America can't afford consequences of lowered drinking age
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 09/19/2008
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Let's be brutally honest about this "initiative"; it isn't about stopping binge drinking, it is about college and university chancellors and presidents trying to avoid responsibility. They want to remove their liability for accidents and fatalities that happen when their students drink. This is another example of modern American education taking the road of not what's right, but what is most economical. They say that most of this drinking is done off-campus; if that is the case, then they are encouraging students to drink and either drive or walk back to campuses, which would increase the number of charges of driving under the influence or public intoxications. To say that lowering the drinking age to 18 would decrease the number of teens who are binge drinking is ludicrous! Right now the number of teens driving under the influence is at an all-time high; giving teens easier access to alcohol doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
They state in the initiative that an 18-year-old is old enough to vote, serve on juries, serve in the military and sign legal documents so then they must be able to handle drinking. In that case, let's raise the legal adult age to 21. There is a group called Choose Responsibility that says let's partnership with home, school and government and set up an alcohol education along the lines of driver's education. My fear is that the "Drinking Education" will fall short of educating our youth on the consequences of drinking. Driver's Education doesn't come close to teaching our young drivers all that can happen on the road; they just touch on the basics. I really don't want them touching on the basics when it comes to teens and drinking. Face it, when you put the government in charge of anything, it just winds up costing us taxpayers money and nothing truly gets accomplished. If we want to teach our youth anything, let's toughen up on the consequences for teens who get caught with a minor consumption. Right now they get caught, pay a fine, speak with a drug/alcohol counselor and get thrown back out again. It's putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg. How about doing some jail time, suspending their driver's licenses, mandatory community service? How about some sessions with people who have caused serious injury or death while they were drinking and driving? Teens need to face serious consequences for this, something that makes an impact on them to never do it again.
Let's stop glorifying drinking and spend more time on trying to stop teen deaths due to alcohol-related incidents. Right now, the rate of teens dropping out their first year in college due to alcohol are high; do we want those to increase? Alcoholism in teens is the highest it's ever been, as are deaths caused by alcohol poisoning or driving under the influence. If we are having those problems now without them having legal access to it, how can anyone believe that these numbers are going to decrease because of lowering the drinking age?
I heard a sermon recently from a great preacher about how America is "drunk." He was speaking about the adults in this country too "drunk" to stand up for what is right. That's a fine example we are setting for our youth. So, instead of taking a stand and saying, "This is wrong," we are going to invite our youth to join us in our drunkenness. Sober up America; we will be doing our youth a great injustice if we allow this "initiative" to go through.
Diane Johns is a staff member in the College of Liberal Arts.