Choose Responsibility Featured On 60 Minutes

The CBS show 60 Minutes presented a segment on the 21 year-old legal drinking age this past Sunday. Choose Responsibility was featured prominently the report. This piece is sure to encourage much debate in the upcoming days. If anything, the segment illustrated the sort of ridiculous behavior that the current legal drinking age laws FAIL to prevent.



Be sure to visit the Choose Responsibility website for more information and to read responses to the 60 Minutes report.

The LDA: The issue is responsibility, not age

There's an editorial published at Forbes.com that's sure to raise some eyebrows. Will Wilkinson suggests that instead of lowering the legal drinking age, consideration should be given to doing away with it all together. This is sure to get a raised eyebrow from neo-prohibitionist groups like MADD, and even from those who support lowering the LDA to 18. Wilkinson explains:

UCLA professor of public policy Mark Kleiman, an ex-advocate of age restrictions, told PBS that he came around to the no-limits position when he saw a billboard that said, "If you're not 21, it's not Miller Time--yet." Age limits make drinking a badge of adulthood and build in the minds of teens a romantic sense of the transgressive danger of alcohol. That's what so often leads to the abuse of alcohol as a ritual of release from the authority of parents. And that's what has the college presidents worried. They see it.

That's not a new argument against the 21 LDA, but it certainly takes it more than a few steps further. However, the more interesting point of the editorial to me, is the connection to be made with driving and responsibility. This speaks to the original, and agreeable, purpose behind MADD, reducing the deaths from mixing alcohol and cars. Driving and drinking don't mix. I doubt you'll get many arguments there. However, driving and a car full of teens doesn't mix either. Neither does driving and texting, or putting on makeup, or reading a newspaper. Perhaps it's time to put the focus on responsibility when driving. Says Wilkinson:

Drinking by itself just isn't very dangerous. But driving is. Despite more relaxed drinking-age laws, the EU, according to Miron and Tetelbaum, averaged 95 fatalities per million inhabitants in the past decade while the U.S. experienced 150 fatalities per million. The big difference is that in many EU countries you have to wait until 18 to get behind the wheel. If you're worried about car wrecks, regulate drivers.

The consumption of alcohol isn't bad in and of itself. It's what you do in conjunction. So much effort from MADD and others is focused on telling us that young people aren't responsible enough to consume alcohol. The problem is that they aren't taught to be responsible for their actions. It's been my observation that most drunk driving arrests aren't of teens, but supposed adults. Teen deaths from car accidents have more to do with speed than alcohol.

The debate over the LDA in this country is heating up, thanks in no small part to the Amethyst Initiative. I am happy to see it brought to the forefront and editorials like this one will only serve to keep the conversation going. It doesn't matter if you agree with the premise or not. The first step in solving a problem is understanding it.

The complete Forbes article is here.

The Prohibition Movement is Still Very Much Alive

Craft beer drinkers, in fact those who partake in any alcoholic beverages, should never be complacent regarding legal alcohol. The threat to your responsible enjoyment of these beverages remains under attack. There are a number of organizations active today that seek a return to Prohibition. One, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded back in 1874 and is still very much alive today. The group led the movement that gave us the failed social experiment of Prohibition and they have not given up their fight. This group has active chapters throughout the U.S. and in 36 countries around the world.

The WCTU website states, "The members chose total abstinence from all alcohol as their life style and protection of the home as their watchword." In a publication on alcoholic beverage serving size, the WCTU states "No Alcoholic Drink Is Safe!" I find the organization's name to be very ironic. They call themselves the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. However, by their own words it appears they would not even allow Jesus Christ into their homes. It is biblically documented that Jesus Himself drank wine, and even changed plain water in fine wine for party guests.

The WCTU made the news most recently when, at its 135th Annual National Convention in Burlington, Vermont, the organization presented the first annual WCTU Millstone Award to the Amethyst Initiative. According to the WCTU the award "was created to bring public awareness to a person, organization, or governmental body that creates or uses their position of influence to promote unhealthy, illegal, or immoral behavior that we believe places children at risk." Readers are reminded that the Amethyst Initiative was set up "to support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age." The Initiative is a call to study the issue and to develop better ways to protect our youth.

