Lower drinking age further enables campus culture of binge drinking

To date, 134 college presidents and chancellors have signed the Amethyst Initiative, calling for renewed debate about whether binge drinking on campuses will lessen if the drinking age is lowered from 21 to 18. Why would college CEOs want to lower the drinking age? How would such an idiotic move support a healthy college environment and improve a student’s higher education experience? The short answer is it wouldn’t.

In fact, most of these college leaders agree with reams of research pointing to alcohol as a major ingredient in college and off-campus reports of student abuse, violence, sexual assaults, date rape and car accidents. In choosing to lower the drinking age to 18, college officials would simply become “enablers” —- supporting students to move deeper into their alcohol addiction. What’s really at play here? Economics. In short, selling out to gain a buck. For example, University of Georgia President Michael Adams didn’t sign the Amethyst Initiative. Yet, in his role as chair of the NCAA executive committee, Adams ignored and rejected the plea of more than 100 college presidents, athletic directors and the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse to ban beer advertising from college broadcasts. You can’t have it both ways. Follow the money. The alcohol industry, which advertises heavily to college students, should be seen as complicit in its urging of college officials to lower the drinking age. Alcohol advertising is pervasive in college events, especially sports. Many colleges are suffering financially. What better source of income than to accept alcohol advertising dollars with the quid pro quo that colleges will argue for a lowering of the drinking age.

The time has come to sever the tie between colleges and drinking. Schools must consider voluntary guidelines that say: No alcohol advertising on the premises of an intercollegiate athletics event. No bringing alcohol to the site of an event. No turning a blind eye to underage drinking at tailgate parties and on campus. No alcohol sponsorship of intercollegiate sporting events. Let’s ask these concerned college presidents and chancellors to make us a promise to ban all alcohol-related advertising and promotions from all college campus and off-campus related events and prohibit alcohol advertising on all local college sports programming, including televised college sports programs in which their institutions engage. Then let’s see how passionate they are about revisiting the debate over the drinking age. Money makes people do strange things —- even college presidents and chancellors. It’s unfortunate students become collateral damage in the process.

> Peter Vajda of Sandy Springs is a personal and professional coach.