Universities+Against+Lowering+the+Drinking+Age



A group of 100 university presidents has proposed that lawmakers consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. [|We oppose this proposal]. We do not believe that lowering the drinking age would help solve the largest public health and safety problem here and at other campuses: High-risk, or binge drinking. In fact, evidence tells us that lowering the drinking age would worsen binge drinking.People often view college drinking as a harmless rite of passage. But the issue is not that students drink. It’s that they drink too much.At least 40 percent of college students report binge drinking — having five or more drinks in one sitting — according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Excessive drinking contributed to more than 1,700 college student deaths and more than 500,000 student injuries in 2001, says the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Thousands of sexual assaults among college students are also tied to binge drinking.Nationally, there is evidence the problem remains acute, or may even be worsening. The 100 presidents blame the current drinking age. Their statement reads, “A culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ — often conducted off-campus — has developed.”Common sense says that most college students binge drink with their friends or at parties. What’s appealing about binge drinking is not its “clandestine” nature but that it’s socially desirable. Does anyone really think that if 18-year-olds could buy alcohol, the social passport conferred by heavy drinking would lose its cache?
 * [[image:http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/i/msnbc/Components/Art/HEALTH/070314/AP_CollegesSubstanceAbuse.gif width="360" height="333" align="right"]] ||

Six Georgia universities decided against supporting a student movement to lower the minimum legal drinking age. The University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Emory University, Morehouse College and Agnes Scott College issued statements Wednesday saying that they were not supporting the Amethyst Initiative. The Initiative was founded about a month ago by Dr. John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College, and urges university presidents to ask lawmakers to discuss lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18. The group argues on its website, www.amethystinitiative.org, that “a culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ — often conducted off-campus has developed” because of the current drinking age, and lowering this minimum age would alleviate the problem. Amethyst’s website lists the signatures of about 100 well-known American colleges that have joined the movement.

media type="custom" key="3647097" width="165" height="108"

Binge drinking is trying to get drunk as fast as possible...Ur pretty dumb if you do it.


 * Fact: A total of 41,059 total traffic fatalities were recorded in the US in 2007. Of those, an estimated 12,998 (over 31%) were drunk drivers (Blood Alcohol Concentration above .08).
 * Fact: On average, someone is killed by a drunk driver in the US **every 40 minutes**.