The timing of the "first annual" award leads one to assume it was created especially to honor the Amethyst Initiative. Not only does the WCTU continue to work to ban all alcoholic beverages, they are apparently opposed to even a discussion that may serve to keep our youth safe from alcohol abuse. It's no surprise that the The Partisan Prohibition Historical Society, also known as the Prohibition Party, is listed in the WCTU site under the heading "friends of WCTU".

Readers will recall the recent attempt by a small group in Virginia to warp Christianity to their own private interpretation. Be it local or national, there are numerous forces at work attempting to keep us from the responsible, and legal, enjoyment craft beer and other alcoholic drinks.

More Neo-Prohibitionist FUD

As expected, the neo-prohibitionists have responded to the Amethyst Initiative with their usual FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). In a press release in response to the Initiative, Mother's Against Drug Driving President Laura Dean-Mooney states "Parents should think twice before sending their teens to these colleges or any others that have waved the white flag on underage and binge drinking policies." She goes on to declare "By signing onto this initiative, these presidents have made the 21 law nearly unenforceable on their campuses. In fact, I call into question whether or not these campuses are bothering to enforce the 21 drinking age."

Let's look at the facts. The Amethyst Initiative signed by the college presidents states:

We call upon our elected officials:

To support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age.

To consider whether the 10% highway fund “incentive” encourages or inhibits that debate.

To invite new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.

We pledge ourselves and our institutions to playing a vigorous, constructive role as these critical discussions unfold.

[emphasis added]

Mrs. Dean-Mooney goes into alarmist mode and preys on parent's fears regarding the safety of their children. The college presidents are supporting study to determine if the current LDA is the answer or not. If MADD is so sure of its "facts" why are they so critical of this call for public debate? One would think they would welcome the study, instead of relying on emotional blackmail in an attempt to stop it. If the leaders at these colleges had given up on enforcing the laws, they wouldn't be calling for public scrutiny of the issue.

No one can deny that underage and binge drinking are serious issues, and drinkers of all ages need to be educated on alcohol use vs. abuse. The national minimum drinking age of 21 has been "enforced" by the withholding of highway funds since 1985. Yet, by MADD's own admission, "drinking, binge drinking, drinking and driving and other alcohol-related problems continue to be a major health and safety problem on college campuses." The growing number of signatories on the Amethyst Initiative shows that college presidents are concerned about the problem, concerned enough to stand up and risk being subjected to MADD's vitriol. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, it's time for serious study of the problem, and to come up with real, working solutions. The attitude of MADD can only serve to delay any constructive progress on bettering the situation.

Choose Responsibility's response to MADD's tactics is here.

Choose Responsibility Announces Amethyst Initiative to Encourage Debate on Legal Drinking Age

Choose Responsibility has announced their newest project, the Amethyst Initiative. Working with over a hundred college and university presidents, the goal is to initiate "informed and unimpeded debate" regarding the 21 year old legal drinking age. The Amethyst Initiative declares that the current drinking age statutes, and the 10% highway fund "incentive" that serves to bind states to that age limit, are not working.

I am both disgusted and disheartened by the epidemic binge drinking by America's youth. It's time we educated our youth on how to enjoy alcoholic drinks responsibility. I also believe that the T&A/Frat party image of beer consumption as promulgated by the factory beer producers over the last decade has contributed to the problem. These companies share in the responsibility for the issues we face today. Choose Responsibility proposes viable solutions to the problem of irresponsible alcohol consumption. Part of the solution is education, not simply lowering the LDA. I support the work of Choose Responsibility and encourage my readers to familiarize themselves with the work of the organization.

Five Virginia college presidents have signed the Amethyst Initiative statement: Walter M. Bortz, Hampden-Sydney College; Nancy O. Gray, Hollins University; Robert R. Lindgren, Randolph-Macon College; Elisabeth S. Muhlenfeld, Sweet Briar College; Kenneth P. Ruscio, Washington and Lee University. Check out the ever-growing list and see if your local college or university is represented. Is your son or daughter's school on the list? If not, encourage the school to get involved. The safety of our youth depends on it.

The Project Amethyst Statement
Choose Responsibility Web Site

Related blog post here.