U.S. initiative would see drinking age laws less rigid
TORONTO (CUP) — Tyler Bradbury was killed by his brother in a motor vehicle accident when he was 18 years old. The alcohol-fuelled crash took place just outside of St. John's, N.L. in June 2008. His brother Andrew, 22, lost control of the vehicle, flipping it off the road and reducing the car to a barely-recognizable wreck. Andrew was only injured in the accident, but is now serving a sentence of 15 months in prison.
Trauma is the leading cause of death for young people today, with 50 per cent of such cases involving alcohol — but a group of U.S. college presidents see it mainly as an excessive consumption issue.
The Amethyst Initiative, launched in July 2008 and spearheaded by former Middlebury College president John McCardell, is pushing for open discussion around the drinking legislation in the U.S.
“The vast majority of lives lost to alcohol in this country are off the highways,” says McCardell.
After talking to some fellow college presidents, McCardell found that he was not alone in wanting to re-open the debate.
“We didn't agree that the solution was to lower the age, but that [the legal age of] 21 posed problems, ” he says.
“We know that the law has very effectively driven alcohol consumption out of public places . . . and life and health are being put at risk.”
McCardell criticizes the law for being too narrow. He believes that deciding the legal age at which a person can consume alcohol should be a decision up to each individual state, much like the system in Canada.
“My own view is that the debate is never going to go anywhere until the current law changes. The states ought to be little labs where best practices should be determined. The one-size-fits-all national model is not the best way.”
As different methods of education are explored, young people will be better prepared to make good decisions, and alcohol will be brought back out into the open where people behave differently, McCardell explains.
A personal theory that he feels could work would be to license high school graduates deemed responsible enough to drink after they participate in an alcohol-education program.
But Robert Solomon, national director of legal policy for Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, thinks the Amethyst Initiative is a step in the wrong direction, saying that education doesn't change behaviour.
“I find it frustrating that, in light of the overwhelming evidence, we continue to have these battles. We have more than enough evidence to implement effective legislation to save young people's lives,” says Solomon.
Solomon advocates regulating alcohol consumption according to risks and costs it inflicts on society, much the same way modern legislation treats other illicit drugs.
“If we started all over, we would certainly treat marijuana with much less severity than we have in the past, and we would treat alcohol and tobacco with much more.”
Solomon credits the high US drinking age as the one thing that has impacted the most positive change for this issue.
“A [U.S.] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study estimated the number of lives saved between 1975 and 2007 was 26,000. That's just traffic crashes,” he says.
In Canada, he continues, “The three jurisdictions with 18-year-old limits have the highest stats. Don't pretend to care about young people and then make alcohol more available to them.”
But McCardell thinks statistics like that are beside the point. From an educator's perspective, students must be informed of the consequences of their actions in a safe and open environment, not simply told to avoid the bottle at all costs.
“The law says, ‘Don't consume.' If you're a college president, if you so much as say, ‘If you drink, drink responsibly,' you're acknowledging that the law is being broken,” he says.
“If abstinence is the only thing you can say to students, students won't pay attention.”
Trauma is the leading cause of death for young people today, with 50 per cent of such cases involving alcohol — but a group of U.S. college presidents see it mainly as an excessive consumption issue.
The Amethyst Initiative, launched in July 2008 and spearheaded by former Middlebury College president John McCardell, is pushing for open discussion around the drinking legislation in the U.S.
“The vast majority of lives lost to alcohol in this country are off the highways,” says McCardell.
After talking to some fellow college presidents, McCardell found that he was not alone in wanting to re-open the debate.
“We didn't agree that the solution was to lower the age, but that [the legal age of] 21 posed problems, ” he says.
“We know that the law has very effectively driven alcohol consumption out of public places . . . and life and health are being put at risk.”
McCardell criticizes the law for being too narrow. He believes that deciding the legal age at which a person can consume alcohol should be a decision up to each individual state, much like the system in Canada.
“My own view is that the debate is never going to go anywhere until the current law changes. The states ought to be little labs where best practices should be determined. The one-size-fits-all national model is not the best way.”
As different methods of education are explored, young people will be better prepared to make good decisions, and alcohol will be brought back out into the open where people behave differently, McCardell explains.
A personal theory that he feels could work would be to license high school graduates deemed responsible enough to drink after they participate in an alcohol-education program.
But Robert Solomon, national director of legal policy for Mothers Against Drunk Driving Canada, thinks the Amethyst Initiative is a step in the wrong direction, saying that education doesn't change behaviour.
“I find it frustrating that, in light of the overwhelming evidence, we continue to have these battles. We have more than enough evidence to implement effective legislation to save young people's lives,” says Solomon.
Solomon advocates regulating alcohol consumption according to risks and costs it inflicts on society, much the same way modern legislation treats other illicit drugs.
“If we started all over, we would certainly treat marijuana with much less severity than we have in the past, and we would treat alcohol and tobacco with much more.”
Solomon credits the high US drinking age as the one thing that has impacted the most positive change for this issue.
“A [U.S.] National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study estimated the number of lives saved between 1975 and 2007 was 26,000. That's just traffic crashes,” he says.
In Canada, he continues, “The three jurisdictions with 18-year-old limits have the highest stats. Don't pretend to care about young people and then make alcohol more available to them.”
But McCardell thinks statistics like that are beside the point. From an educator's perspective, students must be informed of the consequences of their actions in a safe and open environment, not simply told to avoid the bottle at all costs.
“The law says, ‘Don't consume.' If you're a college president, if you so much as say, ‘If you drink, drink responsibly,' you're acknowledging that the law is being broken,” he says.
“If abstinence is the only thing you can say to students, students won't pay attention.”
