Ivory tower thinkers are wrong; drinking age should stay at 21

Life may be full of contradictions, but it's hard to imagine that some college and university presidents are trying to sell one that young people are illegally drinking too much on and off campus and the way to fix the problem is to lower the drinking age so they can do it legally.

Huh? Run that one by us again.

The way to fix a drinking problem with college-age young people is to encourage even more drinking with easier, legal access to booze? That might put an end to the hassle for under-21 drinkers having to find a legal adult buyer or fake ID. But it certainly doesn't address the problem of drinking among young people, many of whom are not physically or emotionally capable of handling it.

We could cite all kinds of statistics about the down side of drinking too much, but most people are probably already well aware of them.

The Associated Press reported last week that presidents of about 100 of the nation's colleges and universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18.

Their rationale is that current laws encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus. Actually, that would seem to be more a reflection on their failure to uphold the law, not the law itself. If a student is caught bingeing, take legal or academic action. It's against the law.

The movement, called the Amethyst Initiative, began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age. The statement the presidents have signed avoids calling explicitly for a younger drinking age. Rather, it seeks "an informed and dispassionate debate" over the issue and the federal highway law that made 21 the de facto national drinking age. In 1984, Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposed a penalty of 10 percent of a state's federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.

The presidents seemingly have two major arguments: a) Young people will drink anyway as part of the post-secondary lure of bingeing as a rite of passage to adulthood, and b) If young men and women can serve in the armed forces and vote at 18, why can't they legally buy a beer?

The first is a cop-out. Enforce the law, don't give tacit approval by looking the other way because "they all do it."

The second is more of a compelling argument, especially the part about serving their country. But while an 18-year-old can join the armed forces, he or she still can't legally drink, not even on military bases. Federal law requires military installation commanders to adopt the same drinking age as the state in which the military base is located. Exceptions are allowed if the base is located within 50 miles of Canada or Mexico, or a state with a lower drinking age.

We admit to a double standard when we let young people vote and die for their country, but not belly up to the bar. But we let young people drive on the streets before they're eligible to go to war or vote. Shall we move the voting age down to 16? Let people join the Army at the same age? Or should we move the driving age up to 18?

Age limits are always going to be controversial because they're arbitrary.

We can live with the awkwardness of our current limit of 21 for drinking because the downside of moving to 18 could be huge. It's three more years of open access for college students who seem to have no trouble getting booze already.

And if 18- to 20-year-olds are now binge drinking at college, does it follow that lowering the legal age would increase illegal experimentation in age groups below 18? If so, we're talking about high school.

We already have enough problems in the under-18 age group. A 2006 survey by the state Coalition for Reducing Underage Drinking -- or RUaD -- found that in Yakima County:

* 20 percent of 3,054 eighth-graders responding reported having a drink in the past month, and 42 percent of 1,982 seniors reported doing so.

* 12 percent of the eighth-graders and 29 percent of the seniors surveyed said that had drank heavily (five or more drinks in a row) at least once in the past two weeks.

* 9 percent of 2,565 sophomores and 15 percent of the senior group reported drinking and driving -- not a trend we want to see in any group.

The coalition (www.starttalkingnow.org) is made up of 24 government and nonprofit agencies, including the Washington Liquor Control Board. It is involved in extensive educational efforts to try to steer kids away from drinking.

Do we negate such efforts because some university presidents think it's easier to change the law and lower the legal age than to deal with the problem of college drinking?

We sense a case of ivory tower academia that has lost touch with reality. You don't fix a problem by making it legal.

To the presidents, we say: Deal with it. Let's leave things the way they are.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.