It seems a bunch of colleges are throwing in the towel when it comes to drinking.
A group of college big wigs calling themselves the Amethyst Initiative wants the legal drinking age to be 18. They argue keeping the drinking age at 21 has created the binge drinking culture.
They have it all wrong. Being a college student created the binge drinking culture.
Think about it. If you could have bought booze legally in college, would you have bought more or less?
I went to Northeastern University in Boston, beginning in 1981, when the drinking age had just been increased to 19. The drinking age would increase yearly. It was a constant struggle for my friends and I to buy beer freshmen year and every year after that. The kid on your dorm floor with a good fake ID was king. If we could have simply walked to the packy and bought a six of Haffenreffer, we’d all be alcoholics today.
So along comes the Amethyst Initiative. (Amethyst, the group tells us, comes from Greek words meaning “not intoxicated.” College, reality tells us, comes from the Greek words meaning “bed spins.”) The colleges behind the initiative are places like Middlebury in Vermont, Dickenson and Arcadia. Check out the pictures on the Web site. It’s smiling young intellectuals socializing with glasses of wine and Champagne. Maybe that’s the way they drink at Arcadia. But an 18 year old at a real college who could drink legally would be poring beer down the funnel faster than Michael Phelps gets across a pool.
As the father of two daughters who are more than 10 years away from college, I’d like to the keep the drinking age right were it is. I realize they will probably want to drink. But let’s make it has hard as possible.