Auburn Has No Position On Lower Drinking Age - Yet

A new initiative aims to spark debate on the 21-year-old drinking age requirement by enlisting the help of college presidents and chancellors from all over the U.S.

About a year ago, the Amethyst Initiative targeted college presidents and chancellors with an email campaign telling them why - in the organization’s opinion - the 21-year-old age limit doesn’t work.

To date, 115 four-year colleges and universities, including Duke University and Dartmouth College, have joined in support.

Auburn University President Jay Gogue has not signed the initiative.

Binge drinking and its negative consequences are having lasting negative health and safety effects, said Grace Kronenberg, assistant to the director of Choose Responsibility, the parent organization for the Amethyst Initiative. Those effects include vehicle accidents, rapes and assaults, property damage and alcohol poisoning.

“And right under these college presidents’ noses,“ she said.

Fewer young adults are drinking, she said, but the ones who are drinking are doing so more often.

“What we’ve seen, especially in the last 15 years, is a kind of polarization of drinking rates amongst the 18-to-24 age range,“ Kronenberg said.

Eighteen is the age of majority, she said. If 18-year-olds are responsible enough to fire an AK-47, they should be able to purchase alcohol, she said.

Gogue said he has recently learned of the initiative.

“What I think Auburn has to do is to start a discussion to take an official position,“ Gogue said. “I know some of the presidents who have signed. They are solid good people.

“I think ... there is a belief by some that when the drinking age was 18, there was less of the binge drinking that happens now that leads to death.“

The drinking age was raised under federal pressure. Federal highway money was denied to states that did not bring the age up to 21.

Students fell on both sides of the issue.

“It’s not a weapon if you know how to drink, kind of like the Europeans,“ Steve Sullivan, a 20-year-old AU student, said.

The drinking age is lower in Europe than in the United States.

Sullivan said the president should sign the initiative.

“It’s one thing if a student says the drinking age should be lowered, but another if a president at a high-end university says it, too,“ he said.

Others agreed.

“They would do it (drink alcohol) in the open instead of the closed .... They would be in a bar, where they are halfway supervised,“ 18-year-old AU student Megan Robinson said.

But not everyone agreed.

“Either way, it’s still going to be a problem,“ 19-year Will Docimo, said. He said it may cure the clandestine “lets go to your apartment and drink” sub-culture, however.

He said the president should not sign the initiative.

“I don’t think so because in a way it promotes drinking. I don’t think it should be openly promoted at a university,“ he said.