuesday that about 100 college leaders, from schools such as Duke, Ohio State and Syracuse, say drinking laws encourage binge drinking on campuses.

The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age. University President Michael Adams was not one of the presidents calling for the change in the law.

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

Other prominent schools in the group include Dartmouth, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem. MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.

"It's very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses," said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.