Former college president wants drinking age lowered to 18

Eighteen- to 20-year-olds would no longer have to use fake IDs to purchase alcohol or to enter a bar if an idea proposed by a former college president catches on.\nThis proposal, created by John M. McCardell Jr., the 15th president of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., and founder of the non-rofit group Choose Responsibility, would incorporate alcohol education, instead of criminal justice, as a way to teach alcohol awareness and responsible drinking.\nMcCardell said his plan consists of issuing “drinking licenses” administered through a process similar to drivers’ education.\nMcCardell said it would probably take at least a few years for the drinking law to change because Congress would have to remove the law that forces any state with a legal drinking age lower than 21 to forfeit 10 percent of their highway funding.\nCongress would consider doing this only if the state came up with a plan to educate 18- to 20-year-olds, he said.\n“Our proposal says upon turning 18, one can drink privately in their home under their parents’ supervision to teach responsibility,” he said.\nMcCardell said that after graduating high school, people would be able to enroll in an alcohol education course. After completing the course they would be given a “drinking license.”\nHe said that with the license, 18-to-20-year-olds would have the same drinking-related rights that 21-year-olds have.\nHe said teaching young adults how to drink responsibly before they get arrested will cut down on binge drinking.\n“It is absurd that one only gets alcohol education after he or she gets in trouble,” he said.\nSome police officers agree with the education requirement that comes with the proposal.\nIU Police Department Capt. Jerry Minger said he thinks the proposal is not bad because “it has an educational facet brought into it.”\n“I am not a big advocate of anything that would create more drinking,” he said, “but I applaud the fact that (the proposal) has (alcohol) education built in.”\nLowering the drinking age to 18 would result in fewer underage drinking arrests – but alcohol abuse is a problem whether people are legal or not, Minger said.\nSome students said they agree with the proposal because of its education aspect.\nSophomore Mike Philippov said lowering the legal drinking age is a good idea because it would teach people how to be responsible at a younger age.\nSenior Meisa Tania said she thinks the proposal would be successful only if 18-year-olds’ drinking habits could be monitored.\n“If you can make sure (18-year-olds) are under supervision, I think it would be OK depending on how strict the parents are,” she said.\nOther students said they disagree with the proposal.\nSenior Dean Luman said he thinks 18-year-olds would still drink irresponsibly after completing the alcohol education course.\nRuth Gassman, executive director of the Indiana Prevention Resource Center, said that since alcohol is prevalent in American culture in advertisements and marketing and at parties and celebrations, alcohol education classes would not be effective in lowering DUIs or related automobile accidents.\nShe said the legal age should remain at 21, because highway fatalities have dropped since 1984, when Congress passed the National Minimum Purchase Act.\nMcCardell said he does not believe the current law is working.\n“It is hard to prove the legal age 21 law is responsible for lowering traffic fatalities when the age group with the highest fatality rate is 21- to 23-year-olds,” McCardell said.\nHe said the main causes of reduced traffic fatalities are safer vehicles, airbags and designated drivers.