Dr. Morris Chafetz served on the presidential commission 25 years ago which recommended raising the drinking age to 21, but he now believes this was a mistake:
"Legal Age 21 has not worked," Chafetz says [in an upcoming] piece. "To be sure, drunk driving fatalities are lower now than they were in 1982. But they are lower in all age groups. And they have declined just as much in Canada, where the age is 18 or 19, as they have in the United States."
Last August, President Skorton declined to sign on to the Amethyst Initiative, which is a movement among university presidents to open debate about the drinking age.
As I sit just shy of my own twenty-first birthday, the drinking age has never seemed more arbitrary or unfair.
I interact daily with friends who have been granted security clearances to handle sensitive government information. They, as did I, passed background checks before we were trusted to work this summer. Other friends spent a semester abroad, and were able to drink there, but returned to the U.S. as a minor. I even served for one year as president of my fraternity, and my duties included overseeing a couple of hundred inebriated party-goers every few weeks, in addition to the alcohol consumption of my own brothers. I am ready to apply to graduate schools and begin my adult life.
Why should young people who are trusted to serve in the armed forces, handle top-secret information, and oversee other drinkers, not allowed to drink, themselves?
I don't think many people are advocating that high school students should be able to drink. It seems like 19 would be an appropriate drinking age. There are very few 19-year-olds who still attend high school, and it's an age when citizens are considered adults in practically every other area.
Unfortunately, President Obama stated last year that he has no desire to lower the drinking age:
Obama told [Army veteran] Johnson he sympathized, but that setting the legal drinking age at 21 had helped reduce drunken driving incidents and should remain.
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