Lowering the Drinking Age to 18: The New Progressive Cause Celebre?

Keith — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:21:15 EST

Former Middlebury President John M. McCardell, Jr. is heading up a national campaign to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18.

As reported in The Campus, McCardell has teamed up with students to form the not-for-profit organization Choose Responsibility. The group has spent most of the last year doing research on the effect of the current alcohol age restriction on highway safety.

While not affiliated with Middlebury College, McCardell and his group are speaking to an obvious concern of the students attending Middlebury College and young people in general.

Groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) lobbied hard for the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which forced states to lower their legal drink age to 18 lest they be denied federal transportation funds. The goal? Lower highway fatalities in the United States.

Choose Responsibility, whose recent "white paper" finds the higher drinking age has only a modest impact on highway safety when compared to the safety features of airbags and seatbelts, has the following goal:

Choose Responsibility advocates that states launch alcohol education programs to teach young adults about responsible purchase, possession and consumption. Upon successful completion of a course, a participant could receive a license to consume and purchase alcohol at the age of 18. The license would be legal in the state in which the 18-year-old is a resident, and in the state in which he or she attends college, if they attend out of state. (from The Campus)

Will this be the new cause célèbre of progressive students nation-wide? And how should other activists judge this new campaign?

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Lowering the Drinking Age to 18: The New Progressive Cause Celebre?