A movement to consider lowering the drinking age is gaining traction among college presidents nationwide, but not in San Diego County.
Not a single local president has signed the statement, known as the Amethyst Initiative, that calls on lawmakers to re-examine whether the legal drinking age should be lowered from 21.
“There are real issues here, but you don't solve them by saying, 'Drink up,' ” said Stephen Weber, president of San Diego State University.
Nationally, about 130 presidents and chancellors from schools such as Duke, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Colgate and Tufts have signed on to the initiative. Part of the rationale is that the legal drinking age of 21 drives young people into underground, dangerous binge drinking.
Weber acknowledges that binge drinking is a huge problem among college students.
“It's a very different kind of phenomenon than was characteristic on university campuses 20 years ago, or when I was a student 40 years ago,” he said. “It's highly dangerous behavior. But to make it legal for 18-year-olds is literally just pouring fuel on the fire.”
The Amethyst Initiative was launched in mid-July by John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont. A statement notes that adults under 21 are allowed to vote, serve on juries and enlist in the military, but are not deemed ready to have a beer. When they choose to use fake IDs, they “make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.”
“It's pretty clear. This law is not being observed, period,” McCardell said. “But (college) presidents are expected when they receive these 18-year-olds to preach the only message the law allows them to preach, which is abstinence, because if they say, 'Drink in moderation, drink responsibly,' they're talking about breaking the law.”
Dealing with problem
President Bob Brower of Point Loma Nazarene University said it's hard to understand why so many college presidents have signed on to this initiative.
“The only reason I can come up with is that there's a tremendous amount of energy put into enforcement efforts on campus,” Brower said.
Point Loma Nazarene, a private Christian school, has among the strictest alcohol policies in the state. Students are not allowed to drink on or off campus, even if they are of legal age.
“I don't think any of us are naive enough to think drinking doesn't occur and isn't a problem,” Brower said. “But I'm not sure pushing down the age limit makes it less of a problem.”
Mary Lyons, president of University of San Diego, said many of the college presidents who signed the initiative are located in states where 18 was the legal drinking age before 1984, when Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. The legislation cut federal highway funding by 10 percent for any state with a drinking age younger than 21.
One of the initiative's supporters, Donald Eastman III, president of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the law isn't working well and a national discussion should take place about whether change is warranted.
The law “acts like if you're 21 you're not going to drink and in some ways keeps parents and us from really addressing the problem in a head-on, more effective way,” Eastman said.
Binge drinking
According to a 2007 report by the Office of the Surgeon General, studies consistently show that about 40 percent of college students binge drink. An estimated 1,700 college students die each year from alcohol-related injuries.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that laws that make 21 the minimum drinking age have reduced traffic fatalities involving 18-to 20-year-old drivers by 13 percent and have saved 25,509 lives since 1975.
Cal State San Marcos doesn't support the Amethyst Initiative because “alcohol is the leading cause of death among teenagers in highway crashes and minimum legal drinking age laws are effective in reducing alcohol-impaired driving,” according to a statement from President Karen Haynes' office.
Mark Yudof, president of the University of California system, said in a statement: “The chancellors and I have come to the unanimous conclusion that, as leaders of the University of California, we do not intend to sign the statement. Neither I nor my campus colleagues believe there is a compelling reason to change present law . . . .”
Yudof noted that alcohol abuse is a serious problem among college-age students, but there is not persuasive evidence that lowering the drinking age will solve it.
Enforcement questions
Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other organizations have called on Eastman and others to remove their names from the list. MADD officials say signing the statement raises doubts about whether they will enforce the current drinking age on their campuses.
“Clearly (lowering the age) would put alcohol in the hands of even younger people,” MADD national President Laura Dean-Mooney said.
SDSU is trying to get at the issue from other angles this academic year, with stricter policies, education and university-sponsored alcohol-free programming on weekend nights when students are likely to drink.
For the first time, alcohol is banned in SDSU residence halls for students of legal age. Fraternities and sororities have been prohibited from having alcohol at any of their sponsored functions during the first five weeks of the semester.
New students are now required to complete e-CHUG, San Diego State's online drinking assessment, which was designed by the university and adopted by hundreds of schools nationwide. Previously the tool, which offers personalized feedback on alcohol use, was available to SDSU students on a voluntary basis.
Sherry Saavedra: (619) 542-4598; sherry.saavedra@uniontrib.com
