Dean's List Amethyst Initiative sparks bottomless debate

Author: Dean Atyia

The Amethyst Initiative's website looks like it should be the back cover advertisement of a pop news magazine. It colorfully displays rotating images of diverse groups of young people toasting glasses of wine or champagne flutes. These people look like they are having the time of their lives, un-intoxicated and in control. While it would not have been my first graphic of choice to use when greeting visitors to the website, it does provoke some pretty upsetting comparisons when saddled alongside the reality of drinking behaviors on college campuses.

Launched in July of 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is comprised of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across America who promote "informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age." Like the McCardells before them, the 129 signatories of the Amethyst Initiative's Statement understand that rather than toasting merlot and eating brie, college students prefer shot-gunning Natural Ice and downing Jell-O shooters.

I don't think this behavior is all too upsetting by itself. It's where it leads that promotes a public more comfortable with giving someone the right to vote than the right to consume alcohol. Alcohol in the college atmosphere often means binge drinking; outside the college atmosphere, alcohol in social America is coupled with the fear of drunk driving, poor behavioral judgment, violent crime, and an overall danger to society.

At the same time, social dynamics exist in which consumption takes on a different shape entirely. Sebastian Paulsson '09.5, an international student from Stockholm comments, "We start drinking earlier, and we made our mistakes at a younger age. I was getting sick from alcohol at age 14. By the time my friends and I were fifteen, our parents had taught us how to drink and we were a lot better at it than you are here. It's all or nothing in the states. Drinking is a competition, and blacking-out is a goal. That's troubling."

Alcohol is a vice, and drinkers are human, whether American, Swedish, or whatever. I don't think anyone will argue that lowering the drinking age will solve the problem. It may contribute to something better; there's an attitude at the heart of the matter that seems to be fostered by a repressive rather than educational approach to consumption. With or without a lower drinking age, the real concern is how to educate so that students are drinking in a way that doesn't harmfully spill over, creating a dangerous environment conducive to long-term problems.