Viewpoint

Arbitrary drinking ages don't translate into responsibility

By Bill Chapin

Daily Northwestern (Northwestern U.)

We, as a society, have a moral obligation to lower the drinking age.

Before I go any further, I should let you in on my dirty little secret: I didn't have a drop to drink before my 21st birthday.

Oh sure, there was that one little screwdriver at the tailgate before the football game freshman year. I was thirsty as all hell, I needed something to wash down that alleged hamburger. At the time all I could think was, "Mmmm, orange juice."

Most students don't understand why the university is so anti-alcohol. They think the administration either consists of a bunch of sadists who for some reason get their kicks from keeping us sober or is just trying to prevent us from injuring ourselves or others.

The truth is, the university is interested in protecting only one thing - itself. All of its alcohol policies stem from the desire to avoid lawsuits.

If you go to a fraternity party and drink yourself to death, your parents aren't going to just sit back and say, "Oh well." They're going to sue the pants off the university, the fraternity, the brewer and the Barenaked Ladies because they wrote a song called "Alcohol." But if you drink yourself to death at an off-campus party, guess who gets taken off the list of litigants?

Don't think Northwestern is overreacting, either. For a while, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was staring down a criminal lawsuit because freshman Scott Krueger killed himself with alcohol in 1997.

In the 1960s, most states lowered the drinking age because they figured that if 18-year-olds were old enough to vote, they were old enough to drink responsibly. Instead, hundreds of kids wrapped their cars around trees, and the drinking age went back to 21.

College students are still finding ways to kill themselves with alcohol. In November, University of Michigan student Byung Soo Kim became the latest kid to die on his 21st birthday after he downed at least 20 shots of scotch. Even 21-year-olds can't handle responsibility. But raising the drinking age will only exacerbate this problem. Make it 24, and people will just do 24 shots on their 24th birthday.

Obviously the solution is to lower the drinking age. Make it, say, 13. Thirteen shots probably isn't enough to kill your average 13 year-old. And they'll still have a full three years before they get their driver's licenses. Picture a world of blitzed seventh graders trying to ride their scooters. Sleepovers would include a game of caps.

It's the only option I see - other than for all college students to drink responsibly and accept responsibility for their actions. But what are the chances of that?