Educators: Stay dry till 21

Sadly, it isn’t an uncommon story to hear about the youthful teen who drank and decided to get behind the wheel or the young college student dying from alcohol poisoning. In fact, it may have been the common nature of some of these stories that inspired some presidents and chancellors at colleges to question the legal drinking age in the U.S.

But administrators in the Newport-Mesa area believe the legal drinking age isn’t the trouble and that lowering the drinking age would only exacerbate the problem.

The issue of lowering the legal drinking age became a hot topic when hundreds of presidents and chancellors from various colleges and universities across the country signed a statement called the Amethyst Initiative. According to its website, the initiative stated that “the 21-year-old drinking age is not working, and, specifically, that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses,” according to its website.

Some of the presidents and chancellors of schools who signed the petition were from prestigious and well-known campuses such as Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, Dartmouth College, Lafayette College, Syracuse University, Ohio State University and many others.

The term amethyst was used because the purple gemstone was believed to be an antidote to intoxication in ancient mythology.

Here in Newport-Mesa, administrators at both OCC and UCI are against the idea of lowering the drinking age to below 21.

“I think we have enough problems right now with problem drinking below the 21 limit,” OCC President Bob Dees said. “If we made it 18, it might creep further down.”

Leslie Millerd Rogers, the director of communication for student affairs at UCI, echoed Dees’ remarks. While she was not speaking on behalf of UCI, she said research does not support lowering the drinking age and doing so is not something she sees as beneficial.

“Just one of those things — the research supports keeping it at 21,” she said.

The statement by the Amethyst Initiative compares the state of youth binge drinking to prohibition — claiming because it is illegal, more youths drink and if it weren’t, they would be less inclined to binge drink.

Students tend to agree with that statement.

“Why a lot of people drink is because they are not supposed to be,” said Kyle Burdett, a 19-year-old student at OCC.

This is a common belief held among college students and others in the world. In fact, when many students look at other countries that have lower drinking ages, they think it is for good reason and that those teenagers and young adults are more accustomed to drinking and therefore safer. That was the belief of Burdett and his friends, and that of Costa Mesa resident and OCC student Emma Jones, a former resident of Sweden.

“I think that if you look at other countries, [drinking] seems to be normal, not forbidden,” Jones, 28, said. “It’s not a big deal, so [youths] don’t have to go out and go crazy.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Higher Education Center calls that idea a myth and states that studies show drinking in Europe for youths is higher than in America and that no evidence supports European youths are more responsible.

In fact, a study out of the University of Otago, Dunedin in New Zealand showed that accidents rose when the legal drinking age was dropped from 20 to 18 in the country.

For groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the responsibility issue is a big one. Part of the reason the group was created was to get a higher legal drinking age because of the accidents and deaths caused by youths drinking.

“Lowering it would cause a lot more deaths, actually,” said 18-year-old OCC student Tim Smith. “Kids are stupid. They think they can party and drink and then get behind the wheel.”

For some, the debate points to a difficult problem across the nation — college binge drinking and ways to combat it. Smith believes more efforts to show the harms of drinking and driving are needed at the college level, and other health professionals tend to agree.

“Based on my experience, it is important to have open, honest dialogues with students about the choices they make with alcohol,” said Leigh Poirier Ball, the associate director at the UCI Health Education Center.

“Students are eager to share this information, and in doing so, they are more receptive to learning about ways to reduce alcohol-related harms.”

VOICES

“[Drinking] probably will increase at first [if they lower the drinking age]. But after a while it will lower.”

Garden Grove

“I want to be able to pay my bills and drink.”

Long Beach

“If you can be drafted and serve our country, you should be able to buy alcohol.”

Seal Beach

“We also want to look to our K-through-12 schools. This means that some high school seniors would be able to legally buy alcohol. We don’t see how that would be beneficial to the high school educational environments.”

Leslie Millerd Rogers

director of student affairs communications at UCI.

“I think education is really important, whether it is to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds or 21 and over. I think we can do a lot more. The educational community can do a lot more.”

Bob Dees

OCC president

How you do feel about lowering the legal drinking age to 18? Send us an e-mail at dailypilot@latimes.com or leave a comment on our website.

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at daniel.tedford@latimes.com.