Interview with John McCardell, founder of the Amethyst Initiative

Full interview with Dr. John McCardell, President of Choose Responsibility and founder of the Amethyst Initiative (7:23)

Dr. McCardell says this is a very specific project that is now including over 110 presidents of colleges that say that the 21 year old drinking age is not working, and it's time for us to have a debate about all the effects that law has had. There has been a mixed blessing on the highways, and we should ask if the best remedy to combat drunk driving is the drinking age, and if it is, why stop at 21? There are better ways to deal with drinking and driving, but we need to look beyond the highways and see that legal age 21 is at least partly responsible for the over 1000 deaths a year for 18-24 year olds that take place elsewhere: behind the locked doors of a dorm room.

Dr. McCardell also explains the Greek Mythological story of Amethyst, which explains the name of the initiative.
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Comments

[Don]

Monitor Drinking to Teach Moderate Drinking

I have commented on this subject a few times on NPR radio when the Dean from a Vermont college (I believe he was from Middlebury College) approached this subject a few years ago.

I believe that the best way to handle the lowering of the drinking age would be to place some restrictions on the young adults starting at the age of 18 to to perhaps 24 years of age. Perhaps limiting consumption of a 1 liter bottle of either beer or wine, not both, on a daily basis via use of a monthly issued punch card at a state or local government agency or by a liquor store itself could be a possibility. It may sound a little complicated and/or unnecessary but protection to abuse is important. Other means of monitoring are open but a method to limit access and stress its importance can be a teaching aid to young adults. Kegs of beer and hard liquor would not be accessible to age group that venerable to abuse. the daily limit to beer and wine could be change to perhaps a daily six pack of beer and/or daily bottle of wine at the age of 20 or 21 while maintaining a restriction to kegs and hard liquor until the age of 23, 24 or 25. Most people of this age are out of the colleges and/or of an age where they are more mature thus limiting the contact with the younger less mature college students and being more mature, would understand the perils of over indulgence better than an 18, 19 or 20 year old.

A young person joining the military and willing to lay down their lives for our freedom and security should be exempt from all restrictions and able to drink at their peril!

[Roy]

It may be as simple as adults abiding by the laws in place and colleges enforcing their own rules.

[S. Dawn Jones]

Don: The card idea is a bit odd, but perhaps instead of making the government act as our parents, the parents should do that?

Roy: The most likely flaw with this plan that sticks out to me, is the REASON for trying to get the age dropped to 18 as opposed to 21. You say that it may be as simple as colleges enforcing their own rules, but in today's society where no one wants to be the enforcer, good luck with that.

[Roy]

If no one is willing to enforce the laws and rules then it dosen't matter what they are or what the drinking age is.