Posted by
Billy on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:24:09 PM
Jered Matzke, a 21-year-old geography major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, supports lowering the drinking age, perhaps to 18.
In other countries, particularly France, college students have grown up "having a glass of wine with dinner and it being nothing," he said.
So maybe Congress should revisit the issue of lowering the drinking age, Matzke said.
Matzke's position is in line with about 100 college presidents, some from America's most widely known universities including Duke and Ohio State, who have signed the Amethyst Initiative. It seeks to start a national debate on whether to lower the drinking age from 21.
"This is a law that is routinely evaded," said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who started the organization. "It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory."
No Nebraska schools have signed the statement so far, although McCardell said his group is only in the middle of gathering support.
(This would be a bad lesson to teach young people. If you can't obey a law change it. One of the top killers college age young people is drinking and driving. Read more of the above story Drinking age gets ivory tower scrutiny.)
