The Online Reflector

By Samantha Cotten | Editor-in-Chief

Becoming an adult always has been about the freedoms and opportunities that you receive once you reach the monumental age of 18. Suddenly, 18-year-olds across the world are able to buy cigarettes, vote in elections, buy pornography, serve on a jury, sign contracts, live on their own and even fight for their country. However, in the United States, 18 has become merely a stepping stone to the ever-so-mystical age of 21.

Government Intervention

In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. The act gave every state an ultimatum, stating that the states would either raise their minimum drinking age to 21 years, or lose a percentage of their federal highway funding.

With minor opposition, all 50 states raised their minimum drinking ages to 21 by 1987. According to the Fox News Web site (www.foxnews.com), the United States currently has the highest minimum drinking age in the world.

The effects of the act are evident in our society. According to a federal study titled Monitoring the Future, the percentage of high school seniors who consume alcohol at least monthly has fallen from 70 percent to 45 percent from 1977-2007. The same study also found that the number of fatal car accidents involving underage drinking has dropped 32 percent.

According to Slate Magazine online (www.slate.com), “frequent-heavy” drinkers among college students have remained at a constant 30 percent from 1977-89. However, college “binge drinking”  began increasing steadily throughout the late 1990s.

Binge drinking is defined as five or more drinks in one sitting for men and four or more for women. According to U.S. News & World Report, half of college students, no matter what their age, said they binge drink at least once every two weeks. Within that 50 percent, one in five freshmen men said they regularly drink more than 10 drinks in a sitting.

International Opinion

According to the University of Indianapolis Web site (www.uindy.edu), international students make up approximately 5 percent of the student body. These students, who represent 50 different countries, all come from a place with a drinking age lower than 21 years. Many international students must make social adjustments upon arriving to the U.S., due to the high drinking age.

“It was hard to adjust to the fact that you can’t go into a bar or have a beer with your meal,” said Won Joon Lee, a senior from both South Korea and Hong Kong, China. “Where I’m from, we enjoy good alcohol. Its not like [the U.S.] where you always end up by a trash can.”

In many countries, alcohol use is taught at an early age. Collin George, a senior who was born in India and spent much of his life in the Persian Gulf, said that he believes that proper education is key to responsible drinking habits.

“Most people have their parents introduce [alcohol] to them. I think it’s a good thing because they introduce [alcohol] as something to enjoy,” George said. “In the U.S., teaching teens abstinence is not going to work. If you tell [teens] not to do it, they will be more likely to rebel.”

Typically, in countries where parents and elders introduce teens to alcohol, drunkenness occurs in only one of every 10 drinking occasions. In the U.S., where teens learn about alcohol from their peers, drunkenness occurs half of the time, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“I believe the drinking age should be 18,” George said. “There are two reasons that people binge drink; one, because the [drinking] age is so high, and secondly because it’s a culture thing [in the U.S.].”

Despite the fact that most other countries have drinking ages under the age of 21, Zhengcheng Gong, a graduate student from Hong Kong, China, said he believes that the drinking age is not the problem.

“I believe that [the issue of binge drinking] is an application problem,” Zhengcheng said. “There needs to be more education [about alcohol use].”

Amethyst Initiative

In June 2008, John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College and founder of Choose Responsibility, created the Amethyst Initiative after speaking with colleagues about the effect of the minimum drinking age. According to the group’s Web site (www.amethystinitiative.org), the Amethyst Initiative is named after the Greek words “not intoxicated.” The group is comprised of university and college presidents and chancellors who have signed a petition to open discussion in Congress about lowering the drinking age.

According to the Amethyst Initiative statement posted on their Web site, signatories are calling upon elected officials to not only support discussion about the minimum drinking age, but to create new ways to teach teens about responsible drinking.

Butler University President Bobby Fong and Hanover College President Susan DeWine are both among the 129 presidents and chancellors who have already signed the petition. UIndy President Beverley Pitts said that she has chosen not to join the Amethyst Initiative.

“I think that the initial intents of the Amethyst Initiative are valid ones, which is that it is time to have more conversations on underage drinking and what we can do about it,” Pitts said. “Unfortunately, I think the movement became more about lowering the drinking age, which has translated into an easy solution for colleges and universities.”

With the National Minimum Drinking Age Act up for renewal in 2009, more and more conversation about the drinking age and binge drinking have begun to surface. According to the signatories of the Amethyst Initiative, “21 is not working” because of the current culture of college binge-drinking.

“UIndy is not unlike any other university,” said Kory Vitangeli, dean of students. “There is a drinking problem. Thankfully, there is less of an issue here than in other places.”

Pitts said that UIndy will continue to stand by its “dry campus” policy.

“A university campus is not the place for alcohol. It is not our intent, and it is not our purpose,” Pitts said.

Though the Amethyst Initiative is currently limited to only college and university presidents and chancellors, students and other faculty can become a part of the movement to rethink the drinking age through Choose Responsibility’s Web site at www.choose_responsibility.org.