McCardell holds forum at 51 Main to discuss drinking age

Author: Jaime Fuller

John M. McCardell, President Emeritus of the College and Director of Choose Responsibility, was the guest speaker at the inaugural run of "The Forum at 51 Main" on Nov. 18, giving a talk titled, "The 21 Year-Old Drinking Age: Mend It or End It?" The Forum seeks to improve town-gown relations by encouraging debate between members of the College and the Middlebury community.

Dean for Faculty Development & Research and Rehnquist Professor of American History & Culture Jim Ralph opened the event by offering a gracious introduction to the speaker, as well as explaining the Forum's mission.

"We hope that these events will bring together town and gown to discuss important issues in a convivial setting," Ralph said. "The inspiration for the Forum came from classical Greece, where the Athenians would gather together in open marketplaces to discuss and debate issues of the day."

McCardell sought immediately to clarify one of the points of his mission that the mass media tends to distort.

"The Associated Press reported that the Amethyst Initiative signers all wanted to lower the drinking age," he said. "This is simply not true. The purpose of the Amethyst Initiative is simply to put our proposition before the public."

McCardell has been working tirelessly to get this issue on the national agenda, not only speaking to audiences at college campuses, but also trying to find support in both the state and federal government. This effort included speaking before the New Jersey State Senate Education Committee on Monday, in a hearing called to address the proposition set forth by the Amethyst Initiative. Senate President Richard J. Codey called the Amethyst Initiative "crazy," but McCardell achieved his goal by simply encouraging the legislators to discuss the topic.

Codey is not the only person with public prominence to dissent against the ideas set forth by Choose Responsibility; McCardell has faced a host of organizations with national visibility that do not support his mission. The chief antagonists to Choose Responsibility include Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the American Medical Association and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which bestowed upon Choose Responsibility the 2008 "Millstone Award," which seeks to "bring awareness to a person, organization or governmental body that creates conditions or uses their position of influence to promote unhealthy, illegal or immoral behavior that we believe places children at risk."

"There were three contenders for the Millstone Award," said McCardell. "We beat out unisex bathrooms and Internet porn."

Despite the dissent, McCardell posed a strong case for why his proposition would be a boon to the nation. He began his presentation by drawing on his historian background with a look at the Prohibition Era.

"One would assume that an amendment prohibiting alcohol consumption, to be successful, would mean no one was drinking," he said. "In fact, polls show that in the 1920s, the percentage of those drinking were drinking recklessly and secretively.

By 1933, there was a consensus that the 18th Amendment was no longer fulfilling its purpose, and that the amendment needed to be repealed.

McCardell then drew a parallel between the ineffectiveness of the 18th Amendment and the drinking age stating, "Once you start down that road, thinking the law doesn't apply to you, where does the logic stop?"

He then pointed out a strange coincidence, where the Prohibition was enacted in the 18th Amendment, and repealed in the 21st Amendment. McCardell then offered a wealth of statistics that supported his proposition.

There has been a 36 percent increase in binge drinking by 18-20 year olds between 1993 and 2001, and 90 percent of all alcohol consumed by underage drinkers is consumed during binge drinking. Each year, 5,000 young people under age 21 die as a result of underage drinking, but more than 60 percent of these deaths occur off the highways.

"There was a time when I thought I was alone in being concerned with this problem," McCardell said. "But we had a professional polling group conduct a survey, and 86 percent of the public think binge drinking is a problem."

The United States is unique in their choice of 21 as the drinking age, an age restriction followed in only three other countries: Indonesia, Mongolia and Palau.

"We may be further along in our Darwinian progression than the rest of the world in choosing this age," said McCardell, "or we may be missing out on something."

He then cited the 18-year-old drinking age in Canada as in support of his conclusions.

"One would expect to see carnage on Canadian highways, but patterns [of alcohol-related fatalities] are nearly the same as in the United States.'

McCardell served as the 15th president of Middlebury College from 1992 to 2004, and continues to teach classes about the American Civil War as a member of the College's History Department. In December 2006, he founded Choose Responsibility, an organization that wishes to foster national debate about the drinking age, which was the topic of the discussion for the evening. He also has spearheaded the Amethyst Initiative, an outgrowth of Choose Responsibility focused on culling support for Choose Responsibility's mission from college presidents. So far, McCardell has been successful in obtaining signatures of support from 134 college presidents nationwide, and he continues to speak at colleges that have not yet joined in the debate, such as American University, Perdue University and St. Michael's College.

Choose Responsibility has a number of changes they advocate that they feel will be helpful to remedying this national problem. They include a congressional waiver of the highway funds incentive, a permit that allows 18 year olds to consume alcohol in the presence of their parents and a mandatory alcohol education course more comprehensive than those used now. McCardell said that current alcohol education resorts to "temperance lectures and scare tactics," and that "if all you say is 'if so much as a drop of alcohol passes your lips, you're headed for a life of dependency,' you are in trouble."

There are also the more obvious arguments for the 18-year-old drinking age, such as the fact that 18 is the age of majority in the United States, where people are allowed to enlist, marry, open a bank account, vote and purchase firearms.

Co-Head of Brainerd Commons Marita Schine, who attended the event, was unsure if there wasn't something more propelling students to irresponsible social drinking.

"I am not positive that the changes that [McCardell] proposes will solve the problem," she said. "I think there is an underlying problem involving extremism."

Associate Dean of College and Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History Katy Abbot agrees with McCardell that the most important part of his mission is to spark discussion.

"[His proposal] inherently makes a lot of sense," she said. "The Amethyst Initiative is the most important part for the College, because it starts the discussion."

This vibrant discussion that arose after McCardell's discussion is exactly what he sought to provoke, and he believes that colleges, like Middlebury, will embrace the changes he seeks.

"This [proposal] will make colleges more accountable," he said. "I think they will gladly accept greater accountability because social life will be out in the open and faculty will be able to moderate responsible alcohol consumption. It will also encourage an increase in intergenerational social interactions … and people learn most about responsibility in these settings."