Just say no to drop in drinking age

Of all the lamebrained ideas dreamed up by the great minds of higher education, this one takes the cake.

A consortium of college presidents under the auspices of the Amethyst Initiative is questioning whether the 21-year-old national drinking age works. They claim it contributes to binge drinking, a destructive force on college campuses.

Here's the group's rationale, straight from its Web site: "Young adults who have not reached the age of 21 must drink behind closed doors and drink quickly in fear of getting caught. This type of drinking - drinking to get drunk - is often identified as a problem of college, but new data show that binge drinking is becoming more common much later in life as well."

That's a pretty shaky assumption on which to base a change in federal law.

The group cites a study that shows binge drinking is on the rise in the 18-20 age range, but that it is growing at a faster pace in the 21-26 range. So either kids are forming very bad habits before they are legally entitled to drink and carrying that over or it's just easier to get loaded when you have an ID that says you're 21.

Either way, we're unconvinced a change is prudent.

Thus far, 115 college presidents, including those from Ohio State, Syracuse, Butler, Colgate, Dartmouth and Duke, have signed on to the Amethyst Initiative.

The group's point has been distilled to a "we favor an 18-year-old drinking age" sound byte, which is too simplistic.

What the group is looking for is removal of the teeth in the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which essentially robs any state that doesn't fall in line with an end to its federal highway funding. With the federal limitation removed, they say, states would be free to allow the purchase of alcohol by 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds. Or, preferably, states could create special licenses that would allow them to purchase alcohol only after having gone through mandatory alcohol education and exposure to DUI victims and people in alcohol recovery.

Proponents of the movement have said the problem with the 21-year-old drinking age is that if college counselors detect a drinking problem with a younger college student they are powerless to do anything about it - because they can't suggest more appropriate levels of drinking when the activity itself is against the law.

Many in Illinois remember when Wisconsin had a lower drinking age. Teens streamed across the border to drink, then drove back home. Many never made it and the state line became known as "Blood Border."

There are some things 18-year-olds - college or not - just aren't mature enough to deal with.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has a stronger basis for its argument that 18-year-olds should not be allowed to drink: The 21 law saves 1,000 lives a year in this country.

The fact that alcohol is illegal for 18-year-olds to consume does not absolve colleges from taking steps to inform teens of the dangers of alcohol abuse. We view their argument as a cop-out.