Hollywood invariably paints the same image of college life: drinks flowing freely, actions without consequences, clandestine encounters, and crowds of good-looking people. But regardless of how much society romanticizes the college party culture by covering up its faults and exaggerating its appeal, it fails to bring up a key fact: Almost half of college students were only 18 and 19 years old in 2006, according the to the U.S. Census Bureau, and therefore were not allowed by law to drink. Taking into account the rest of the students who remain under the legal drinking age, the number proves the unlawfulness of the image being portrayed on the big screen.
Not that I’m that naïve. As a student athlete, I’m obligated to abstain — which is completely fine with me, a pledged non-drinker. But regardless of what I do, regardless of Hollywood’s false rosy images, regardless of the attitudes of Northwestern’s drinkers and non-drinkers alike, it is clear that the proponents of the 21-year-old legal drinking age are on to something.
With underage consumption of alcohol routinely considered a stereotypical characteristic of certain college social groups (read: jocks and frat boys), 130 heads of various universities have taken an initiative to stop the drinking phenomenon. But rather than adding new regulations and more effective punishments, they have brought up a motion to discuss lowering the legal drinking age from 21 years, as established by the 1984 National Minimum Age Drinking Act, to 18 years. Dubbed the Amethyst Initiative, the plan born this past July boasts a grassroots mission of supporting “informed and unimpeded debate on the 21-year-old drinking age,” among the electorate, as stated on the official website. The goal is to develop more innovative and effective policies for responsible consumption of alcohol.
While lowering the drinking age may seem to allow for more informed consumption, many, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), feel that the new law would be counterproductive.
They have plenty to back it up, since the statistics lean in favor of the current legal drinking age. According to the National Institutes of Health, in the mid-1970’s, two-thirds of traffic-related deaths among people ages 16 to 21 were alcohol-related, whereas today, the same age group faced only 36% of traffic-related deaths under those same conditions. Considering that statistic, the NIH found that the number of traffic-related deaths involving alcohol for those ages 16 to 21 had dramatically decreased from 5,244 per year in 1982 to 2,115 per year in 2004. Provided that the effects of the National Minimum Age Drinking Act of 1988 and those of the Zero Tolerance laws were at least in part responsible for the sharp decrease in the number of alcohol-induced traffic-related deaths each year, why should we stop now and potentially return the numbers to where they were before? Have the creators of the Amethyst Initiative truly considered that risk? If keeping the legal drinking age at 21 has a chance at saving a single life, then at 21 it should stay.
And on another note, in reporting on MADD’s national conference where the discussion over the Amethyst Initiative took center stage, The Dallas Morning News found that one of the organization’s chief concerns was that the initiative looked like a ploy to provide university administrations with an easy way out. It seemed designed to remove the burden of enforcing the current drinking age on college campuses. Is that a good reason to lower the drinking age, just to save face?
Granted, while we young adults may think that we are capable of making conscious and responsible decisions when it comes to our consumption of alcohol, history has proven that, as a whole, we are not. The generations before us may have started this fatal trend, but we have to pay for it. As punishing as this sentence seems, considering that the statistics indicate a decrease of approximately 3,129 deaths per year, it seems a small price to pay for general well-being and the cost of lives.
The verdict? Regardless of how mature we think we are or how much we think we can handle, the old adage that “history repeats itself” rarely falters, especially in situations when the statistics weigh in favor of the people’s vote — and their safety.