Underage drinking. The phrase itself strikes a nerve with nearly everyone.

Students roll their eyes: who doesn’t drink these days? Parents fret: is my college student passed out drunk right now?

And universities shrug their collective shoulders. At least, that’s what I imagine as I read headlines about university presidents around the country pushing to reduce the drinking age.

The presidents and chancellors of some universities have created a program called the Amethyst Initiative which aims to reexamine and possibly reduce the legal drinking age from 21 to 18.
The idea reducing the legal age would solve the issue of binge drinking is an ignorant, quick fix that solves nothing.

What schools should be more concerned about is whether or not their students are safe, and education programs should be aimed toward anyone who might be at risk. An alteration in a federal law is unnecessary, more education is simply needed.

Still, the Amethyst Initiative claims the current drinking age is “not working,” and altering the legal age would reduce dangerous practices such as “clandestine binge drinking” and the use of fake IDs.

However, lowering the drinking age will not solve these problems.

The first step is to educate parents. Maureen Downey from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that many parents see underage drinking as a “rite of passage” and probably don’t properly relay the risks of alcohol to college-aged students.

“In many young people here, the issue of alcohol abuse starts before they get to college,” NIU President John Peters said.

On its Web site, the American Medical Association states that alcohol can cause “long-term and irreversible” damage to a 20-year-old’s brains. It seems very irresponsible for university leaders to endorse a compromise of the neurological development of their students.

“The good thing about this petition is that it has brought the problem to public attention,” Peters said. “It’s the right problem but the wrong solution.”

Colleges should educate students and enforce current laws before moving to change the drinking age.

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