Should the drinking age be 18?
UNDATED (AP) -- Presidents of about 100 of the nation's best-known colleges and universities are calling on lawmakers to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. They say current laws
actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.
Among the schools represented in the initiatives are Duke, Dartmouth, Ohio State and Syracuse. Three Oregon schools -- Lewis and Clark College, Pacific University in Forest Grove and Willamette University in Salem -- have signed on.
The movement is called the Amethyst Initiative. It began recruiting college presidents more than a year ago to spark a national debate on the drinking age.
The school chiefs are already facing sharp criticism. Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It's also urging parents to think twice about sending their children to colleges that take part in the effort. MADD's president says the 21-year-old drinking age won't be
enforced at those campuses.
"It's going backwards," said Lois Harvick with the Eugene chapter of MADD. "It's going to cause more havoc on our highways, more health issues for our young people and it's going backwards and we need to go forward and continue to save lives and the 21 drinking law has proven that."
"The longer you have the drinking age, the higher up it goes, it makes it more of a deal once you can drink," said Travis Redd, a recent University of Oregon graduate. "People tend to take too much of a big deal of it."
"I don't feel like that would help because kids drink," said Greta Nelson, a UO student, "and they're going to drink and probably if it's legal more people would do it more openly."
"It's going backwards, it's going to cause more havock on our highways more health issues for our young people and it's going backwards and we need to go forward and continue to save lives and the 21 drinking law has proven that."
Meghan Kalkstein contributed to this report
